Résumé

A résumé or resume (or alternatively resumé), is a document created and used by a person to present their background, skills, and accomplishments. Résumés can be used for a variety of reasons, but most often are used to secure new jobs, whether in the same organization or another.
A typical résumé contains a summary of relevant job experience and education. The résumé is usually one of the first items, along with a cover letter and sometimes an application for employment, a potential employer sees regarding the job seeker and is used to screen applicants before offering an interview.
In the UK, EMEA, and Asian countries, a curriculum vitae (CV) is used for similar purposes. This international CV is more akin to the résumé—a summary of one's education and experience—than to the longer and more detailed CV expected in U.S. academic circles. However, international CVs vary by country. For example, many Middle East and African countries and some parts of Asia require personal data (e.g., photograph, gender, marital status, children) while this is not accepted in the UK, U.S., and some European countries.
In South Asian countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, biodata is often used in place of a résumé.
The word "résumé" comes from the French word résumer meaning 'to summarize'. Leonardo da Vinci is sometimes credited with the first résumé, though his "résumé" takes the form of a letter written about 1481–1482 to a potential employer, Ludovico Sforza. For the next 450 years, the résumé continued to be simply a description of a person, including abilities and past employment. In the early 1900s, résumés included information like weight, height, marital status, and religion. By 1950, résumés were considered mandatory and started to include information like personal interests and hobbies. It was not until the 1970s, the beginning of the Digital Age, that résumés took on a more professional look in terms of presentation and content. The start of the 21st century saw a further evolution for résumés on the internet as social media helped people spread résumés faster.
In 2001 LinkedIn was launched, which allowed users to post their résumés and skills online. Since, many SaaS companies began providing job seekers with free online résumé builders; usually templates to insert credentials and experience and create a résumé to download or an online portfolio link to share via social media.
With the launch of YouTube in 2005, video résumés became common, and more and more high school students began to send them to different colleges and universities.
In many contexts, a résumé is typically limited to one or two pages of size A4 or letter-size, highlighting only those experiences and qualifications that the author considers most relevant to the desired position. Many résumés contain keywords or skills that potential employers are looking for via applicant tracking systems (ATS), make heavy use of active verbs, and display content in a flattering manner. Acronyms and credentials after the applicant's name should be spelled out fully in the appropriate section of the résumé to increase the likelihood they are found in a computerized keyword scan.
A résumé is a marketing document in which the content should be adapted to suit each individual job application or applications aimed at a particular industry. In late 2002, job seekers and students started making interactive résumés such as résumés having links, clickable phone numbers and email addresses. With the launch of YouTube in 2006, job seekers and students also started to create multimedia and video résumés. Job seekers were able to circumvent the application for employment process and reach employers through direct email contact and résumé blasting, a term meaning the mass distribution of résumés to increase personal visibility within the job market. However, the mass distribution of résumés to employers can often have a negative effect on the applicant's chances of securing employment as the résumés tend not to be tailored for the specific positions the applicant is applying for. It is usually, therefore, more sensible to optimize the résumé for each position applied for and its keywords In order to keep track of all experiences, keeping a "master résumé" document is recommended, providing job seekers with the ability to customize a tailored résumé while making sure extraneous information is easily accessible for future use if needed.
The complexity or simplicity of various résumé formats tends to produce results varying from person to person, for the occupation, and the industry. Résumés or CVs used by medical professionals, professors, artists, and people in other specialized fields may be comparatively longer. For example, an artist's résumé, typically focused on experience and achievements in the artistic field, may include extensive lists of solo and group exhibitions.
Résumés may be organized in different ways. The following are some of the more common résumé formats:
A reverse chronological résumé, the current preferred standard as of 2024, lists a candidate's job experiences in chronological order (last thing first), generally covering the previous 10 to 15 years. Positions are listed with starting and ending dates. Current positions on a résumé typically list the starting date to the present. The reverse chronological résumé format is optimal for professionals who are making advancements in the same vertical. In this format, the main body is the Experience section, starting from the most recent experience and moving chronologically backward through previous experience. The reverse chronological résumé works to build credibility through experience gained, while illustrating career growth over time and filling all gaps in a career trajectory. In the United Kingdom the chronological résumé tends to extend only as far back as the applicant's GCSE/Standard Grade qualifications.
