How to Write a Resume for 2023 in the High Score Resume Format

It can be challenging to distinguish between excellent and terrible resume advice, especially when it comes to writing a CV that works for you.

I wanted to share what Ladders has discovered from evaluating millions of resumes and observing how those resumes performed in over 1 billion applications over the years.

I’ve produced 73 industry-specific resume templates with sample copy that can be downloaded and changed for free because I recognize how busy professionals are.

each with a different sample cover letter.

So let’s find out why experienced professionals like you benefit from the high score resume format.

The High Score Resume format is the best for your resume.

The High Score Resume focuses your resume on highlighting your “high scores” and achievements throughout your career. It is a format that allows you to present yourself in the most effective way possible without feeling the need to brag. It also gives hiring managers and recruiters concrete proof of your abilities.

The High Score Resume also makes it extremely clear to individuals who are reading your resume what you want to do next, or what level you will be at. It is simple to describe what you are capable of doing next by demonstrating what you have previously accomplished. The High Score Resume concentrates the majority of your time and energy on the two most crucial portions of your resume: your work experience and your professional summary, even though there are other areas of your resume that will merit attention.

Work experience: Highlight your best work.

The best effective resumes, in our experience at Ladders, all share one thing in common: they highlight the professional’s prior achievements. Reliance on listing job descriptions, responsibilities, or staff size is one resume mistake frequently encountered in less successful resumes.

Making each bullet a High Score is a key component of the High Score Resume approach to resume writing. That entails quantifying your performance in that aspect of your career. Additionally, it entails retelling the story with the excitement of a player.

Possibly jokingly, but you wouldn’t say this to your friends or if you were looking to join a team:

It’s simpler for folks to comprehend how skilled you were at Tetris, tennis, or… tax tactics if all high scores have numbers. The same goes for your prior experience; let your new employer know how effective you were in the position by sharing your grade. Each bullet in the High Score Resume for your work experience is built with a success verb and a number, whether it be in units, dollars, or percentages. The best technique to communicate your prior achievements is in this manner.

The most recent jobs are listed first.

The most recent jobs are always displayed first on the High Score Resume. When people inquire about your golf game, vacation travel, or books read, they are not expecting you to go all the way back and tell them about your first one. They are usually interested in the most recent developments.

The same goes for your resume. If your most recent job was as an IT security engineer, don’t put your college position as a sales representative first. Your most recent experience, just like your most recent high score, is the most relevant to the games you play.

This is your opportunity to highlight your accomplishments and successes.

And, similarly, your high score does not say, “Well, first I did level 1, where there were challenges and many obstacles. Then I did level 2… “, your resume should not simply list previous job titles and responsibilities, nor should it include a list of your staff or budget size.

The goal of the High Score Resume is to show your future boss the specific accomplishments that have made you a valuable contributor to previous bosses.

You’ll have an entry for each job you’ve had, with the company name, title, description, and dates.

Name of the company

The name of the company appears simple, and it usually is. There is some leeway in using the company’s formal name — Schwab, Charles Schwab, or Charles Schwab Corporation — as well as the abbreviation. Because there is no hard and fast rule, use the formal company name in formal industries and the more casual version in casual industries.

For example, if applying to a prestigious law firm, I’d be inclined to call it “Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP”, not “Pillsbury”, whereas I’d recommend using “Google” not “Alphabet, Inc.” if you’re a mid-level manager in the internet industry.

In either case, maintain consistency in how you treat company names throughout your resume.

There are no hard and fast rules in the case of mergers, bankruptcies, or name changes that occurred after your departure. From a marketing standpoint, use whatever feels most effective. In my case, I worked at HotJobs.com from 2000 to 2002, when I assisted in the sale of the company to Yahoo! for a half-billion dollars.

It has appeared on my resume in various forms over the last 16 years:

Hotjobs.com, Ltd. (NASD: HOTJ), followed by…

Hotjobs.com, a Yahoo! Company, followed by…

Hotjobs (after it was purchased by Monster), and then back to…

When Monster closed down Hotjobs.com (NASD: HOTJ), I wanted to highlight my role at a public company 18 years ago.

There is no single answer for how to handle company names during these transitions, and there is very little risk. As a result, your choice should be consistent and comfortable for you.

