What Does a Good Resume Look Like? 6 Full Examples
By CVBooster Team · Published · Updated
7 min read
A good resume looks boring on purpose: one column, one plain font, clear headings, short bullets and your most recent job first. The reader should find your name, your last job title and a result within a few lines. Below are six complete resumes, from first job to senior manager, and then the rules they all follow.
Nobody has ever been hired because their resume had a sidebar with five skill bars. The skill bars are not the problem. The problem is that no one can say what "80 percent Excel" means, least of all the person who drew it.
Six resumes that look right
Each resume below is complete and plain on purpose. The levels differ, the shape does not: contact line, summary, experience, skills, education.
Entry level: Retail sales associate (130 words)
Maya Torres Columbus, OH | 614-555-0142 | maya.torres@example.com
Summary Customer-focused sales associate with two years of part-time retail experience and a record of fast, accurate checkout. Looking for a full-time role at a busy store.
Experience Sales Associate, Greenfield Home Store, Columbus, OH June 2023 to present - Served about 60 customers per shift at the register and on the floor - Counted the till at close with no discrepancies over two seasons - Trained three new hires on the return policy and the stock system
Cashier, Corner Market, Columbus, OH May 2022 to May 2023 - Handled cash, card and gift card payments - Restocked shelves and kept the front aisle clean
Skills Point-of-sale systems, cash handling, inventory counts, Spanish (conversational)
Education High School Diploma, North High School, 2022
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What the career offices say
The University of St. Thomas career office keeps the brief short: "Your resume should have relevant information in a readable format." Everything else on this page follows from that sentence.
The Berkeley School of Information adds the part most people skip: "Your spacing should be consistent throughout the resume." If one section heading has a gap above it and the next does not, the page looks careless before anyone reads a word.
Harvard's career services, in its guide to a strong resume, says "Tailor your resume to the type of position you’re seeking." That means the order of your bullets and the words in your summary change with the job, and the layout does not.
See also the University of St. Thomas guide to resume layout and the Berkeley School of Information resume guide for margins, file type and font sizes.
More resumes at three levels
Entry level: Recent graduate, marketing (121 words)
Daniel Kim Austin, TX | 512-555-0199 | daniel.kim@example.com | linkedin.com/in/danielkim-example
Summary Marketing graduate with an internship in social media and email. Wrote and scheduled 40 posts a month and grew a newsletter list by 18 percent over a semester.
Experience Marketing Intern, Lone Star Outfitters, Austin, TX January 2025 to May 2025 - Wrote and scheduled about 40 social posts a month - Grew the newsletter list by 18 percent with two sign-up campaigns - Built a weekly report in Google Sheets for the store manager
Projects Capstone campaign for a local food bank: planned a four-week social calendar and measured reach each week
Skills Canva, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, Google Sheets, copywriting
Education B.A. Marketing, University of Texas at Austin, 2025
Mid level: Administrative coordinator (144 words)
Rachel Adams Denver, CO | 303-555-0176 | rachel.adams@example.com
Summary Administrative coordinator with six years of experience supporting a team of 25. Keeps calendars, travel and vendor invoices on time and has cut the monthly invoice backlog to zero.
Experience Administrative Coordinator, Summit Engineering Group, Denver, CO March 2021 to present - Manage calendars and travel for four directors - Process about 120 vendor invoices a month and reconcile them with purchase orders - Moved the filing system online, which removed 14 filing cabinets from the office - Organize two company events a year for 80 guests
Administrative Assistant, Rocky Mountain Dental, Denver, CO August 2018 to February 2021 - Scheduled patients and confirmed appointments by phone and email - Handled insurance paperwork
Skills Microsoft 365, Excel (pivot tables, lookups), QuickBooks, scheduling, vendor management
Education Associate Degree, Business Administration, Community College of Denver, 2018
Mid level: Registered nurse (119 words)
Priya Nair, RN, BSN Houston, TX | 713-555-0123 | priya.nair@example.com
Summary Registered nurse with five years on a 30-bed medical-surgical unit. Strong in patient education, medication safety and handoff reports.