Largely fallen from favor, the functional résumé listed work experience and skills sorted by skill area or job function and specific to the type of position being sought. This format directly emphasizes specific professional capabilities and utilizes experience summaries as its primary means of communicating professional competency. The functional résumé was used by individuals making a career change, a varied work history, or relevant roles which were held some time ago. Rather than focus on the length of time that has passed, the functional résumé allowed the reader to identify those skills quickly. However, it has largely been replaced by hybrid résumé.
A hybrid or combination résumé combines the best of the reverse chronological and functional resume formats. Opening with a profile or summary to showcase the most relevant information, it often continues with a section of highlights and/or a list of strengths before listing reverse chronological experience and education. This enables the candidate to present the most relevant strengths and impressive accomplishments at the top. This format is particularly helpful for candidates who have employment gaps, may have more than one to two short-term roles, or have relevant experience from early in their careers. It is also excellent for those who are looking to change fields or industries. The strength of this format is it spotlights relevant information up front and deemphasizes less relevant titles and less desirable chronological issues.
A blind résumé is a modern and equitable style used by some employers to focus on an applicant's qualifications and experience by removing any personal identifying information that could potentially result in bias. By excluding or minimizing details such as the candidate's name, age, gender, address, or educational background, blind résumés aim to ensure that recruiters assess candidates based solely on relevant information like their academic qualification, abilities, experience, and skills, rather than on discriminatory factors such as ethnicity, gender, or academic pedigree, which do not provide meaningful insights into the candidate's qualifications. This method is designed to promote fairness, equality, and diversity in recruitment by reducing the impact of biases that often influence hiring decisions, particularly for racialized and diverse job applicants. Studies have shown that candidates with certain demographic characteristics, such as names associated with a particular race or gender, are often unfairly disadvantaged in the hiring process. While the challenge of deeply ingrained systemic bias cannot be fully addressed by blind résumés alone, and not all recruiters may be familiar with this approach, it is considered a best practice among some organizations and applicants. This de-biasing approach is promoted in environments where broader systemic changes to address biases in hiring practices, interviews, and promotions within organizations are still evolving.
As the Internet becomes largely driven by multimedia, job-seekers have sought to take advantage of the trend by moving their résumés away from the traditional to website résumés or e-résumés. Video and infographic résumés have gained popularity in the creative and media industries. This trend has attracted criticism from human resources management professionals, who warn that this may be a passing fad and that multimedia-based résumés may be overlooked by recruiters whose workflow is designed only to accommodate a traditional résumé format.
According to Forbes, almost 85% of employers use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and it is common for employers to only accept résumés digitally. This has changed much about the manner in which résumés are written, read, and processed, as paper-based résumés become an exception rather than the rule.
Many employers and recruitment agencies insist on résumés in a particular file format. Most prefer Microsoft Word documents, while others will only accept résumés formatted in PDF or plain ASCII text.
Since almost all employers now find candidates through search engines and ATS, which use artificial intelligence (AI) to search, filter, and manage high volumes of résumés, it is critical to tailor résumés to ATS standard or risk being eliminated: according to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), 88% of employers believe qualified applicants are filtered out by ATS.
ATS and to some extent other search engines use natural language processors to parse résumés. Résumé parsers often correctly interpret some parts of the résumé while missing or misinterpreting others. The best résumé parsers capture a high percentage of information regarding location, names, and titles, but remain less accurate with skills, industries, and other less structured information, and can fail entirely if faced with formats they are not designed to handle.
According to Indeed, the ideal ATS-friendly résumé uses Arial, Calibri, Cambria, Garamond or Georgia font, does not include graphs, tables, or headers (formatted headers not sections), and uses "keywords" or role-specific words and descriptions in a job description. Shapes, text boxes, other graphic images should be avoided on résumés or they can set off ATS filters (each ATS varies). Résumés written following these rules are more likely to be correctly captured by, and ranked higher by, ATS, thereby making candidates more findable.
AI tools can also be used to test résumés, but AI-generated resume content must be rigorously verified and edited as generative AI produces very consistent sentence structure, and under different jobs with similar responsibilities, often repeats identical phrases. This can catch the attention of algorithms, so résumés must be edited carefully to be make it through ATS to be seen by potential employers.
Having a résumé online was first pioneered by professions that benefit from the multimedia and rich detail of an HTML résumé (such as actors, photographers, graphic designers, developers, dancers, etc.) but all job seekers should now have a digital version of their résumé available to employers and professionals who use Internet recruiting.
The dictionary definition of curriculum vitae at Wiktionary