In unfortunate cases where your employer was involved in a well-known scandal — Bernard L. Madoff Securities, Enron, Global Crossing, CountryWide Financial — there’s little you can do but list the company accurately and address the subject head-on in your achievements (“Survived corporate scandal impacting a separate division — no one in our group was accused of or found to have been involved in unethical behavior”), in person or over the phone with the recruiter. Some have reported success in dealing with the issue directly in the company description: “Worked in separate entity from the infamous investment management business” or “Blind-sided professional at disgraced energy trading company.”

It’s important to remember that some employers value the grit and determination that comes with overcoming adversity. If you find yourself in this unfortunate situation, don’t assume that everyone is snickering; some may be more intrigued than put off.

Titles and employment dates

Now is the time to be precise. There will be no tall tales, fibbing, or fish-that-got-away stories allowed. Because you’re dealing with history, you must be meticulous in your presentation of the facts.

List your exact title for each job, as it appeared in your offer letter or subsequent company promotion. It is critical to be precise because you are representing that you held this position at this company at the time. Small inaccuracies can catch up with you, such as promoting yourself to regional sales manager when you were actually an account executive. Titles are one of the few things that companies look at during background checks, so it is both ethical and necessary to ensure that your resume precisely matches the company’s records.

The standard practice is to include both the month and the year in the date. Personally, I’ve long believed that a year is sufficient, and that we should abandon the practice of including the month of your start and end dates on resumes. However, industry practice contradicts my personal feelings on this, so you should continue to write both the month and year for start and end dates. So, for example, January 2018 – December 2021 or February 2018 – October 2022 both work.

Multiple jobs and promotions at the same company necessitate careful presentation, both for the understanding of the people who will read your resume and for the software systems that will translate your resume into a storable version in the company’s database.

In the case of multiple jobs at the same company over the years, the best approach is to put the total years served next to the company name, and then the actual years for each role, as expressed by month-date, month-date, next to each position title. You can get specific advice from our free resume templates and resume examples.

Description of the company or role

The trend in recent years has been to describe the company and/or the responsibilities of the role in a line beneath the company name. This concise summary of key background information is an effective way to convey information about your role or the company. This line can be used to discuss staff size, budget, and hiring circumstances.

As an example, as an employer description, you could write any of the following:

“A multinational water transport company”

“A national fast-food corporation”

“A prestigious professional services firm”

“A Fortune 50 industrial conglomerate”

You could also address your staffing or responsibility:

“I am in charge of Western Region Sales at a regional machine tool manufacturer.”

“Managed a $30 million advertising budget for a national hotel chain”

“Had P&L responsibility for a $310 million engine division.”

Or the circumstances that led to your selection for the position:

“Selected by the CEO to oversee all HR operations in Atlanta.”

“Promoted multiple times at this leading software integration firm over a decade”

“Selected by combined Board to lead post-merger leading CPG firm”

This line can convey the size, shape, or circumstances of your role or employer in a concise and brilliant manner. It’s not required, but it can help you get more information across without taking up more valuable bullet points.

Gaps in handling — sired, fired, retired

Dealing with gaps in employment history is difficult for any professional. I’m being a little too casual in referring to this as sired, fired, or retired, but those are the most common causes – aside from COVID-19 gaps.

Be brief and to-the-point when explaining a COVID-related furlough or layoff. This chasm will not cast doubt on you because we all understand it.

Sired: You or your spouse gave birth and decided to stay at home for a period of time. That time period has expired, and you want to return to work.

You were fired because you chose the wrong job, the wrong boss, or the wrong industry. The next job has not come as quickly as you would have liked, and you have a gap of more than a year to explain.

Retired: You chose to slow down and enjoy the finer things in life, you took a gap year, or you simply traveled for a year or two because circumstances allowed you to. However, it is now time to return to having a work family, a paycheck, or a career.

In each of these cases, having a plausible institutional connection during the gap period is always preferable. The obvious best and easiest option is non-profit work. Consulting positions at your own firm count. Paid project work for friends or former colleagues can also be acceptable. Any of these are preferable to a final date on your most recent job that is twelve months or more in the past.

However, if that isn’t the case — say, you’ve been a stay-at-home parent for the past seven years — your goal should be to minimize the amount of space you spend describing what isn’t, after all, a business High Score.

