Outline of a Resume

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This outline of a resume will give you an overview of the information to include in each section of your resume. Within this format, there is a lot of flexibility to allow you to personalize your own resume to highlight your most marketable skills and accomplishments.

Contact Information

Include your name, address, phone number and email address.
Double and triple check to ensure there are no errors in your contact information.
Use a simple email address; preferably one that consists of your name only. Avoid funny or unusual email addresses. These may be fine to use with your friends, but they do not create a professional first impression for employers.

Profile

Use a profile to highlight some of your most notable skills and accomplishments. Use two to three sentences to note your job title and most relevant accomplishments or skills as they are related to the work you are currently seeking. For example: "Customer service representative with five years of progressive professional experience and a proven ability to manage conflicting demands while maintaining quality and efficiency targets. Fluent in Spanish and English, and experienced with Word and Excel."

Skills Summary

Include five to eight of your most marketable skills as related to the job you are seeking.
If you'd like to include a lot more than eight skills in this list, that's fine, but break the list into smaller sections. So, in this outline of a resume, you might have a list called "Customer Service Skills" and a list of "Technical Skills" or maybe a list of "Administrative Skills." Just don't let one list get too long or it will be difficult for the employer to read at a glance.
This section may also be written as a list of accomplishments and given a title such as "Professional Accomplishments".
This section is not included on a chronological resume. On a functional resume, this section will be the main focus of the resume. In a functional resume, the skills summary will be broken into sub-sections as it will be quite long with more than eight skills highlighted.

Professional Experience

List your work history in reverse chronological order.
Include your job title, company name, city and dates of employment.
Use verbs (action words) to describe job duties and accomplishments that are most relevant to the work you are currently seeking.
Use bulleted point form to make it easy to read at a glance.
This section is not included in a functional resume.

Education

Include the name of the degree, diploma, certificate or course; the name of the school; and sometimes include the year you graduated.
This section can come before professional experience if you prefer to highlight your education first. If you are a recent graduate and your education is your most impressive selling feature or if you are applying for a job that requires specific education you may include education before professional experience.

Community Involvement

This section can also be called volunteer work or hobbies.
Including this section on your resume is completely optional in your outline of a resume. Only include it if it adds information that shows you are well qualified for the job.
List any volunteer work or hobbies that are relevant to the job you are seeking.

References available upon request

Including this phrase on your resume used to be fairly standard, but it has reached a point in which it makes your resume look outdated to some employers.
Employers know they can ask you for references if they want them, so it really doesn't add any useful information to your resume.
I would recommend omitting this phrase. Including it shouldn't be a deal-breaker if you are a good candidate for the job, and it will not even be an issue for some employers. However, it will make some employers think you are out of date, so it's best to just avoid the issue completely and omit the phrase from your resume.

Outline of a Resume

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