Resume Sections: What to Include and What to Skip

The section question isn't about completeness

Resume sections aren't a checklist. They're a hierarchy.

Every section should answer "Why should I interview this person?" If a section doesn't add signal — if it doesn't lead to a good interview question — it's noise.

The goal isn't to include every possible section. It's to include sections that strengthen your case.

Essential sections (include these)

These sections appear on almost every resume:

Contact information: Name, email, phone, location (city/state or city/country), optionally LinkedIn, GitHub, portfolio. Keep it simple. Don't include your full address — city and state is enough.

Experience: Your work history, typically in reverse chronological order. This is where most of your signal lives. Each role should show outcomes, not just responsibilities.

Education: Degree, institution, graduation year (or expected graduation). If you're early in your career, include relevant coursework or GPA if strong. If you're 10+ years in, keep it brief.

These three sections form the foundation. Everything else is optional.

High-value optional sections

These sections add signal when you have relevant content:

Projects: Personal projects, side work, open source contributions. Especially valuable for entry-level candidates or career changers who need to show capability beyond work history.

Skills: Technical skills, tools, languages. But only if it adds information not already visible in your experience. If every role shows "React," you don't need "React" again in skills.

Summary or headline: A 2-3 line positioning statement at the top. Useful when you need to bridge a gap (career change, return to workforce) or establish seniority quickly. Don't repeat your entire resume — summarize your positioning.

Languages: If relevant to the role or if you're multilingual. List proficiency levels clearly (Native, Fluent, Conversational, Basic).

These sections work when they add unique information. If they just repeat what's in experience, skip them.

Sections that depend on context

These make sense in specific situations:

Certifications: Include if relevant to the role or if they're industry-standard (PMP, AWS certifications, etc.). Skip generic certifications that don't add signal.

Publications or speaking: If you've written papers, given talks, or published articles. Shows thought leadership and domain expertise. Only include if recent or highly relevant.

Awards or honors: Include if they're significant and relevant. A "Top Performer" award from five years ago probably doesn't help. A recent industry award might.

Volunteer work: Include if it shows relevant skills or fills a gap (career change, employment gap). Skip if it's just "nice to have" filler.

Professional affiliations: Include if relevant to the role or if membership is prestigious. Skip generic memberships.

The rule: if someone would ask about it in an interview, include it. If it's just background noise, skip it.

Sections to skip (usually)

These sections rarely add value:

Objective statement: Outdated. If you need positioning, use a summary instead. Objectives are usually generic ("Seeking a challenging position...") and waste space.

References: Don't include "References available upon request." Everyone knows references are available. Save the space.

Hobbies or interests: Only include if they're genuinely relevant (e.g., "Competitive programming" for a software role, "Photography" for a design role). Generic hobbies don't help.

Personal information: Age, marital status, photo (in most countries/jobs), religion, etc. Not only unnecessary — potentially illegal to request in many places.

High school education: If you have a college degree, skip high school. If you're still in college, you can include it briefly.

Salary expectations: Don't include unless explicitly requested. And even then, it's usually better to discuss in interviews.

The section order matters

Standard order (top to bottom):

1. Contact information
2. Summary or headline (if included)
3. Experience
4. Projects (if included, and if stronger than education)
5. Education
6. Skills (if included)
7. Languages, certifications, publications (if included)

Why this order? Contact and summary establish who you are. Experience shows what you've done. Education provides context. Everything else supports the main story.

The exception: if you're entry-level and projects are stronger than experience, put projects before experience. If education is recent and highly relevant, it can go higher.

A resume builder makes section ordering easy. You can drag sections to reorder, toggle visibility, and see how the hierarchy feels in the preview. The templates enforce good section organization by default, so you don't have to think about structure — you focus on content.

How many sections is too many?

There's no magic number, but if you have more than 8 sections, you're probably including noise.

A typical strong resume has:

• Contact
• Summary (optional)
• Experience
• Education
• Skills (optional)
• Projects (optional)
• 1-2 additional sections if relevant (languages, certifications, etc.)

That's 5-7 sections total. If you're hitting 10+, ask yourself: does each section add unique signal? Or is it repeating information already visible elsewhere?

A practical section checklist

Before finalizing your resume:

• Does each section add information not visible elsewhere?
• Would a recruiter ask about this section in an interview?
• Is the section order logical (strongest signal first)?
• Have I removed redundant sections (e.g., skills that are already in experience)?

If you can answer those confidently, you've built a section structure that works.

The builder lets you experiment with sections easily. Add sections, remove them, reorder them — all in real time, with live preview showing how the structure feels. The templates include sensible defaults, but you can customize to match your background. For more on organizing content within sections, see top resume mistakes that kill your chances. And if you're optimizing for ATS parsing, check how ATS systems work.