You should ideally summarize it in one optimistic, forward-thinking, positive line of text:

Stay-at-home parent energized to return to work for a family of four. 2016- 2023

Alternatively, to cover a period of travel:

I was fortunate to travel to 13 countries before returning to concentrate on my professional career. 2019 – 2023

Or consider the unenviable, unwelcome employment gap:

After a period of personal exploration and growth, I am returning to work. 2021 – 2023

Your greatest strategy for handling a moment when you were attaining professional High Scores is the same in each of these scenarios: be upbeat, concise, and then move on.

How to use bullets on a resume

You’ll have twenty-five bullet points spread across two pages for a typical, skilled expert with more than 10 years of experience to support your claim. Early in your career, you might only have 10 to 15 bullet points on a page. The High Score Resume approaches each bullet point as a limited, valuable resource that should be optimized for your success in either scenario.

The High Score Resume maximizes each bullet by providing concrete evidence of your accomplishments. Each bullet is made up of a success verb and a precise numerical achievement relevant to your profession or sector. This entices potential interviewers by outlining your accomplishments with measurable, verified results.

The High Score Resume assigns bullets to jobs based on their importance in landing your next job. Because your most recent jobs are the most important, the last five years are given 10 to 15 bullet points. Five to ten for the next five. The next five get five points each. Anything older than 15 years receives no bullets. “One of the reasons to hire me is my experience with… in 2003,” simply does not sway bosses looking to hire in 2023.

Craft each bullet point to persuade an employer to hire you because of the benefits you can provide. You could practice reading it aloud by beginning with the phrase “You should hire me in 2023 for this role because…” and then reading the text of each bullet. Bullets are written to support your claim that you can immediately bring new High Scores to your potential boss.

“Show, don’t tell” is the High Score Resume’s motto. Bullets provide specific proof to support the skills and accomplishments you claim in your Professional Summary while remaining confidential. Simply saying you’re good at this or capable of that isn’t convincing. Describe the accomplishment in detail for each bullet. Future bosses are most likely to remember specific outcomes, stories, and accomplishments.

Should I include action words in my resume?

The structure for each bullet point in the High Score Resume is a success verb plus specific numerical data about an accomplishment in your field or role.

That means your bullet points will require approximately 25 magic resume words. Rather than leaving you to guess, I’ve included 25 great success verbs in the box below that can be used on any resume.

Typical resume advice suggests using active verbs, which the High Score Resume believes aren’t good enough, powerful enough, or persuasive enough. Some active verbs are extremely bland and do nothing to persuade a potential employer. “Managed,” “established,” “defined,” and “performed” are all examples of active verbs that are commonly used on resumes.

However, these aren’t appropriate verbs for expressing your high score. You wouldn’t say, “I guided a small character through a series of levels” or “I executed a variety of moves in the game.”

By definition, white-collar workers establish, manage, define, and perform a wide range of tasks. The High Score Resume, on the other hand, wants you to share “were you any good at them? ” This is an important fact that a hiring manager or recruiter will want to know.

That is why the High Score Resume recommends including a success verb in each bullet point. As you can see above, success verbs demonstrate success — because you were present, something improved or progressed. These 25 verbs will not repeat, they will convey action, and they will serve to jog your memory about those things you did that were successful — when you increased, delivered, improved, or optimized your company’s business.

The most straightforward approach would be to use only these 25 verbs. Unless you have a compelling reason to diversify, the success verbs listed above should cover the majority of bullet points. Limiting your options will save you time and money while ensuring a higher quality resume.

This may appear tedious, but unless you are applying to be a thesaurus writer, none of your four audiences are interested in how clever your success verbs are. The millions of hours wasted each year by professionals like you looking up synonyms for “improved” is completely unnecessary.

In the preceding example, we used only eight of the verbs from the success verbs list.

The classic filler “Hired to be Vice President, Western Region” is a great example of how stating the obvious in your bullet points can backfire. Look, we live in the twenty-first century in the United States of America. You were, of course, hired for your current position! I wasn’t assuming you got it from your father, the Duke of Sales for the Western Region. It’s not Game of Thrones. So why are you wasting valuable resume space by telling your audience something they already know based on your title?