Licenses RN, Texas Board of Nursing, active | BLS and ACLS, current
Experience Staff Nurse, Medical-Surgical Unit, Gulf Coast Medical Center, Houston, TX July 2020 to present - Care for five to six patients per shift with a mix of post-surgical and medical needs - Serve as charge nurse on weekend shifts - Teach discharge plans to patients and families, with teach-back to confirm they understand - Precept new graduate nurses for 12 weeks
Skills Epic, IV therapy, wound care, telemetry, patient education
Education B.S.N., University of Houston, 2020
Senior: Operations manager (157 words)
Thomas Reed Atlanta, GA | 404-555-0188 | thomas.reed@example.com | linkedin.com/in/thomasreed-example
Summary Operations manager with 12 years in logistics, the last six leading a team of 40 across two distribution centers. Cut late shipments from 9 percent to 3 percent and brought overtime spend down by a fifth.
Experience Operations Manager, Peachtree Distribution, Atlanta, GA April 2019 to present - Lead 40 staff and four shift supervisors across two sites - Rebuilt the pick schedule so that late shipments fell from 9 percent to 3 percent in a year - Cut overtime spend by 20 percent with a new shift rota - Own a budget of $4.2 million and report to the VP of Operations
Shift Supervisor, Peachtree Distribution, Atlanta, GA June 2014 to March 2019 - Supervised a team of 15 and covered safety briefings each morning
Skills Warehouse management systems, budgeting, workforce planning, Lean basics, safety compliance
Education B.S. Supply Chain Management, Georgia State University, 2013
Senior: Software engineer (143 words)
Elena Petrova Seattle, WA | 206-555-0164 | elena.petrova@example.com | github.com/elenap-example
Summary Software engineer with nine years of experience building payment APIs in Python and Go. Led a team of four and cut checkout errors by 35 percent.
Experience Senior Software Engineer, Cascade Payments, Seattle, WA February 2021 to present - Lead four engineers on the checkout API used by 300 merchants - Reduced failed checkouts by 35 percent by adding retries and clearer error codes - Wrote the on-call guide and cut the average time to resolve incidents from 90 to 40 minutes
Software Engineer, Harbor Retail Systems, Seattle, WA July 2016 to January 2021 - Built inventory and order services in Python - Added automated tests that raised coverage from 40 to 80 percent
Skills Python, Go, PostgreSQL, AWS, REST APIs, code review, mentoring
Education B.S. Computer Science, University of Washington, 2016
The rules every resume above follows
- One column. Contact details, summary, experience, skills, education, top to bottom. No sidebars, no text boxes.
- One plain font. Use one readable typeface, with headings a little larger than the body text.
- Reverse chronological order. Your latest job comes first, and the dates sit on the same line every time.
- Short bullets. Each starts with a verb and, where you have one, ends with a number or a result.
- Even spacing. The same gap above every heading, the same bullet style in every section.
- Your own wording first. Copy the keywords of the job post only where they are true for you.
For the three layouts and when to use each, see our resume format guide. If you write the summary last, the resume summary examples show how to keep it to three lines. Applying in the UK or Ireland? The layout is close but the vocabulary differs, so use what a CV looks like instead.
What to leave out
- Photos, icons and skill bars. They add nothing a recruiter can use, and they can scramble the text for software that reads your file.
- Tables and columns for the experience section. Plain lines read cleanly in every system.
- Objective statements about what you want. Say what you offer, in the summary.
- Every job you ever had. Keep the last ten to fifteen years unless an older job fits the posting.
Frequently asked questions
What does a good resume look like?
It is a one-column document with your contact line, a short summary, experience in reverse chronological order, skills and education. It uses one plain font and short bullets with results.
How should a resume look visually?
Plain and even: the same spacing between sections, bold only for headings and job titles, and enough white space that no section feels crowded.
How long should a resume be?
One page fits most people with under ten years of work. A second page is fine when the content is strong and relevant, as with the senior examples above.
Should I use a template with colors?
A touch of one color in the headings is fine. Keep the body text black on white and avoid graphics, so the file stays easy to read on screen and in print.
Can I fill in a template for free?
Yes. Sign in to CVBooster and fill in any of the 99 templates for free. The ATS score is free too. Downloading as PDF or Word and the AI tools are part of Pro.
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