7 Resume Headers You Must Include (And 4 to Leave Out) in 2026

Your resume header is the top of the page: your name, with your contact details on a single line under it. “Resume headers” can also mean the headings that label each section below it, such as Skills and Work History. This guide covers both: what goes in the header, with examples, then the seven headers to include and the four to leave out. For what to write under each one, see our companion guide on what to include in a resume.

Resume Headers You Should Include

Below your header, label each section with a plain, standard heading. CareerOneStop, a career site sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, recommends “standard section headings like ‘Work Experience,’ ‘Education,’ and ‘Skills’ so both human readers and ATS can quickly find information” (its formatting guide). ATS stands for applicant tracking system, the software many employers use to screen applications.

Your Name and Contact Information (Your Resume Header)

Make your name the largest text on the page, then put your contact details on a single line under it, in a smaller size. Skip a label such as “Resume” or “Contact Information”: your name is the title, and the layout makes the rest clear. Your name carries more weight than you might expect: a landmark resume audit study found that the name at the top of a resume can significantly change how often employers call back.

CareerOneStop’s guide to the top of a resume lists what belongs in the header. The table below is based on that list, plus a few tips of our own, such as the voicemail greeting and treating the headline as optional.

Here’s how that looks on the page. This is an illustrative example, not a real person:

Jordan Rivera

Columbus, OH | (614) 555-0147 | jordan.rivera@example.com | linkedin.com/in/[your-name]

Project Coordinator

With a work-related designation after your name (illustrative):

Priya Shah, RN

Dayton, OH | (937) 555-0182 | priya.shah@example.com

Pediatric Registered Nurse

With a short tagline and a portfolio link (illustrative):

Marcus Lee

Austin, TX | (512) 555-0123 | marcus.lee@example.com | marcuslee.example.com

Data Analyst | SQL and Tableau | [Your strongest result]

To set up yours, pick a template in our builder and fill in your name and contact details.

One place the word “resume” does belong is the file name, along with your full name and, if you like, the job title, so a recruiter can find it later: for example, Jordan-Rivera-Resume or Jordan-Rivera-Project-Coordinator-Resume.

Professional Summary

The summary is a short overview under your header: who you are, what you bring to the job and why you’re a good choice. Aim it at this job, with your strongest skills and results in the words the posting uses, and title it “Professional Summary,” “Summary” or the job title. Leave out filler such as “hardworking professional”: a result the reader can check says more.

If you’re changing careers, the summary can show how your experience carries over to the new field. If you don’t have much experience yet, or your work history already shows a clear, steady progression, you can skip it.

Example (illustrative): Shop manager with [number] years of experience running a clothing store, moving into luxury retail. Grew sales by [your figure] in [time period] through visual merchandising and customer follow-up. Trains new staff quickly and keeps stock counts accurate.

Skills

Use this section for the technical and job-specific skills from the posting that you have. Title it “Skills,” or name it for the work, such as “Technical Skills” or “Clinical Skills,” and list only skills that matter for this job. If you have a summary, put soft skills there rather than under Skills; our guide to hard skills vs. soft skills shows where each kind belongs.

Name your skills in the posting’s own words when they’re true for you. If the job asks for “stakeholder communication” and you’ve always called it “client reporting,” use the posting’s phrase so the reader doesn’t have to translate. More broadly, Harvard Business School’s research on hidden workers describes how hiring processes set up to find “perfect” candidates pass over qualified people, such as caregivers and veterans.

For some jobs, you may wish to divide the skill section into two parts. For example, if you’re applying for a translator role, and you speak five languages, it would be worth adding a languages section as well as a more general skills section. Similarly, programmers might have a programming languages header, and graphic designers might opt for a software section.

When choosing whether to divide your skills section into two parts, ask yourself: are these skills highly relevant to the role? Is there a clear distinction between the two types of skills? And are there enough of each type of skill that it makes sense to have two sections?

Skip skill bars, star ratings and percentages such as “Python: 80%.” They don’t tell a reader what you can do. Back up your most important skills with proof in your summary or work history instead.

Example (illustrative):

• Technical Skills: Data analysis, SQL, Python, Salesforce CRM
• Languages: Spanish (fluent), Portuguese (conversational)

Work History

Also called work experience or professional experience, this section covers your past roles and what you achieved in them. You don’t need to include every job you’ve ever had. With a long work history, focus on the jobs that add the most to this application, and give unrelated jobs that fill in your history a one-line description.

When listing roles, include your job title, the company name, and the start and end months and years. For the most important roles, you should add a bullet point list describing your responsibilities and achievements. Try to also include key phrases from the job listing where relevant.

Dates matter more than you might think: CareerOneStop’s work experience guide notes that “resume scanning systems often filter for specific length of time employed.” Start each bullet point with a strong action verb and say what you did, for whom, and what changed as a result. Use numbers you could explain in an interview.

Example (illustrative): Accountant, [Firm name], [City, State] | [Month Year] to [Month Year]

• Prepared profit and loss statements, balance sheets, audits and tax reports for [number] mid-sized corporate clients.
• Cut clients’ annual tax bills by up to [your figure] by reviewing deductions and asset depreciation schedules.

Education

If you have limited relevant work experience, you might want to move the education section above your work history. For example, this could apply to you if you’re a new graduate or looking to change careers to something more in line with your major. Otherwise, keep the education section below your work history. If you’re a college student with little work experience, our guide to making a resume as a college student with no experience shows what to put first.