And, given the nature of the modern organization, if you’re a manager, you’ve probably managed a few other people. Of course, you were given a budget to do something interesting with those people in the service of the organization’s larger goals.

So, when you start a bullet point with non-achievements like “I was hired, I managed, and I was responsible for…”, you’re passing up an opportunity to highlight the benefits you brought to your boss and your company in your previous role.

It is not enough to simply have the verb; you must also have a specific numerical accomplishment.

The professional summary describes your next position.

The professional summary communicates your Next Level — the job you want next — in the High Score Resume. Significantly, it is not a summary of your past professional experience, but rather a summary of your future plans.

In the professional summary, you make your most effective, concise, and powerful pitch for the job you want. Using short words and brief phrases, this section stands out from the rest of the High Score Resume in a dramatic and compelling way. You’ll use that authority to communicate to your future boss your capabilities and expectations for your next position.

While it only takes up 10% of the space on your resume, the professional summary should take up a third or more of your writing time.

Your professional summary consists of 12-16 phrases spread across three to four lines. The first of the four lines contains a list of job titles that you desire. The following line is a list of your professional skills. The third section is a list of accomplishments that demonstrate your abilities. The optional fourth line can be used to list additional skills and achievements, or it can be used to specify the type of company, role, or industry you’re looking for.

You’ll spend just as much time deciding what to leave out as you will on what to include. “Music is the space between the notes,” Miles Davis once said. It’s not the notes you play; it’s the notes you don’t play.” For you, it’s the words, accomplishments, and titles you leave out that reinforce who you are and what you’ll do next.

Your professional summary starts with a Professional Headline that summarizes your qualifications. At this point, you should only include three or four words that best describe your professional career. You could be an Innovative Financial Executive, a Senior Leader in CPG Marketing, a Gaming Technology CTO, an Accomplished VP Enterprise Sales, or a Leading Biotech Research Scientist, as in our example below.

Whatever it is, this bold, ALL CAPS, Professional Headline is your marketing pitch. It’s worth spending several hours perfecting this.

Your Professional Summary serves as your first impression to four different audiences. It is important and can be defining, as with all first impressions. The same resume with the same accomplishments reads very differently with the lame, generic terms “Seasoned Executive – Manager – P&L Responsibility – Industry Expert” versus the more direct and specific “COO – SVP, Operations – Turn-around Expert – Delivered $2 bn Shareholder Value”.

While your Next Level may seem obvious to you, it is not at all obvious to the people reading your resume.

Given how different people are, you can be certain that someone similar to you spoke with the recruiter or hiring manager last month, last week, or even yesterday, and despite having the same background as you, that person told them of a completely different career path. I’ve seen enough to know that I never know what someone is going to do next. To be honest, that’s why one of the first questions I ask in hiring is “so what are you looking to do next? ”

You’d be surprised by the responses!

In this example, we’ve specified that our resume is for a General & Operations Manager seeking positions such as COO, VP, Operations and Administration, Country Manager, and so on. Listing those titles specifically allows Audience #1, the screener, to quickly determine which roles to choose you for. It makes it simple for Audience #2, the hiring manager, to understand what your Next Level is. It makes it simple for Audience #3, your future boss, to understand who you are and where you’re going. It also makes it simple for Audience #4, the ATS, to determine which titles to associate with your candidacy.

The more specific you can be on a resume, the better. Your four audiences must leave with a clear understanding of the type of job you’re looking for, the titles that should be considered for you, and your High Score achievements and capabilities.

In terms of formatting, the Professional Summary should be no more than four lines long. Don’t go over the line ends and cause gaps in spacing as the software tries to deal with a word or two extra on the next line. Also, keep the entire section in the center.

Job titles in your Professional Summary

The first line of your Professional Summary is the most effective area for communicating your expectations, so list 3 to 5 job titles of jobs you would accept as your next job here. It’s important to note that these are the titles of the jobs you want next, not the jobs you’ve had in the past or the jobs you currently have. This is the “Next Level” section of your High Score Resume. It’s where you tell recruiters and hiring managers about the job you want and believe you’re a good fit for.

It’s important to note that it doesn’t matter if you’ve never held this position in the past, but it should be a logical next step in your professional career. Rather, you’re promoting your ambition to the screener, recruiter, or hiring manager looking to fill that specific role and title.

