What Should a Resume Look Like in 2026? (Examples)

Fast Facts

Knowing what a resume should look like can feel surprisingly complicated. Should you add color? Is one page still the rule? Do you need a creative design to stand out, or will that make your resume harder for an ATS to read?

In 2026, a strong resume strikes a balance. It should be polished enough to make a professional first impression, yet simple enough for employers and hiring software to quickly find key information. The goal isn't to make your resume the flashiest document in the stack. It's to make your qualifications easy to find, understand, and remember.

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What Should a Professional Resume Look Like?

A professional resume should look clean, polished, and easy to scan. In 2026, strong resumes use a simple layout that includes all the standard parts of a resume, organized so that both hiring managers and ATS software can quickly understand your qualifications.

When you write your resume, focus on clear structure, concise language, relevant keywords, and enough white space to make important information easy to find.

Make the Top Third Count

Treat the top third of page one as prime resume real estate. A hiring manager should be able to identify who you are, what you do, and why you're qualified without having to hunt for the information.

Start with your:

• Name and contact information: Include your full name, phone number, professional email address, and city and state. Add a LinkedIn profile or portfolio if it strengthens your application.
• Target job title or professional headline: Use a clear title that reflects the type of role you're pursuing.
• Professional summary: Add a concise, two- to three-sentence overview highlighting your experience, strongest qualifications, and relevant accomplishments.

The rest of your resume should follow with clearly labeled sections for work experience, skills, education, and any optional sections that strengthen your candidacy, such as certifications, projects, languages, or awards.

Choose a Simple, ATS-Friendly Layout

A straightforward single-column layout gives your resume a predictable reading order and can reduce parsing problems with some ATS software.

Avoid relying on floating text boxes, complicated tables, or graphics to communicate essential qualifications. Present important information as standard text within clearly labeled sections.

Optimize White Space for Visual Balance

White space helps separate sections and keeps your resume from feeling crowded. Use margins of about 0.5 to 1 inch, keep spacing consistent, and leave enough room between sections so the page feels organized. Use about 1.15 line spacing for body text, with slightly more space between sections.

If you have to shrink the font or squeeze the margins to make everything fit, cut less relevant content or consider using a second page instead.

Create a Clear Typographic Hierarchy

Use formatting to guide the reader naturally through the page. Keep body text around 10–12 points, then use larger or bold type for your name and section headings.

Keep your font choices and formatting consistent. If you bold one job title, bold every job title. If company names are formatted one way in your first entry, follow the same pattern throughout the rest of your work history.

Here's an example of what a resume should look like in 2026:

Use this template

Standard Resume Blueprint: What to Put Where

Most resumes should follow this order: contact information, summary or objective, work experience, skills, education, and relevant optional sections. Adjust the order when your career stage makes another qualification more important.

Header & Contact Information

Put your name and contact details at the top of the first page. Include your name, city and state, phone number, professional email address, and relevant LinkedIn or portfolio URL. You generally don't need your full street address.

For U.S. applications, leave off personal details, such as your photo, age, date of birth, and marital status. These details aren't necessary to demonstrate your qualifications.

Professional Summary or Objective

Next, add a brief resume profile.

Use a professional summary if you have enough experience to highlight your qualifications and accomplishments. In two to three sentences, identify your professional background, relevant skills, and one or two standout achievements.

A resume objective can make more sense when you're applying for your first job or making a major career pivot. Rather than emphasizing a long work history, focus on how your existing strengths connect to where you want to go next.

Work History That Shows Impact

For each position, clearly list your job title, company information, and employment dates, like so:

In practice, that looks like this:

Underneath, use concise bullet points to show what you accomplished. Don't simply copy your old job description.

A useful formula is:

For example:

Compare that with "Responsible for monthly reports." Instead of simply listing responsibilities, the first version shows both action and impact.

Skills & Education

Place relevant hard skills, tools, technologies, and job-specific terminology in a dedicated skills section and reinforce them naturally in your experience bullets.

Where education belongs depends partly on your career stage. Recent graduates may place education near the top, particularly when their degree, coursework, honors, or academic projects are among their strongest qualifications. Experienced professionals can usually place it after work experience and skills.

Optional Sections

Add sections for certifications, projects, languages, awards, publications, or volunteer experience when they strengthen your candidacy.

