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- CVJury Editorial Team
- Modified on October 14, 2022
- 10:06 pm
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Summary
Learning how to write your work experience in a resume can help single you out from other job hunters.
Learning how to write your work experience in a resume can help single you out from other job hunters.
The resume work experience section is where you’re proving to the hiring managers that you are qualified for the job.
You may create strong impressions on your prospective recruiter and land the interview if you do it right.
Here, we’ll offer you eight essential tips to consider when tackling work experience in resume writing.
Keep reading for valuable insights.
How to Write a Compelling Work Experience Resume Section
A resume work experience section can make or break your chances of landing a dream job.
You’re likely to breeze through other areas of your resume but find the work experience section challenging.
Perhaps you fail to figure out anything worth mentioning or remember anything you did. But this doesn’t have to be the case.
So, how do you write a resume work experience section that stands out?
There’s no doubt you have the necessary skills to get the position.
Still, your prospective employer will need to prove that you’re worth the job offer.
And this is where your resume work experience section will come into play.
Most job seekers struggle to write a concise and compelling resume work experience section.
This section in your resume should clearly and concisely showcase that you have the necessary qualifications.
So, use the section to portray yourself as alikableperson that the employer must invite for interview.
Optimising Work Experience in Resume Writing: Expert Advice
The work experience section in one critical component for adding youressential skillsfor your resume to be effective.
It should be compelling enough to grab the prospective employer’s attention and prove that you’re the right candidate.
Make this section relevant to the job you’re applying for and accurately highlight your accomplishments.
Also, ensure you show the value you can bring to the company if offered the job.
But don’t worry if you find writing the work experience section challenging.
In this article, we’ll give you eight tips on how to write a resume work experience section that stands out from the rest.
So, let’s get rolling, shall we?
Introduce Your Experience
The hiring manager will need to learn about your professional experiences.
And since the first impression matters a lot, you should introduce your experiences compellingly.
Also, make it easy for the hiring manager to get the information they’re looking for by listing experience in reverse chronological order.
Here are some of the things to include when introducing your experience.
Organisations You Worked for and Their Locations
Mention companies you worked for and where they were.
Start with the most recent company, followed by the next most recent.
And to keep everything relevant, include companies you’ve worked for in the last ten years.
Note that incorporating companies that serve the same interests as the one you’re applying for will increase your chances of landing the interview.
When writing about locations of the companies, mention the towns or states where they were.
Employment Dates
Indicate when you started working for each organisation and when you stopped.
The best way to include employment dates is by using the month-year format.
For example,
Jan 2018 – Sept 2021
January 2018 – September 2021
01/2018 – 09/2021
If you have several gaps in your work experience, explain briefly why.
Job Titles
Your prospective employer needs to know your job titles in each company you’ve included.
If you want to stand out from other job hunters, provide different job titles relevant to the one you’re applying for if that was your situation.
In that case, your employer will know you have the various necessary skills after working in different positions.
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Be Honest About Your Job History
Everything you include in the work experience section must be factual.
Whether it’s the companies you’ve worked for, locations of these companies, or dates of employment, everything should be factually correct.
Honesty is one of the soft skills hiring managers will look for when recruiting.
You don’t want to get embarrassed when your interviewers note that you lied in a given section.
Also, you may tarnish all the skills and accomplishments you’ve worked so hard to earn by being dishonest.
Include Strong Action Verbs
Your word choice matters a lot when writing work experience in a resume. The idea here is to make your prospective employer visualise your contributions.
Use strong action verbs to introduce your duties, responsibilities, or accomplishments. Also, ensure you vary action verbs to avoid all your descriptions sounding the same.
These are some of the action verbs you might consider using in your resume work experience section:
- supervised
- assisted
- adapted
- built
- cooperated
- exchanged
- implemented
- awarded
- fostered
For more action words, see our list of 250+ action verbs for your resume.
When introducing ongoing activities, use the present tense.
Use past tense to introduce activities in which you’re no longer involved.
Recommended Reading
- How to ace remote interviews
- Video interview tips
- Getting the right help in your career journey
List Accomplishments from Previous Jobs
Listing your duties and responsibilities in your previous companies is not enough.
To write a resume work experience section that lands you the interview, you must mention a few accomplishments or achievements.