Of course, if you intend to stay in a similar-sized company, calculating the exact title you seek is easier. A VP of Marketing at one tiny startup may be able to claim the ability to fill the VP of Marketing role at another tiny startup. And a Finance Manager at a Fortune 1000 company has every right to indicate that Senior Manager, Finance is her preferred next position. When considering all company sizes, complications arise — being a CMO at three different five-person start-ups does not guarantee that you’d be considered for a role at a lower level, such as Director or VP, at a Fortune 500 company.

You’ll use your business judgment to determine what qualifies as a suitable title for which you should be considered because there are no hard and fast rules.

Here are some examples of first lines for your professional summary:

• Vice President of Marketing • Director of Marketing • Brand Marketing Leader • CMO

or

Account Executive | Sales Representative | Business Development Executive

or

* Operations Manager * Plant Supervisor * Logistics Manager * Logistics Senior Manager

or

Financial Director – FP&A Director – Credit Analyst – Planning Director

Separators can be anything tasteful and understated, such as an asterisk, a dot, a vertical bar, or a hyphen.

Professional competencies in your Professional Summary

The second line of your professional summary focuses on professional skills — your abilities and skills that will enable you to succeed in the job titles listed above. These are the current skills you have that are “level-appropriate” for your Next Level.

Please keep in mind that the skills you are currently using will be one notch less relevant at your next job. After all, these are skills you acquired while working at a lower level. Your current job’s advanced skills will be the basic, expected skills in your next role. And the skills you’re currently working hard to acquire — those that are just out of reach — will be the ones you’ll be expected to develop and put into practice day after day. The fundamental skills required for your current position will be completely irrelevant.

So, if you’re an individual contributor and want to advance to a team lead or senior individual contributor role, rather than highlighting skills related to your individual practice, you should highlight those that demonstrate team leadership and accountability.

If you want to be a manager of managers, you’ll focus on your ability to manage output, process, accountability, and communication rather than your ability to manage individual team members, work output, and team member level tasks and productivity.

List no skills that are obvious or would be expected of someone at your level. For example, if you’re applying for C-suite positions, listing “time management” or “presentation skills” in your summary would be far too junior.

For the second line, consider the following:

• Software Architecture • Engineer Recruitment • Technology Innovation

or

Payroll & Benefits | Employee Development & Training | Culture | Employee Relations

or

* Corporate Counsel * Contract Negotiation * Risk Management

or

Cost-cutting – Project Management – General Contracting – Government Relations

Achievements in the past for your Professional Summary

You will list three to five phrases that describe your demonstrated past success on the third line of your Professional Summary. There’s no need for numbers here because you’ll go over that in detail in your work experience section; instead, share the “how” of your High Scores. Any type of accomplishment or attribute for which you have received recognition is appropriate, but those that best demonstrate your mastery of your previous roles are preferred.

Summarize the three to five most significant achievements of your recent career to make a compelling case for why past success predicts future success.

Examples:

• President’s Club • Top-producing Saleswoman • Exceeds Quota • Expert in Consultative Selling

or

New Brands Launched | Clio Award-Winning Campaigns | Increased Efficiency

or

Increased Team Velocity * New Product Shipment * Outstanding Recruiter * AWS Migration

or

FDA Review Expert – Acquisition Identification – 17 Patents Received

Considerations based on situation, recognition, or industry

You can include additional skills, capabilities, and achievements on the optional fourth line; provide additional color around the types of situations you are looking for; internal, external, or industry awards and recognition; or indications of industry interest that may not be clear from other items in your professional summary.

“Marketer of the Year 2018,” “Turnaround Expert,” “Growth Company Executive,” “Successful Public Speaker,” “Startup Leader,” “CPG Veteran,” or “Airline Expert” are some examples.

Your optional fourth line is an excellent place to add flavor to your overall initial presentation and round out the picture of who you want to be next.

This particular arrangement suggests a pattern to follow. You have the option to change the order or the themes if it makes more sense to you. While it makes more sense to group skills on one line and achievements on another, if the specific order of job title – skills – achievements – awards does not work for your situation, change it as you see fit and as reads best for you. To reiterate, there is no penalty for mixing and matching the themes on these different lines, but there is also no benefit. Keep it simple and follow this outline to save yourself time and frustration.