How to List Work Experience on a Resume + Examples

1. Pick the best resume format.

Where you place your work history and how much information you provide depends on one of three resume formats. These three formats use strategic placement to highlight promotions, downplay lack of experience or prioritize practical training. 

• The chronological format keeps the work experience section at the top of your resume. With this layout, your most recent experience goes first and follows a reverse chronological order. The chronological format is recommended for job seekers with more than five years of experience because it clearly shows your career progression.
• The functional format answers the question, “How to make a resume with no experience?” It organizes transferable skills and achievements under multiple job-relevant skills sections while trimming your work history to basic job titles and employment years. This layout is better suited for recent graduates or job seekers with little experience who want to showcase their skill set.
• The hybrid/combination format is a happy medium between these two formats. This resume prioritizes your work experience and skills equally, helping you highlight specialized skills before diving into your employment history and strengths. It works well for most job seekers but is best for people with three to nine years of experience.

2. Focus on achievements, not responsibilities. 

In a competitive job market, hiring managers might skim hundreds of applications per job. To make the most of their limited time, focus your resume experience section on impressing outcomes you led. 

Use quantifiable results and action verbs, like “boosted sales by 20%” or “reduced costs by 15%,” to showcase impact. These examples help hiring managers calculate your potential based on evidence rather than unquestioningly trusting that you know how to do the job based on generic job descriptions.

3. Match your experience to the job description.

Read the job posting carefully and identify keywords like repeated or emphasized responsibilities. This information is known as resume keywords and is used by companies to train applicant tracking systems (ATS). 

These digital tools scan your resume for matching words and phrases to assign your application a score. If your score is too low, your resume will be deleted before it reaches hiring managers. So, make sure you respond to the specific questions in the job description!

4. Add relevant jobs and experience.

The most common question resume writers hear is, “What should I put under experience on a resume?” Although it is tempting to list every past job, you should only do this if you can highlight transferable skills and experience related to the job, especially if you’re a seasoned professional. 

For example, adding a former catering job to your resume makes sense if you’re applying to food service, customer service, retail or sales because these jobs require strong communication and interpersonal skills. However, you wouldn’t add this job to a marketing job unless you ran negotiating or social media marketing at this catering job.

5. List your experience throughout your resume.

Although your resume includes a dedicated work history section, you can list work experience in other sections, like your resume summary. This professional introduction sits at the top of your resume, and if you share an impressive example, you can persuade hiring managers to spend more time on your application.

To make the most of a summary statement or resume objective, share one specific accomplishment followed by proof of your skills and the positive outcomes. This example adds context to the rest of your resume and helps hiring managers see where your background and knowledge meet the job expectations.