On any given day, millions of Americans are honing their resumes in preparation for the always-frightening job market. However, with every resume update comes a slew of questions, such as: What are the latest and greatest resume formatting standards? Which buzzwords should I avoid, and which, if any, should I use? How much detail is too much detail when describing prior job experience?
With all of these questions swirling around, you may be unsure of what constitutes an ideal resume. Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of the best resume examples for 2022 to assist you. Use these examples and suggestions to freshen up your resume and keep it in fighting shape.
Best resume examples for the years 2022-2023
Leet is back.
Leet Resumes offers free resume rewrites in exchange for tips. What distinguishes them is the emphasis they place on creating resumes that appeal to recruiters and hiring teams rather than the person doing the writing.
Here’s the deal. People work hard on their resumes and tend to love long descriptions and explanations of accomplishments; or they write long descriptions of duties performed, many of which are not directly related to actual achievements that might impress a hiring manager.
Leet also keeps a close eye on applicant tracking systems (ATS) and their practice of ripping up resumes (literally) or rejecting them from the process before human eyes ever fall on them.
The format of Leet Resumes is deceptively simple. Each achievement has a success verb (Achieved, Grew, Reduced, Increased) at the beginning of a one to two line description that gets right to the point. The key point is that it insists on including as many numbers, percentages, and dollar amounts as possible in each of these lines.
The end result is a marketer’s fantasy.
Resumes can be skimmed through in seconds by anyone in the hiring process – people who are frequently at the bottom of the decision-making chain – and continue to catch the eye. As a result, your resume will be read. Even a novice resume reader recognizes that it is impressive and that their boss will not question their decision to advance it to the next stage.
When those higher up in the process read it, they see real results that show what the applicant is capable of bringing to the table.
That is important.
It’s no surprise, then, that Leet Resumes refers to your resume as “a career advertisement.”
The formatting is all about keeping things simple. There are no fancy fonts, images, or perplexing multi-column layouts. They are intended to bypass ATS systems and make life easier for those who read dozens of resumes each day.
Perhaps the best part is that their resume experts will rewrite your resume to highlight your own expertise. Your role is to add as many numbers, percentages, and dollar amounts as you can to your current resume and let them work their “free” magic.
Indeed
Indeed has an insanely large collection of great resume examples for every industry imaginable, from food services to technical writing and engineering. Whatever your field, the countless examples in that collection of resume templates will most likely serve as excellent reference material.
Though many of Indeed’s resumes have a similar structure and layout, the repetitive formatting is understandable given the breadth of what’s available. Furthermore, the formatting chosen by Indeed is perfectly acceptable for most resume purposes. It contains all of the most important information in a logical order. When creating your resume, make sure to include the following topics that Indeed’s samples have covered:
- Name and contact details
- Education
- Work experience that is relevant
- Skills
In general, the summary included in Indeed’s template is a skippable part of a resume, especially if you need more room to discuss other topics, such as your skills and abilities. However, always include the four bulleted categories listed above. You may be able to skip the education section in very rare cases, but never go into a job application expecting to.
In terms of section order, you shouldn’t use a fixed structure—depending on the job, you’ll want to change what’s on top.
For example, if you’re applying to a job for which you have the ideal skill set but lack relevant work experience to supplement your resume, you might consider emphasizing your abilities by placing them near the top of your resume rather than your employment history. This shifts your resume toward what is known as a “functional” resume, as opposed to a chronological resume, which emphasizes the chronological order of your work history.
Glassdoor
Check out this resume example posted by Glassdoor for an example of a resume that emphasizes skills at the very top. This resume is a nice alternative to the examples provided by Indeed because it displays key items in a different order and changes up the formatting a little.
Never get too fancy with formatting. Visually distracting borders, rainbow colors, or other such frills will not help you much in most fields and may actually irritate the hiring manager or recruiter who is tasked with reading your resume.
Glassdoor’s resume example has just enough personality to stand out from the crowd without being obnoxious. It has a splash of color at the top to catch the eye (if you do this, don’t go with a neon color or something too loud), but then settles into a standard black and white palette for easy reading. This is a good way to include some color if you’re determined to do so.
Genius Resume
Resume Genius also has a good example of a stylized resume. The overall page layout, formatting, and color scheme differ from the typical monochrome, linear resume. Despite the fact that it is not the tried and true resume format, this example excels at drawing positive attention to itself and presenting information in an engaging manner.
Here’s what you should take away from the two most recent samples:
When it comes to color, less is more.
Layout should be creative but not completely original.
Put the most important information at the top.
My Ideal Resume
My Perfect Resume contains numerous examples of densely packed linear resumes. MPR’s examples, like two of the three cited above, have a splash of color and, like all of the resumes referenced in this guide, a focus on content. However, what distinguishes MPR’s resumes is their emphasis on objective measurements and statistics.
Take note of how MPR’s first resume example (the “Mary Rowan” resume) contains numerous instances of the resume writer stating numerical values and percentages to demonstrate how valuable they were to their company. Because most employers like to quantify things, quantifying your worth as an employee ahead of time will demonstrate that you’re on the same page as them.
The same thing can be seen in our first Leet Resumes entry.
Another thing that all of the resumes mentioned above have in common is that they use safe buzzwords like “collaborated” and “increased,” while avoiding ridiculous buzzwords like “synergized.” The rule with buzzwords is that if you think a recruiter will have heard it too many times, or you cringe while typing it, it has no place on a resume.
These resume examples all excel at knowing when to stop, in addition to smart wording and layouts. They all have job, education, and skill descriptions, but keep any bullet points to one or two lines and only include eight to three descriptions or bullet points, depending on the importance of the information.
That is the ideal level of detail to include on a resume when discussing your work experience, history, or skills. You may not be able to demonstrate your worth if you are any shorter. Any longer and you’ll violate the one-page rule and end up with the beginnings of a curriculum vitae.
When creating your resume, don’t forget to include:
Include statistics and hard numbers that objectively communicate your abilities.
Instead of using silly buzzwords, use tasteful ones.
Keep your descriptions and details brief and to the point. Now that you’ve seen the best resume examples for 2022 and read a plethora of tips on how to tailor your own resume, you’re ready to start refining and applying. If you want to work in academic or scientific fields, check out our curriculum vitae guide for tips on how to write a strong CV.