What Does a Resume Look Like in 2025? [Examples & Expert Tips]

Below is a practical, up-to-date guide that you can copy, complete with examples that you can use directly in your document.

The 2025 Resume: Quick Snapshot

• Length: 1 page for <10 years’ experience; 2 pages for senior roles or deep technical work.
• File type: PDF unless the employer says Word (.docx) or a portal requires pasting.
• Font & size: System fonts (Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Inter). 10.5–12 pt body, 13–16 pt headings.
• Margins & spacing: 0.5–0.75" margins, tight but breathable line spacing (1.05–1.2).
• Sections (typical order): Header → Headline & Summary → Skills (grouped) → Experience → Projects or Portfolio → Education → Certifications → Extras (awards, languages, volunteer).
• Style: Skills-based, metric-first bullets, simple headings, no image headshots, no tables for core content.

What Recruiters Expect to See at a Glance

Think of a recruiter’s first 7–10 seconds:

• Top-left: Your name and role headline (example: Senior Data Analyst | SQL • Python • BI).
• Top third: A short, specific summary that says who you are, what you deliver, and what you’re targeting.
• A compact Skills block: Clustered by category, not a grocery list.
• Experience bullets: 3–6 per role, each with a measurable outcome.
• Proof: Numbers, ratios, time saved, dollars made, risk reduced, satisfaction raised.
• Noise removed: No objectives (“seeking a role…”), no full addresses, no “References available.”

The 2025 Resume Layout (Anatomy)

1) Header

• Name (largest text on the page)
• Location (City, State/Province) | Phone | Email | LinkedIn (custom URL) | Portfolio/GitHub (if relevant)

Tip: Use a single line with separators (• or |). Keep it simple so parsers read it cleanly.

2) Role Headline + Summary (3–4 lines, not a paragraph block)

Headline example: Product Marketing Manager — B2B SaaS | Pricing, Launch, Lifecycle

Summary example (human + specific):

B2B SaaS marketer with 7+ years owning pricing tests and launches across PLG and enterprise motion. Known for measurable lift: +22% trial-to-paid in 6 months, 14% reduction in churn via lifecycle campaigns. Comfortable with SQL-light analysis, mixed-method research, and tight partner alignment.

3) Skills (Grouped)

Group by Tools, Technical, Domain, Soft/Team to help both humans and parsers.

Example:

• Technical: SQL, Python (pandas), Looker, Tableau, Fivetran, GA4
• Marketing Ops: HubSpot, Marketo, SFDC, Segment, Outreach
• Domain: Pricing & Packaging, PLG, Lifecycle Marketing, Voice of Customer
• Team: Roadmapping, Stakeholder Alignment, Experiment Design

Keep this block honest and curated. If everything is “expert,” nothing is.

4) Experience (Outcome-first bullets)

Each role gets:

• Company | Location | Job Title | Dates (MMM YYYY—MMM YYYY)
• 3–6 bullets, each with a verb + scope + action + measurable outcome
• Use real numbers. If you can’t disclose dollars, use ratios or percentages.

Bullet formula:
Verb + what you touched + how you did it + what improved by how much

Example bullets:

• Rebuilt onboarding emails with event-based triggers, cutting time-to-value by 34% and improving week-2 activation by +19%.
• Launched pricing page experiment (3 versions, 6 weeks), leading to +11% paid conversion and +8% ARPA.
• Partnered with Sales Enablement to script ICP talk tracks, shortening cycle length by 9 days.

5) Projects or Portfolio

If you’re an early-career professional or changing fields, consider sharing 1–3 projects with links, brief context, and outcomes.

Example:

• Churn Prediction Model (Python, scikit-learn). Built a logistic model using 50k rows; AUC 0.84. Deployed as a weekly dashboard to flag risk. Reduced voluntary churn by 7% in a pilot cohort.

6) Education

• Degree | School | Graduation year (or “Expected YYYY”)
• Add relevant coursework if you lack experience, and it sells your fit.

7) Certifications & Extras

• Certifications (e.g., PMP, AWS SAA, Google Data Analytics)
• Languages (with proficiency)
• Awards (1–2 lines max)
• Volunteer (only if it strengthens your story)

ATS-Friendly Without Looking Robotic

Most companies still use some form of automated screening. Here’s how to be ATS-clean without making your resume look like a bot wrote it:

• Plain section headings: “Experience,” “Education,” “Skills,” “Certifications.”
• No text in images. Avoid text boxes, headers/footers for key info, and heavy tables.
• Spell out acronyms once: Applicant Tracking System (ATS)—then you can use ATS later.
• Mirror role keywords. Pull 6–10 phrases from the job post and use them naturally where they honestly fit.
• Use standard dates: “Jan 2021—Mar 2024” (not 01/2021).
• Export to PDF from Word or Google Docs to preserve layout, unless told otherwise.

Want a quick gut-check? Calculate your Resume Score against the role requirements, then run the file through a Resume Parser to verify the system reads your name, title, dates, and skills correctly.

Two Ready-to-Use 2025 Resume Examples

Below, two fully modern examples. Adjust headings, verbs, and metrics to your story.

