Resume Template: Copy-and-Paste Resume Examples

1. Simple resume template

The template at the top of this page is deliberately plain. A resume is read quickly, often on a screen, frequently alongside dozens of others, and the layouts that survive that are the ones where a reader can find the job titles, the dates and the skills without hunting for them. Columns, sidebars, icons and colour blocks can look impressive and still make the document harder to scan.

What makes the template work is what you put in the brackets. "Responsible for various duties" tells a reader nothing. "Rebuilt the scheduling process so shift rotas were published a week ahead" tells them what you actually did and what changed because of it. The structure is the easy part; the content is where the work is, and the rest of this page is about filling it in honestly and well.

This version suits most straightforward applications: someone with a couple of roles behind them, applying for a job in the same general area. If your situation is different — no professional experience yet, a career change, twenty years of history to condense — use one of the dedicated templates further down instead of forcing this one to fit.

[YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone Number] | [Email Address] | [LinkedIn URL]

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

[2-3 sentences summarizing your experience, strongest skills and the value you can bring to the target role.]

WORK EXPERIENCE

[Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Action verb] [what you did], resulting in [specific result].
- [Describe a relevant accomplishment, responsibility or improvement].
- [Show another accomplishment using numbers where genuinely available].

[Previous Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Relevant achievement or responsibility].
- [Relevant achievement or measurable result].
- [Relevant skill demonstrated through your work].

EDUCATION

[Degree, Diploma or Credential]
[School Name] - [City, State]
[Graduation Year]

SKILLS

[Skill] | [Skill] | [Skill] | [Skill] | [Skill]

OPTIONAL SECTIONS

[Certifications]
[Projects]
[Volunteer Experience]
[Languages]
[Portfolio]

2. How to use this resume template

The template is plain text, so it pastes cleanly into any editor and you can format it however you like once it's there.

1. 1. Click Copy Resume Template. The whole template is copied to your clipboard as plain text.
2. 2. Paste it into a document. Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Pages or any other editor you already use works fine.
3. 3. Replace every placeholder. Anything in square brackets is meant to be overwritten. Nothing in brackets should survive into the version you send.
4. 4. Remove what doesn't apply. An empty heading is worse than no heading. Delete sections you can't fill properly.
5. 5. Add your experience, skills and accomplishments. Use as many bullets as a role genuinely needs — usually three to five for recent work, fewer for older jobs.
6. 6. Customize the strongest content for the job description. Put the experience the posting actually asks about near the top of each section.
7. 7. Proofread. Names, dates, phone number, email address. Read it once out loud; typos hide well on screen.
8. 8. Save in the requested format. If the employer asks for a specific file type, follow that instruction rather than any general advice.

There's no file to download here and no builder to sign up for. The template is text on the page: copy it, own it, edit it as often as you like.

3. Resume format

Most resumes use a reverse-chronological format: your most recent role first, then backwards through your history. It's the structure readers expect, which is most of its value — a hiring manager can tell what you're doing now and how you got there in a few seconds.

1. 1. Name and contact information
2. 2. Professional summary — when it's genuinely useful
3. 3. Work experience
4. 4. Education
5. 5. Skills
6. 6. Optional relevant sections — certifications, projects, volunteering, languages

[NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone] | [Email] | [LinkedIn or Portfolio]

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY   <- optional; useful when your target role needs framing

WORK EXPERIENCE        <- most recent role first, then backwards
  Job title / employer / location / dates
  3-5 bullets per recent role, fewer for older roles

EDUCATION              <- move above experience if you have little work history

SKILLS                 <- job-specific skills, tools and software

OPTIONAL SECTIONS      <- certifications, projects, volunteering, languages

That order isn't a rule so much as a default. The right structure varies with how much experience you have, the industry you're in, your career stage and what the job actually asks for. A student usually puts education above work experience because it's the stronger evidence. A designer or developer may put a portfolio or projects section high up because that's what gets looked at. Someone with twenty years of history condenses the early roles into a line each rather than giving them equal space.

