US resume format: what American employers expect to read

Where the American format is written down

No US law prescribes a resume layout. The closest thing to a public standard is CareerOneStop, the job-search site sponsored by the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. Its Resume Writing Guide, read on 13 October 2026, covers the top section, work experience, education, optional sections, formatting and special cases, and says all of its resume advice assumes the employer uses an applicant tracking system (ATS).

The other half of the picture is what employers may ask. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces the federal laws against discrimination in hiring, and its guidance explains why a US resume carries no photo, age or family details. That context has its own section below.

Covered elsewhere in this series

Why Americans say resume and when they want a CV is on the CV vs resume page. Federal government jobs have a stricter two-page rule enforced by USAJOBS, and J-1 programmes have their own guides; all are linked at the end.

First step: read ten postings before you write a line

CareerOneStop puts keywords first. It suggests scanning 10 to 15 postings for your target job title, listing the requirements that come up most, and using those exact terms, because a variation from the posting's wording may not be recognised as the qualification.

1. Pick one job title and collect 10 to 15 current postings for it.
2. Count which skills, tools, credentials and years of experience appear most often.
3. Mark the ones you can prove with a job, a course or a project.
4. Write the headline and summary around the top three of those terms.
5. Put the rest where they belong: in work bullets, in Skills, in Education.
6. For each application, check the posting again and swap in its own wording.

How the US resume is built

Length: one page, two only when earned

CareerOneStop's formatting page sets 1 to 2 pages and says to use the second only if your amount of experience requires it. Its sample for an administrative assistant moving into project coordination runs to two pages; its recent-graduate sample fits on one.

Layout a parser can read

Start with a simple single-column layout, because an ATS reads left to right. Use standard headings such as Work Experience, Education and Skills; avoid tables, text boxes, logos, columns, images and graphics; keep important text out of the header and footer. Lines and borders are fine if they touch no text. Margins of one inch, one font (or a second for headings only), size 10 to 12.

The contact block

Name, city and state, a personal email, phone, and a LinkedIn or portfolio link. CareerOneStop says there is no need for a full street address. A work-related designation can follow your name, as its sample does with CAPM.

Headline and summary

Under the contact block goes a headline: the job title alone or a tagline of 10 to 12 words. A summary of 3 to 4 sentences or 3 to 5 bullets can follow, built from the posting's keywords. CareerOneStop says to skip the summary if you have three years of experience or less, and suggests an Objective of 1 to 3 sentences instead for new graduates.

Work history

Newest job first, covering roughly the last 10 to 15 years. Each entry gives title, organisation, city and state, and dates, ideally with day, month and year, since scanning systems often filter on length of employment. Aim for 5 to 8 bullets of one or two lines, each with the context and the outcome, and numbers where you have them.

Education, skills and optional sections

Education goes after work experience once you have relevant jobs, and before it if you are a new graduate. Skills lists only what the job needs, and if you have a summary, soft skills go there instead. Optional sections such as Professional Associations, Volunteer Work or Awards each get their own heading, with the most important item first.

The file

Unless the posting says otherwise, send a PDF to keep the formatting, named with your full name or your name plus the job title. CareerOneStop warns that a scanned resume sent as an image will not be recognised.

Turning a non-US CV into a US resume, field by field

If your current CV opens with a personal-details block, this table shows what happens to each field on a US resume and which source the decision rests on. EEOC guidance binds employers, not applicants; it explains why US readers do not expect these fields.

Sample top of a US resume (invented person)

• Elif Kaya · Austin, TX · elif.kaya@example.com · (512) 555-0147 · linkedin.com/in/elifkaya
• Headline: Pricing Analyst | SQL, Power BI | 4 years in grocery retail
• Summary: Pricing analyst who built weekly price-elasticity reports for 380 stores. Cut markdown spend 9% in one year by moving clearance pricing from fixed steps to sell-through targets. Presents the weekly price review to six category managers.
• Work Experience: Pricing Analyst, Örnek Retail A.Ş., Istanbul, Türkiye 03/01/2022 to Present
• Education: B.S. Industrial Engineering, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Türkiye, 2021

The person and numbers are invented to show the form. A summary is used here because she has four years of experience; with three or fewer, CareerOneStop would drop it.

EEOC context: why personal details stay off

Under the laws the EEOC enforces, it is illegal to discriminate against an applicant because of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and transgender status), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. Its guidance on pre-employment inquiries adds that the information requested before hiring should be limited to what shows whether a person is qualified.

• Photographs: employers should not ask for one; if needed for identification, it can be obtained after an offer is made and accepted.
• Age and date of birth: the Age Discrimination in Employment Act does not explicitly prohibit asking, but the EEOC says such questions may deter older workers or indicate intent to discriminate.
• Marital status and children: generally not to be asked before an offer; asking may be regarded as evidence of intent to discriminate.
• Citizenship: most employers should not ask before an offer; identity and work eligibility are verified on Form I-9 after the offer is accepted.

Read together with CareerOneStop's contact list, the practical rule is short: give the employer what shows you can do the job, and nothing that invites a question the law tells them not to ask. This is not legal advice, and state or city laws, which this page did not review, can add their own rules.

Proof: what each source says, read on 13 October 2026

The two GPA thresholds are both CareerOneStop's own; they sit on different pages of the same guide. If your GPA is between 3.0 and 3.5, include it for an entry-level role and judge it against the posting otherwise.

Where this format does not apply

• Federal jobs on USAJOBS: two pages at most, enforced at upload, with hours per week for each job. The federal resume guide covers it.
• Academic posts, fellowships and research jobs that ask for a CV: that is the long US academic CV, not a resume.
• J-1 Summer Work Travel and J-1 internships: the format is the same, but sponsors check eligibility lines first; each has its own guide.
• Employers who give their own form or template: the posting wins over every convention here.

Next steps and other ways to build it

Whichever you use, run the finished PDF through an ATS checker and read the plain-text view: name first, headings in order, dates next to the right jobs.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. CareerOneStop (US Department of Labor), Resumeswww.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/Resumes/resumes.aspx
2. CareerOneStop, Resume Writing Guide: Top sectionwww.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/Resumes/ResumeGuide/top-portion-of-resume.aspx
3. CareerOneStop, Resume Writing Guide: Work experiencewww.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/Resumes/ResumeGuide/work-experience.aspx
4. CareerOneStop, Resume Writing Guide: Educationwww.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/Resumes/ResumeGuide/education.aspx
5. CareerOneStop, Resume Writing Guide: Formattingwww.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/Resumes/ResumeGuide/formatting.aspx
6. CareerOneStop, Resume Writing Guide: Special tipswww.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/Resumes/ResumeGuide/special-tips.aspx
7. CareerOneStop, Resume Writing Guide: Sample resumeswww.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/Resumes/ResumeGuide/sample-resumes.aspx
8. EEOC, Prohibited employment policies and practiceswww.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices
9. EEOC, Fact sheet: age discriminationwww.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/fact-sheet-age-discrimination
10. EEOC, Pre-employment inquiries and marital status or number of childrenwww.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-marital-status-or-number-children
11. EEOC, Pre-employment inquiries and citizenshipwww.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-citizenship