Space is limited, so ask yourself: "Does this information help show that I'm qualified for this specific job?" If not, it probably doesn't need a dedicated section.

Format Selection: Choose the Right Layout for Your Career Stage

For most job seekers, a chronological resume is the safest format. Use a combination format when transferable skills need more emphasis, and use a functional format cautiously.

Chronological Resume: The Standard Choice

The chronological resume format is the most widely used and recognized format. It lists your work experience in reverse-chronological order, starting with your most recent job and working backward.

This format is best for candidates with a steady work history and clear career progression in the same field. It shows growth, consistency, and increasing responsibility, which employers value.

Its straightforward structure is familiar to recruiters and can make the information easier for some ATS software to parse.

Combination Resume: The Flexible Option

The combination resume format blends elements of both chronological and functional formats. It begins with a strong skills or qualifications section, followed by a traditional work history.

This format works well for mid-level professionals, career changers, and job seekers who want to highlight transferable skills before showing where they gained them.

For example, an operations manager moving into project management could feature project planning, budgeting, stakeholder communication, and risk management near the top, then provide a conventional reverse-chronological work history showing where those skills were developed.

Functional Resume: Use With Care

The functional resume format focuses on skills and abilities rather than specific job titles or dates. Work history is minimized and often listed briefly at the bottom without detailed descriptions.

A functional resume can emphasize skills over chronology and may work well for people with employment gaps, limited experience, or major career pivots who want to emphasize what they can do rather than where they worked.

That said, it's generally a higher-risk choice because recruiters may have difficulty understanding your work history, and ATS software may parse the structure less predictably.

A safer alternative for many career changers is a combination resume. Lead with transferable skills and relevant accomplishments, then keep a clear reverse-chronological work history below.

Common Design Mistakes: What Not to Include in Your Resume

Knowing what a good resume should look like also means knowing which design choices can work against you. Before you format your resume, avoid these common mistakes:

Real-World Examples of What a Resume Should Look Like

Formatting guidelines are easier to apply when you can see them in action. Browse our full collection of resume examples for more inspiration, or use the examples below to see how an effective resume can change based on career stage and industry.

Entry-Level Resume Example: Nursing

For a recent nursing graduate, education and clinical training can carry more weight than a long employment history. This example puts high-value qualifications where an employer can spot them quickly, including nursing education, clinical experience, certifications, and patient-care skills.

A clean, simple resume template is particularly well suited to an entry-level nursing resume because it keeps credentials, clinical experience, and practical skills prominent without unnecessary design elements.

Use this template

Mid-Career Resume Example: Accounting

A mid-career accounting resume should show more than years on the job. This example balances technical accounting expertise with a clear record of career progression and measurable accomplishments.

Notice how the work history remains easy to follow while bullet points emphasize outcomes such as improved processes, reduced costs, audit results, or financial accuracy. A professional resume template helps maintain visual consistency from one section to the next.

Use this template

Senior or Executive Resume Example: Law

At the senior level, every bullet doesn't need to explain a routine task. Employers care more about scope, leadership, decision-making, and organizational impact.

This legal resume uses space strategically to highlight high-level responsibilities and outcomes, such as major matters handled, teams led, risk managed, or organizational initiatives supported.

Use this template

Creative Resume Example: Graphic Design

Creative professionals have more room to show personality, but the resume still needs structure. A creative resume template can incorporate distinctive typography, color, or other visual elements while keeping the candidate's qualifications easy to find.

A prominent portfolio link gives employers a place to evaluate the candidate's creative work, while the resume stays focused on skills, accomplishments, software proficiency, and employment history.

Use this template

Tech Resume Example: Software Development

For software developers, clarity usually beats decoration. A modern resume template can provide a contemporary look while keeping technical skills, programming languages, work experience, and projects easy to find.

Strong tech resumes also provide context for technical skills. Instead of simply listing JavaScript, Python, or AWS, work history and project bullets can show how the candidate used those tools to improve performance, build products, automate processes, or solve problems.

Use this template

Key Takeaways

Before sending your resume, give it one final audit:

Frequently Asked Questions

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Emily March

Career Writer

Emily is a career writer and visual content creator. She is dedicated to helping job seekers navigate complex job markets with practical, research-backed strategies for career advancement and professional growth.

Read more articles by Emily March