Formatting principles worth following

• • Use the same heading style for every section, so the hierarchy is obvious.
• • Pick a readable typeface at a readable size and leave it alone.
• • Write dates the same way everywhere — "Mar 2022 – Jun 2024" throughout, not a different style in each role.
• • Leave enough white space that sections read as separate blocks.
• • Keep bullets to one or two lines; long bullets stop being scanned.
• • Make job title, employer and dates easy to find in each entry.

You'll see confident claims online that a particular layout is guaranteed to get through applicant tracking software. Treat those carefully. Systems differ, employers configure them differently, and no template can promise a result. What's reasonable to say is that a clean, conventional structure with real section headings and standard text is easier for both software and people to read than a heavily designed one — and that's the reason to prefer it.

Not sure whether your resume should fit on one page? See our guide to how long a resume should be for one-page vs. two-page guidance by experience level.

Want to see what a completed version can look like? Browse our resume examples for different jobs and experience levels.

4. Professional resume template

This version is for someone with an established work history applying for a role in the same field. It gives more room to the current job, keeps older roles short, and adds an optional certifications section. The summary does real work here: it tells the reader in two lines what kind of professional they're looking at before they reach the first date.

[YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone Number] | [Email Address] | [LinkedIn URL]

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

[Job title] with [number] years of experience in [industry or function]. Experienced in [core responsibility], [core responsibility] and [core responsibility]. Looking to apply [strength] in a [target role] role focused on [employer's stated priority].

WORK EXPERIENCE

[Current Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - Present

- [Led / managed / built] [scope: team size, budget, caseload, territory, systems], [result you can support].
- [Improved or changed a process], [what it produced: faster turnaround, fewer errors, higher retention].
- [Owned a recurring responsibility] across [volume or frequency], maintaining [standard you actually met].
- [Worked with another team or function] to [outcome relevant to the target role].

[Previous Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Accomplishment most relevant to the job you're applying for].
- [Responsibility that shows scope or complexity].
- [Contribution to a project, launch, audit, migration or rollout].

[Earlier Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [One or two lines only - keep older roles short].
- [Relevant skill or accomplishment that still matters].

EDUCATION

[Degree]
[School Name] - [City, State]
[Graduation Year]

SKILLS

[Job-specific skill] | [Job-specific skill] | [Tool or software] | [Tool or software] | [Method or standard]

CERTIFICATIONS (optional)

[Certification Name], [Issuing Body], [Year]
[Certification Name], [Issuing Body], [Year]

A practical note on the bullets. The first bullet under your current role should be the one most relevant to the job you're applying for, not the one you're proudest of in general. Readers rarely finish every bullet in every entry, so the top of each list is the space worth fighting over. If you're applying for two quite different jobs, it's usually the order and emphasis that change rather than the facts.

Pair this with a tailored cover letter when the employer asks for one — the resume carries the record, the letter carries the argument.

5. Resume template with no experience

Writing a first resume feels like being asked to prove something you haven't done yet. The way through it is to change what counts as evidence. Coursework, projects, volunteering, part-time and seasonal work, clubs and self-taught skills all demonstrate the same underlying things an employer is looking for: that you can be relied on, that you finish work, that you can learn a process and follow it.

This template puts education and projects above everything else and treats them the way a professional resume treats jobs — with real bullets describing what you did and what came of it. Don't invent employment you haven't had. A truthful resume built from projects and volunteering is stronger than a padded one, and far easier to talk about in an interview.

[YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone Number] | [Email Address] | [LinkedIn or Portfolio URL]

SUMMARY

[Recent graduate / career starter] in [field or subject] seeking a [target role]. Experience through [coursework, projects, volunteering or part-time work] in [relevant skill] and [relevant skill]. Comfortable with [tool, method or environment relevant to the posting].

EDUCATION

[Degree, Diploma or Credential]
[School Name] - [City, State]
[Graduation Year or Expected Graduation]
Relevant coursework: [Course], [Course], [Course]

PROJECTS

[Project Name] - [Course, personal or group project]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [What you built, researched or organized] using [tool or method].
- [A concrete detail: size of dataset, number of users, pages, participants, hours].
- [What the finished result was, and what you learned that applies to this role].