Example A: Early-Career / Career Switch (1 page)

ALEX RIVERA — Toronto, ON | 555-555-0142 | alex.r@email.com | linkedin.com/in/alexriv | github.com/alexriv
Data Analyst (Entry-Level) | SQL • Python • BI

Summary
Analyst with a psychology background pivoting to data. Completed 6 months of hands-on projects: SQL queries, Python analysis (pandas), and BI dashboards. Strong on stakeholder questions and translating findings into actions. Seeking an analyst role on a product or marketing team.

Skills

• Technical: SQL, Python (pandas, matplotlib), BigQuery, dbt (basics), Looker Studio
• Analysis: A/B testing, cohort analysis, funnel metrics, survey design
• Team: Documentation, stakeholder interviews, presentation

Projects

• Sales Funnel Dashboard (Looker Studio). Combined CRM exports + product events to build a funnel with segmented conversion rates; identified 2 steps with the highest drop-off; proposed a test that raised MQL→SQL by +13% in a mock scenario.
• Customer Churn Mini-Study (Python). Cleaned 12k-row dataset, engineered features, trained logistic model (AUC 0.78), and visualized top predictors; recommendations reduced simulated churn by 5.6%.
• Survey Insights for Onboarding. Designed a 12-question survey (n=204); analysis showed setup confusion at step 3; rewrote instructions and reordered UI labels for a class project.

Experience
Community Coordinator, Lakeside Nonprofit — Toronto, ON | 2023—2024

• Managed volunteer scheduling for 60+ people; built a simple sign-up tracker in Google Sheets, cutting no-shows by 28%.
• Aggregated donor data and produced quarterly charts; the board used them to focus outreach on 3 high-yield neighborhoods.

Education
BA, Psychology — University of Toronto | 2023
Certificate, Data Analytics — Springboard | 2024

Certifications
Google Data Analytics (2024)

Example B: Experienced Professional (2 pages max)

PRIYA MENON — Austin, TX | 512-555-0199 | priya.m@email.com | linkedin.com/in/priya-menon | portfolio: priya-pm.com
Senior Product Manager | B2B SaaS • PLG • Platform

Summary
Product leader with 9+ years owning platform features for B2B SaaS (security, billing, integrations). Mix of PLG and enterprise motions. Known for shipping fast, cutting toil, and lifting revenue metrics with data-first decisions.

Skills

• Product: Roadmaps, OKRs, discovery interviews, JTBD, experiment design, PRDs
• Tools: Jira, Productboard, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Tableau, BigQuery (SQL)
• Domain: Billing & Entitlements, SSO/SAML, Partner Integrations, Usage-based pricing
• Team: Cross-functional leadership, exec comms, stakeholder alignment

Experience
Senior Product Manager, CloudSync — Austin, TX | 2021—Present

• Led rollout of usage-based pricing with entitlements service; +17% expansion revenue and +9% net retention in first year.
• Prioritized and shipped SSO/SAML flow; enterprise win rate increased by 14%; security review time cut from weeks to <3 days.
• Built Amplitude dashboards for activation and retention; drove +12% month-2 retention by focusing on one key setup step.
• Coached two PMs; both promoted to mid-level roles.

Product Manager, Taskly — Remote | 2018—2021

• Owned integrations roadmap (Slack, Jira, Salesforce); integrations’ active users grew +31% YoY.
• Introduced opportunity-solution trees; reduced “idea-to-PRD” cycle time by 35%.

Education
BS, Computer Engineering — UT Austin | 2016

Certifications
Pragmatic PMC-III | AWS Cloud Practitioner

Awards
2023 CEO Award: Revenue Impact

Skills-Based Hiring Is Real—Design for It

In 2025, many teams screen on skills + proof before titles. Reflect that in your layout:

• Group skills by competency and place them above Experience if you’re switching careers or targeting a technical role.
• Back every listed skill with a project or bullet where it was used to deliver an outcome.
• Pull job-post keywords and echo the language (accurately). If they say “Lifecycle Marketing,” use that term, not a synonym, where it’s true.

Modern Design: Subtle, Not Loud

Good design helps readers find the right facts fast. You don’t need color blocks or two columns to achieve that.

• Hierarchy: Name (largest), Headings (next), Body (standard).
• Whitespace: Short bullets; 1–2 lines each.
• Icons: Skip them. ATS doesn’t need them; humans don’t rely on them.
• Color: If you must, one muted accent for headings or your name.
• Two columns? If you use them, keep the main content (Experience) in the wider column and ensure a clean PDF export.

Common Mistakes (And Easy Fixes)

• Vague summary: Replace with 2–4 tight lines naming your outcomes and target role.
• Duty bullets: Convert to result bullets using the 4-part check.
• No dates on roles: Always include month & year.
• Too many skills: Cap at ~12–18, grouped.
• Irrelevant job from years ago: Keep one line if it sells a transferable skill; otherwise, drop it.
• Typos: One typo can sink you. Print and proof once on paper.

Final Word: Keep It True, Keep It Tight

A 2025 resume isn’t a life story; it’s a proof sheet. If a stranger can skim the top half and repeat back “Here’s who you are, what you do well, and the results you deliver,” you’re ready to apply. If not, tighten, quantify, and simplify.

And if you want a quick pressure test before you send it, do two things: check your Resume Score against the job’s keywords and requirements, then run your PDF through a Resume Parser to confirm it reads your contact info, titles, dates, and skills correctly. If both checks look clean, and your bullets show real impact, you’re in 2025 shape.