Resume creator: start from scratch

Creating a resume from scratch goes faster when you treat it as four smaller tasks: gather your history, choose a structure, turn your notes into lines, then pick from everything you found to make the page yours. Take them in that order and you never sit in front of an empty page wondering what to type. A resume creator handles the layout, so most of what follows is about what you say.

Where do I find my work history when I'm starting from nothing?

In the paperwork you already have. Memory blurs job titles and dates, and a past employer asked to confirm them will go by its own records, so take yours from the documents too. Look through these and copy what you find into one list:

• Offer letters and welcome emails, for your exact job title and first day
• Your first and last pay stubs from each job, for the months you started and left
• Old W-2 forms, to check which years you worked for each employer
• School transcripts and diplomas, for the official name of each degree or program and when you earned it
• License and certificate cards, for each credential's full name and the body that issued it

Missing some W-2s? An IRS wage and income transcript shows the ones filed for you, for the current tax year and the nine before it. Don't trim anything yet: choosing from a long list is far easier than inventing from a short one.

Which section should lead my new resume?

The one that best shows you can do the job you want. For most people that's work experience, with the newest job at the top. For students and people with little work history, it's education; keep dates on every job below it. Then sort everything else under plain headings, with licenses and certificates under Certifications and the tools you know under Skills.

You can reorder sections later, so this choice isn't final. The resume format guide compares the layouts in more depth, and if you've never had a paid job, start with how to create a resume with no experience.

How do I turn my notes into resume lines?

Give each note three parts: a verb for what you did, the task itself and the result it led to. If your offer letter or the job posting you applied to lists your duties, start there. Say a stylist's posting listed "hair color and cutting services". Her line might read "Colored hair for up to eight clients a day, and two in three booked their next visit before leaving." Begin with your latest job, where the details are freshest, and work back from there.

This is where a resume creator saves the most time. Type in a job title and the creator offers expert suggestions to start from; you make each one true with your own numbers. You'll find the rest of what our resume creator does further down this page. For more on phrasing each part of a resume, read how to write a resume.

Which items from my long list make the page?

The ones that point toward the job you want next. You kept everything in the first stage so you'd have this choice, and two people with the same history could fairly choose differently. Say the stylist above also placed the salon's product orders and trained two new assistants:

• If she wants a senior stylist job, her color work and her rebooking figure lead her newest job, and her color course goes under Certifications.
• If she wants to run a salon, the product orders and the assistants she trained move up, and her cutting and color work shrinks to one line.

Either way, her titles and dates go in exactly as her paperwork shows them, and any suggested line she keeps must describe work she really did. Choosing what leads is the part no template or suggestion can do for you. If you wonder whether the extra care is worth it, the hiring research below puts numbers on the competition.

Create your resume with Rocket Resume

Once your history is gathered, Rocket Resume's resume creator turns it into a finished page. It takes you through your resume section by section, offers AI-enhanced expert suggestions as you add each job and sets it all in one of the starting designs on this page, each one ATS-friendly. Change designs whenever you like without retyping, and read how it went for other job seekers before you begin. From here, it takes four steps:

1. Open the creator, say how long you've been working and pick a starting design.
2. Work down your list, newest job first, and let each title bring up expert suggestions.
3. Shape the lines you keep into verb, task and result, and lead with the section that best fits the job you want.
4. Before you download, check every job title and date against your paperwork list.

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