While the prospective employer will know what you did after listing your duties and responsibilities, they’ll also want to know if there were accomplishments.
If you made any positive impact or contribution to the company, you already have your ace in the hole.
However, ensure that the accomplishments you include are relevant to the new position you’re applying for.
With relevant achievements, your hiring manager can rest assured that you can deliver meaningful results to the company.
Further Reading
- How to write accomplishments in resumes
- Create an effective CV for free
- Create your cover letter
- Create your LinkedIn profile for free
Use Numbers and Percentages
When you use numbers in writing, they have a way of attracting your audience’s attention.
You can apply this when writing your resume work experience section.
You can quantify your responsibilities and successes from your previous positions.
Here, you can use numbers, percentages, and currency values.
Note that you should spell out every number below 10 and write in symbols every number above 10.
Quantifying your successes is something to be proud of.
When you include them, the hiring manager will know that you can bring such achievements to their company.
For example, you can quantify the following:
- the number or percentage of files you organised
- people you managed
- clients you acquired within a given period
- client retention, client referrals, or client satisfaction
Mention Any Awards, Honors, or Accolades
If you have any awards, honors, or accolades you received during your past employment, you can include them.
They show the accomplishments you made working for other companies.
Including awards, honors, and accolades gives the hiring manager a better idea of what you can accomplish in your field of work if they give you the opportunity.
The thing is awards, honors, or accolades don’t have to be shiny.
Some of the professional awards you can put in your resume work experience section include:
- Employee of the month awards
- Leadership awards
- Innovation awards
- Top performer awards
- Volunteering awards
Ensure you include the title of your award, the year awarded, who gave you the award, and why you won the prize.
These awards can help increase the chances of landing the interview faster than your competitors, who don’t include any awards.
List a Few Skills You Developed
You won’t land that dream job without proving you have the necessary skills.
By listing some of your best skills, the prospective recruiter will know you can succeed in your position.
Often, job seekers find it difficult to identify the skills needed to include.
To make it easier, assess your achievements or strengths that coworkers recognise.
Ensure you include a mix of hard and soft skills.
Every type of job will have a set of technical skills.
These skills are more specialised and are often measurable.
Some of the hard skills you might include are:
- Data analysis
- Mathematics
- Project management
- Computer software and application knowledge
- Writing skills
- Calendar management
- Shipping
- Referral marketing
- Contract negotiation
- Lead prospecting, among others
On the other hand, soft skills (people skills or social skills) come naturally or are strengthened over time.
You can apply soft skills in any job. Some of the top soft skills to include are:
- Problem-solving
- Critical thinking
- Flexibility
- Communication skills
- Teamwork
- Creativity
- Organisation skills
- Attention to detail
- Responsibility, among others
For a comprehensive list, see our 24 categories of soft skills you can choose from for your resume.
Explain Why Your Experience Makes You the Perfect Candidate
Your prospective employer will go through your resume work experience section asking the question, “What do you have to offer my company?”
Most jobseekers think that listing their responsibilities, skills, and achievements will make them stand out.
The fact is the hiring manager is looking for an employee who’ll fill a gap and solve the current problem.
After highlighting your responsibilities, accomplishments, and best skills, you can go further to prove you’re the right candidate.
The good thing is, you have already mentioned that you worked elsewhere and made a few achievements.
You can use this chance to clear any doubts by stating that you have all it takes to be the right candidate.
Use your previous successes and best skills to elaborate that you will do everything in your capacity to make such contributions if offered the job.
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Final Thoughts
You now have the best tips to write a resume work experience section that stands out.
After verifying that you provided the necessary information, you can head over to other areas of your resume.
But before that, ensure you conclude your work experience section with a sentence that summarises how well-equipped you are for the job.
Recommended Reading
- How to get a job anywhere
- How to write an effective CV work experience section
Written by: CVJury Editorial Team
The CVJury Team includes hiring managers, employability consultants and independent career counsellors. Our purpose is to make creating a CV or resume easy. We have 15 years of experience supporting professionals, job seekers and students worldwide.
Readour storyand discover how we can help you.
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Written by: CVJury Editorial Team
The CVJury Team includes hiring managers, employability consultants and independent career counsellors. Our purpose is to make creating a CV or resume easy. We have 15 years of experience supporting professionals, job seekers and students worldwide.
