How to Write a US Resume in 2026
The American resume has one job: get you a phone screen. Unlike CVs used in Europe and Asia, a US resume is a tightly-edited marketing document — not an exhaustive record of your career. Recruiters at large US companies spend an average of six seconds on an initial scan. Everything you include must earn its place.
The American Resume Format
Length: One page for professionals with under ten years of experience. Two pages are acceptable for senior leaders, academics, or those in highly technical fields. A third page is almost never appropriate outside of federal government applications (which use a USAJobs resume format entirely different from the private sector).
Photo, age, marital status: Never include these. Anti-discrimination laws (Title VII, ADEA) make US employers uncomfortable when candidates volunteer protected information — a hiring manager who sees your photo or date of birth may actually set your resume aside to avoid legal liability.
Section order (typical): Contact info → Summary → Work Experience → Education → Skills → Certifications. For new graduates with limited work history, move Education above Experience.
What to Include
Contact block: Full name, city and state (no street address needed), professional email, phone, and a LinkedIn URL. A personal website or portfolio link is valuable in creative, tech, and marketing roles.
Professional summary: Two to three sentences targeted at the specific role. Avoid vague openers like "results-oriented professional." Instead, lead with your job title, years of experience, a key skill, and one quantified win: "Staff Software Engineer with 9 years building distributed systems at scale. Most recently reduced API latency by 22% at a 50M-user platform."
Work experience: Reverse chronological order. For each role, write 3–5 bullet points that start with a strong past-tense verb — Engineered, Launched, Reduced, Managed — and include at least one number. Vague claims ("responsible for improving performance") read weakly; quantified ones ("cut page-load time from 4.2s to 1.1s") are memorable.
Education: Institution name, degree, major, graduation year. GPA is optional after two years of work experience. Honors (cum laude, Dean's List) are worth including for up to five years post-graduation.
Skills: A scannable list of technical tools, languages, or methodologies. ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software screens resumes for keywords before a human ever sees them — mirror the language in the job description.
ATS and the Hidden Filter
Over 98% of Fortune 500 companies use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) as the first filter in their hiring process. The dominant platforms are Workday, Greenhouse, iCIMS, Taleo (Oracle), and Lever. These systems parse your resume into structured data and score it against the job description before a recruiter ever reads it. To pass the filter: use standard section headings (not creative alternatives like "Where I've Worked"), avoid tables and text boxes, and save as PDF unless the application portal specifies otherwise. A clean single-column layout in 10–12pt font almost always parses correctly.
A Realistic US Resume Example
For a marketing manager applying at a consumer brand:
Increased qualified leads 41% by redesigning paid search strategy across Google and Meta — reduced cost-per-acquisition from $68 to $40.
This bullet passes the "so what?" test. Compare to: "Managed paid campaigns." Same fact, zero impact.
Key Mistakes to Avoid
- Including a photo: Automatic disqualification at many firms
- Using an objective statement instead of a summary — objectives are considered outdated since the late 2000s
- Leaving unexplained employment gaps: A brief parenthetical (career break, caregiving, relocation) is sufficient
- Using a functional or skills-based format to hide gaps — US recruiters recognize this and find it evasive
- Generic skills: "Microsoft Office" and "good communicator" waste space; specific tools and demonstrated outcomes do not