[Second Project Name]
[Month Year]

- [What the task was and what you produced].
- [Skill from the job posting that the project required].

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE / INTERNSHIPS

[Role or Title]
[Organization Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Responsibility you actually held, with frequency or volume].
- [Something you improved, organized or maintained].
- [Skill demonstrated: scheduling, record keeping, customer contact, teamwork].

SKILLS

[Job-specific skill] | [Tool or software] | [Language, if relevant] | [Transferable skill]

CERTIFICATIONS (optional)

[Certification or Training], [Issuing Body], [Year]

Describe projects concretely. "Built a small inventory tracker for a class assignment that handled 200 items and flagged low stock" is a sentence a reader can picture. "Completed various coursework projects" is not. The detail doesn't have to be impressive to be useful — it has to be specific.

6. Student and recent graduate resume template

A student resume has a slightly different job from a first-resume-with-no-experience. You usually have a course in progress, possibly an internship, probably some activities or part-time work, and a clear near-term goal. This version leads with an objective line and education, then gives internships, projects and leadership their own space.

GPA is optional. Include it if it's strong and your field or employer expects it; leave it off otherwise and use the space for something more interesting. There's no obligation either way, and no reader will hold its absence against you by default.

[YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone Number] | [Email Address] | [LinkedIn or Portfolio URL]

OBJECTIVE

[Degree subject] student at [School] graduating in [Month Year], seeking a [internship or entry-level role] in [field]. Interested in [specific area named in the posting].

EDUCATION

[Degree]
[School Name] - [City, State]
[Expected Graduation: Month Year]
[GPA - include only if you want to and it helps your application]
Relevant coursework: [Course], [Course], [Course]

INTERNSHIPS

[Internship Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Task you owned and how often you did it].
- [Something you produced, analyzed, tested or supported].
- [Tool or process you used that the posting mentions].

PROJECTS

[Project Name] - [Course or independent]
- [What the project was and your specific part in it].
- [Result, finding or finished deliverable].

LEADERSHIP AND ACTIVITIES

[Role] - [Club, Team, Society or Organization]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [What you were responsible for: members, events, budget, communications].
- [One concrete outcome].

SKILLS

[Technical skill] | [Tool or software] | [Language, if relevant] | [Transferable skill]

Activities count more than students usually expect. Running a society's schedule, managing a team's kit budget or organizing an event involves coordination, deadlines and other people — which is a fair description of most entry-level work. Describe it the way you'd describe a job.

7. Experienced professional resume template

With a long career the problem reverses: not what to include but what to leave out. You don't need every job you've ever held. Recent and relevant roles get full treatment, older roles get a line, and anything from early in a career that no longer says anything useful can be condensed into a short "earlier career" list or dropped entirely.

This template adds a selected accomplishments block near the top, which is useful when the strongest things you've done are spread across several roles and would otherwise be buried three entries down.

[YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone Number] | [Email Address] | [LinkedIn URL]

SUMMARY

[Senior job title] with [number]+ years in [industry or function], including [number] years leading [teams, programs, sites or accounts]. Track record in [area of impact] and [area of impact]. Focused on [what the target role is actually for].

SELECTED ACCOMPLISHMENTS

- [Most significant, verifiable accomplishment relevant to this role].
- [Second accomplishment showing scope: budget, headcount, volume, geography].
- [Third accomplishment showing a change you led and what came of it].

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

[Current Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - Present

- [Scope line: what you own - team size, budget, portfolio, region].
- [Accomplishment with a result you can support in an interview].
- [Cross-functional or stakeholder work and what it delivered].
- [Improvement to a process, system, cost or quality measure].

[Previous Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Accomplishment relevant to the target role].
- [Leadership, hiring, training or mentoring contribution].
- [Delivery under a constraint: deadline, audit, migration, reorganization].

[Earlier Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [One line covering the role and its most relevant accomplishment].