Readour storyand discover how we can help you.
PrevPrevious10 Essential Skills to Power Up Your Resume and Wow Potential Employers
Next292 Most Important Soft Skills and Why They Matter at WorkplacesNext
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in my CV?
We have carefully hand-picked 268 SOFT SKILLS to choose from…
- 23 Communication Skills
- 7 Creativity Skills
- 16 Critical Thinking Skills
- 4 Influencing Skills
- 7 Leadership Skills
- 6 Negotiation Skills
- 11 Networking Skills
- 23 Organization and Management Skills
- 6 Problem-Solving Skills
- 23 Research & Planning Skills
- 142 Other Examples
Download 268 soft skills
FAQs
How do you write an effective work experience on a resume? ›
First, stick to the following work experience order: job title, position, company name, description, location, achievements, responsibilities, dates employed. This ensures a maximum readability and makes it easy for the HR manager to jump to the relevant keywords they're looking for.
What should I include in work experience? ›...
Be sure to write down the following:
- your job titles.
- companies you worked for.
- locations of the companies.
- employment dates.
- your primary responsibilities.
- promotions.
- any important work accomplishments or awards.
- Read the Job Posting and Description Thoroughly. ...
- List Your Relevant Accomplishments, Experiences and Skills. ...
- Match Your Information to the Job Description.
- Determine your job search objective prior to writing the resume and tailor your resume for the position.
- Customize your resume to match a specific job description. ...
- Focus on positive results and accomplishments.
- Keep a consistent, easily-readable format.
- Excellent organizational skills.
- Ability to manage multiple concurrent deadlines.
- Exceptional attention to detail.
- Ability to delegate tasks to manage workload.
Include up-to-date, relevant information, experience, skills, and examples in all of your resume sections. Attach a meaningful cover letter that will sweep the recruiter off their feet. Proofread, proofread, proofread. Stick to the truth.
What is the best font for a resume 2022? ›- Arial. This sans-serif font is often used for branding and website or mobile design, which makes it a great option if you're in the creative field or are applying to a marketing job. ...
- Georgia. ...
- Helvetica. ...
- Tahoma. ...
- Times New Roman. ...
- Trebuchet MS. ...
- Verdana.
- Use a Resume Statement Instead of An Objective.
- Optimize Your Document for Artificial Intelligence.
- Keep The Template Design Clean and Simple.
- Show off Your Most Up-To-Date Certifications.
- Quantify Everything.
references from employers, on company letterhead, and. stating the occupation and dates of employment, and. giving the contact phone number and address of the employer.
How do I say I have work experience? ›- Use simple, active statements. It's best to use clear statements with strong verbs to effectively outline your skills and abilities. ...
- Provide only necessary details. ...
- Quantify your experience. ...
- Illustrate the connections. ...
- End with a goal statement.
Do you put all work experience on a resume? ›
Do you need to include all the jobs you've ever had on your resume? Short answer: No, you don't. But be prepared to explain why an old job isn't listed on your resume if the prospective employer discovers it or asks about any employment gaps between the jobs you did list.
How do you put 2 years experience on a resume? ›- Include your previous employers. ...
- Mention your job location. ...
- Specify the dates of employment. ...
- Write your job title. ...
- List your responsibilities. ...
- Mention your promotions. ...
- List your awards and recognitions. ...
- Choose the right work experience format.
Most experts recommend including 10-15 years of work history on your resume. For the majority of professionals, this includes between three and five different jobs.
How do I say I have work experience? ›- Use simple, active statements. It's best to use clear statements with strong verbs to effectively outline your skills and abilities. ...
- Provide only necessary details. ...
- Quantify your experience. ...
- Illustrate the connections. ...
- End with a goal statement.
- Resume objective statement. ...
- Unprofessional email. ...
- Full mailing address. ...
- Multiple phone numbers. ...
- Outdated or irrelevant social media profiles. ...
- Personal details. ...
- Headshot. ...
- Buzzwords.
You can create a killer no-experience resume by emphasizing your education instead. Include relevant internships, soft & hard skills, and projects. Other sections you can include on your resume are hobbies & interests, languages, certifications, or achievements.
How many years of work experience do you put on a resume? ›The common advice is to keep the work experience in a resume between 10 to 15 years.