Guide

How to write the work experience section on a resume, with examples

8 min read · updated 16 October 2026

The work experience section is where the hiring decision is actually made. The ATS weights it heavily because it holds most of the keywords, and the recruiter reads it to decide whether your past looks like their job. This guide shows how to structure the section, how to format each role, and how to write bullets that carry both keywords and results, with resume work experience examples across fields.

Structure: what goes where

Reverse-chronological order, most recent role first. Title the section "Experience" or "Work Experience" so the ATS recognises it. Cover the last ten to fifteen years in detail; earlier roles get a single line or are dropped. Internships and substantial freelance work count as experience; list them the same way.

Format of each entry

Four pieces of information in the same order every time: job title, employer, location (city and state), and dates as month and year. Then the bullets. The ATS reads the pattern, so keep it identical for every role.

Senior Financial Analyst, Northwind Manufacturing · Columbus, OH · Mar 2021 – Present
Financial Analyst, Northwind Manufacturing · Columbus, OH · Jun 2018 – Mar 2021

How many bullets

Three to five for your current and previous role, two to three for the one before, one to two for anything older. More than five means the important ones are hidden. If a role spanned very different work, group the bullets by theme rather than adding more.

Writing the bullet: verb, task, result

Every bullet follows the same shape: an action verb, what you did and for whom or at what scale, and the result with a number. Keep it to one or two lines. Past tense for previous roles, present tense for the current one.

Before: "Responsible for managing the company's social media accounts."
After: "Managed 5 social accounts with 180k combined followers; grew engagement 45% in a year by moving to a short-form video calendar."
Before: "Helped with the migration to the cloud."
After: "Migrated 22 services from on-prem to AWS over 9 months with zero customer-facing downtime, cutting hosting costs 31%."
Before: "Provided patient care."
After: "Cared for 5–6 med-surg patients per shift and led a fall-prevention huddle that cut unit falls 40%."

Where keywords go

Inside the bullets, next to the results, is where keywords are most credible to a recruiter and still fully counted by the ATS. Use the job posting's own terms: if it says "stakeholder management" and you did it, write those words. Put the bullets that match the posting first within each role. The keywords guide shows how to find them.

Examples by field

Software: "Designed and shipped a rate-limiting service in Go that handles 30M requests/day; cut abuse-related incidents 70%."
Sales: "Closed $3.4M new ARR in FY2025 (128% of quota) across 11 enterprise accounts, with a 9-month average cycle."
Operations: "Redesigned the weekly reorder process for a 14-person store with $2.4M revenue, cutting stock-outs 30%."
Teaching: "Taught mathematics to 120 students a year across 4 grades; raised pass rates from 71% to 88% over two years."
Customer support: "Resolved 60+ tickets a day with a 96% CSAT; wrote 25 help-center articles that cut repeat contacts 18%."
Project management: "Delivered a $6M EHR migration across 14 clinics on schedule and 7% under budget, managing a team of 12."

Special cases

Promotions at the same company: one employer heading, then each title with its own dates and bullets beneath it. The ATS and the recruiter both see the progression.
Short stints and contracts: include them if they are relevant; label contracts as such ("Contract") so a six-month role reads as intended.
Several similar freelance clients: group under one heading, "Freelance Marketing Consultant, 2022 – Present", with clients named in the bullets.
Gaps: leave the dates honest and, if the gap was over a year, add a one-line entry explaining it. The employment gaps guide covers the wording.
Unrelated old jobs: one line each, or a single "Earlier experience" line listing titles and employers, without bullets.

What to leave out

Duties copied from the job description you held. Write outcomes, not responsibilities.
"Responsible for", "duties included", "helped with". Start with the verb.
Reasons for leaving, salary, supervisor names.
Anything you cannot talk about for two minutes in an interview.

Frequently asked questions

How far back should work experience go on a resume?

Ten to fifteen years in detail. Older roles can be a single line each or summarised in one "Earlier experience" line. There is no rule that you must list every job you have ever had.

Should I include jobs unrelated to the one I am applying for?

Include them if leaving them out creates a gap, but keep them to one or two lines and pull out any transferable result. Drop them if they are old and the gap would not show.

Do I need a number in every bullet?

Aim for one in each of the top three bullets per role. The rest can describe scope and tools. A bullet with no number should still end with an outcome.

How do I show a promotion on a resume?

List the employer once, then each title underneath with its own dates and bullets, most recent first. Mention the promotion explicitly in a bullet if it was fast.