EARLIER CAREER

[Job Title], [Company Name], [Years]
[Job Title], [Company Name], [Years]

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS

[Degree], [School Name], [Year]
[Certification Name], [Issuing Body], [Year]

SKILLS

[Leadership or domain skill] | [Domain skill] | [Tool or platform] | [Method or standard]

Scope lines matter at this level. "Managed the regional team" leaves the reader guessing; "Managed a team of nine across three sites" doesn't. Give the size of what you were responsible for — headcount, budget, portfolio, territory, volume — wherever you can do it accurately.

8. Career change resume template

A career change resume has one task: making it easy for someone in the new field to see why your existing experience is relevant. Left to itself, a reverse-chronological list of jobs in another industry invites the reader to conclude you're not a fit. Putting a relevant-skills block above the experience section changes what they read first.

Reframe honestly. You can describe the same work in language the new field recognizes — a teacher who ran parent communications was managing stakeholders; a nurse who covered triage was making prioritization decisions under pressure. What you shouldn't do is hide or rewrite your history. Dates, titles and employers stay accurate; the framing is what changes.

[YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone Number] | [Email Address] | [LinkedIn or Portfolio URL]

SUMMARY

[Current or former job title] moving into [target field], with [number] years of experience in [transferable area: coordination, client contact, analysis, operations, care, training]. Recently completed [course, certification or project] in [target field]. Seeking a [target role] where [named transferable strength] is useful from day one.

RELEVANT SKILLS

[Skill from the target job posting] - [where you have used it, in one clause]
[Skill from the target job posting] - [where you have used it, in one clause]
[Tool or software named in the posting] - [how you learned or used it]
[Transferable strength] - [evidence in one clause]

RELEVANT PROJECTS AND TRAINING

[Course, Certification or Project Name]
[Provider or context] - [Year]

- [What you built, analyzed or completed].
- [Skill it demonstrates that the target role requires].

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

[Current or Most Recent Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Accomplishment described in terms the target field recognizes].
- [Responsibility that maps to a requirement in the posting].
- [Result you can support, framed around the transferable skill].

[Previous Job Title]
[Company Name] - [City, State]
[Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [Accomplishment relevant to the new field].
- [Scope or responsibility worth keeping].

EDUCATION

[Degree, Diploma or Credential]
[School Name] - [Graduation Year]

If you've completed a course, certification or serious personal project in the new field, give it a section of its own rather than a mention in the skills list. It's often the single piece of evidence that makes the transition look deliberate rather than speculative.

9. Internal promotion resume template

Applying internally, the reader may already know you — which is an advantage and a trap. The advantage is that you don't have to establish credibility from scratch. The trap is assuming your accomplishments are known. A hiring manager in another department usually has no idea what you've actually delivered, and the person who does know may not be in the room.

This version leads with impact in your current role, shows how your responsibility has grown, and adds a readiness section that answers the internal posting's requirements one by one. Internal knowledge is a genuine selling point: the systems, customers and history you already understand are ramp-up time the company doesn't have to spend.

[YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME]
[City, State] | [Phone Number] | [Work or Personal Email] | [Internal Extension, if used]

SUMMARY

[Current job title] at [Company Name] since [Month Year], applying for [Internal Role Title]. Responsible for [current scope]. Contributed to [initiative, team or system relevant to the new role] and ready to take on [specific responsibility the new role requires].

CURRENT ROLE AND IMPACT

[Current Job Title]
[Company Name] - [Department or Team]
[Month Year] - Present

- [Accomplishment in the current role, with the result it produced].
- [Responsibility you took on beyond the original job description].
- [Cross-functional contribution: which teams, what it delivered].
- [Improvement to a process, tool or standard the company still uses].
- [Mentoring, onboarding or training you provided].

GROWTH WITHIN [COMPANY NAME]

[Earlier Job Title], [Department], [Month Year] - [Month Year]

- [What the role covered and what you changed or improved].
- [How your responsibility increased from there].