Keep the section brief. List your most recent education first: the degree or credential, the school (with its city and state if they’re not in its name), and the year you finished. CareerOneStop’s education guide notes that older workers might leave off a graduation date, “since it calls attention to their age.” If you have a college degree, you don’t need to list your high school diploma. Whether to add a GPA depends on how recently you graduated and how strong it is; our guide to putting your GPA on a resume covers when it helps.

Example (illustrative):

• Master of Arts in Corporate Communication, The City University of New York, [year]
• Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Media Studies, Fayetteville State University, [year]

Certifications and/or Licences

CareerOneStop’s rule: “If you have certifications/licenses that are important to the job, create a separate section for them, otherwise include them in the Education section.” For each one, give the official name, the organization that issued it, and the date you earned it or when it expires. If you’re not sure which credentials your target job requires, you can look up your state’s licensing requirements through the Department of Labor’s CareerOneStop tool.

Example (illustrative):

• Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute, earned [year]
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services, expires [year]

Affiliations and Memberships

If you have several relevant professional memberships, give them a section of their own and list the most important first. Name any leadership role, such as committee chair or chapter officer. With only one membership, you can mention it in your summary instead.

Example (illustrative):

• Member, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), [year] to present
• Committee Chair, American Marketing Association, [chapter name] chapter

Resume Headers to Leave Out

These four don’t need a heading of their own. Your contact details sit under your name, references can wait until an employer asks, hobbies earn space only when they show you can do the job, and internships and volunteer roles can usually go in your work history.

Contact Details

Your contact details need to be on your resume. They don’t, however, need a header. You can just list them under your name. Make sure you include your phone number, email address, and any relevant links, e.g., to a personal website, portfolio, or your fully updated LinkedIn profile.

Should you put your full address on your resume? No. Your city and state are enough, as the table above shows.

Should you put a photo on your resume? For jobs in the U.S., no, unless the posting asks for one; then follow its instructions. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in its guidance on prohibited employment practices, says employers “should not ask for a photograph of an applicant” and that, if one is needed for identification, it “may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted.” A photo also tells the reader nothing about whether you can do the job. If you’re applying in another country, check that country’s conventions and the employer’s instructions.

What else to leave off: your date of birth or age, marital status and other personal details. The EEOC’s guidance is that what employers ask before hiring should be limited to what’s needed to judge whether someone is qualified, and that information about “race, sex, national origin, age, and religion” is irrelevant to that decision.

References

There’s no need to include your references on your resume, or even that single outdated sentence: “References available upon request.” Recruiters and HR managers will decide if and when they want to see references—usually during the final stages of the interview process—so skip this section entirely to save precious space. We cover the full reasoning in our guide to putting “references available upon request” on your resume.

Hobbies

Do your hobbies demonstrate your aptitude for the job in question? If so, you can work them into the Skills, Certifications, or Affiliations sections. If not, they don’t need to be on your resume.

If a personal project produced something relevant to the job, such as an app you built or a community event you organized, list it as a project or under Skills, with what you did and what came of it. An interviewer who wants to know about your interests can ask.

Internships and Volunteer Experience

Internships and volunteer roles belong on your resume. What you can usually skip is a separate heading for them. Put internships, and volunteer roles with real responsibility, in your work history with clear titles, such as “Marketing Intern” or “Volunteer Coordinator,” so they sit where the reader looks for experience.

The one exception: if you have several shorter volunteer commitments, list them together under a Volunteer Experience heading instead of giving each one a full entry.

Example (illustrative): Marketing Intern, [Company], [City, State] | [Month Year] to [Month Year]

• Coordinated a local social media campaign for [product or event] and reported weekly results to the marketing manager.

Resume Section Order at a Glance

Here is a common order, from top to bottom, for someone with a few years of work experience. Students, career changers and people in licensed fields such as nursing often use a different one; the table in our guide on what to put on a resume gives the usual order for each.

1. Header: your name, then a single line of contact details
2. Headline (optional): the job you’re applying for
3. Professional Summary
4. Work History
5. Skills (above Work History when the job depends on them, or when you’re changing careers)
6. Education (above Work History if you’re a new graduate or have recent training for the job)
7. Certifications and licenses, when they matter for the job
8. Optional sections, such as Professional Affiliations, Awards, Projects or Languages

If an employer’s posting or application tells you how to format your resume, follow its instructions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• Should your job title go in your resume header?

  It can, as a headline: a line under your contact details that names the job you’re applying for, or a very short tagline that sums up your key qualification. Match the title to the posting when it honestly describes you. If you’re moving into a new field, the headline can name the job you want, as long as your summary and skills show why you fit it.

• Can applicant tracking systems read your resume header?

  Usually, when your name and contact details are typed at the top of the page itself. The risk is the word processor’s header area: CareerOneStop’s formatting guide advises, “Avoid putting important information in the header or footer, since some ATS systems cannot read text placed inside these.” Keep your contact details as plain text in the body of the page, not in a text box, a table or icons, and don’t use extra spaces or special characters in your name. No layout guarantees a resume gets through screening, but a plain header gives the software less to misread.

More resume tips

Resume Templates With the Header Already Set Up

Once you know what goes at the top and which sections to use, a template sets up the layout for you to adjust.

The Rocket Resume builder suggests a structure for your resume based on your experience, then offers work experience examples and skill suggestions for your job title.

We have millions of template settings that will help launch your job search.

Start building your resume today.