READINESS FOR [INTERNAL ROLE TITLE]

- [Requirement from the internal posting] - [where you have already done this].
- [Requirement from the internal posting] - [evidence from your current work].
- [Internal knowledge: systems, customers, compliance, history] - [why it shortens ramp-up].

EARLIER EXPERIENCE

[Job Title], [Company Name], [Years] - [one line, only if relevant]

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS

[Degree or Credential], [School Name], [Year]
[Internal or external certification], [Year]

The resume is only half of an internal move. The conversation with your manager matters at least as much — see how to ask for a promotion for what to say and when to say it.

10. How to write a resume

With a template in front of you, writing a resume is mostly a sequence of decisions about relevance.

1. 1. Read the job description properly. Note the requirements that are repeated or listed first — those are the ones the employer cares about.
2. 2. Choose the most relevant experience. Decide which roles, projects and skills speak to those requirements before you write anything.
3. 3. Write a concise summary if it helps. Two or three sentences, no more. Skip it if it would only repeat your job titles.
4. 4. Build experience around accomplishments. For each role, lead with what you achieved or owned rather than a duty list.
5. 5. Add education and skills. Keep skills relevant to the target role rather than exhaustive.
6. 6. Use the employer's terminology naturally. If they say "client onboarding" and you've been calling it "account setup", use their phrase where it's accurate.
7. 7. Check the formatting. Consistent headings, consistent dates, no stray brackets, sensible spacing.
8. 8. Proofread. Then check the contact details one more time.

Relevance beats coverage

It's tempting to include everything in case something lands. In practice a resume gets read quickly, and every irrelevant line competes with a relevant one for attention. It's also worth resisting the urge to stuff every phrase from the posting into the document. Using the employer's vocabulary where it honestly describes your work is sensible; a skills section listing forty terms you can't discuss is not.

Writing the professional summary

A summary is useful when your job titles don't make your value obvious, when you're changing direction, or when you want to frame a long career. A workable formula is [role and experience] + [key strengths] + [relevant value]. For example: "Operations coordinator with five years of experience supporting logistics, vendor communication and process improvement. Skilled in coordinating cross-functional workflows and maintaining accurate operational records."

What a summary shouldn't be is a paragraph of adjectives. "Hard-working team player with excellent communication skills" describes nobody in particular. If you can't write something specific, leave the section out and let the experience speak. For more inspiration, see our resume summary examples for different jobs and experience levels.

Choosing skills

Skills should be relevant to the role in front of you, and it helps to think in categories: the technical or job-specific skills the work requires; the tools and software you actually use; languages, where they matter for the job; and transferable skills like scheduling, training or client contact that carry between roles. List things you could be asked about without flinching. A short, credible list is worth more than a long one padded with buzzwords. For more ideas, see our list of skills for a resume, including hard, soft, technical and job-specific examples.

11. How to write strong resume bullet points

Most of the difference between a weak resume and a strong one lives in the bullets. A reliable pattern is action → work → result: start with a verb, say what the work actually involved, and finish with what came of it where you can.

The result doesn't have to be a number. Plenty of good work doesn't produce a metric, and an honest description of scope or outcome is better than a fabricated percentage. Use numbers only when they are accurate and you could support them if asked — never invent a figure to make a bullet look stronger. An interviewer who follows up on an invented metric is a bad situation with no good exit.

When a genuine metric does exist, use it plainly: "Reduced average response time by 18% by reorganizing the team's support queue." That works because the number is attached to a specific change you made. If you don't know the figure, describe the change instead — "Reorganized the support queue so urgent tickets were routed first" is still a good bullet.

A few habits help. Vary the opening verbs so every line doesn't begin with "Managed". Keep each bullet to one or two lines. Put the strongest bullet first in each role. And avoid "responsible for" as an opener — it describes the job description rather than what you did with it.

12. Resume mistakes to avoid

Weak resumes tend to fail in a small number of predictable ways, and each has a straightforward fix.

The most expensive mistake is a wrong contact detail — an email with a typo or an old phone number means a reader who wants to speak to you can't. Check those before anything else, and check that no bracketed placeholder from the template survived into the final document.

13. Frequently asked questions