How to Write An Amazing Work Experience Section of Your Resume

CVJury Editorial Team
Modified On April 5, 2024
Reading Time: 6 minutes

SUMMARY: Learning how to write your work experience in a resume can help single you out from other job hunters.

In the resume work experience section, you’re proving to the hiring managers that you are qualified for the job.

You may create strong impressions on your prospective recruiter and land the interview if you do it right.

Here, we’ll offer eight essential tips to consider when tackling work experience in resume writing.

Keep reading for valuable insights.

How to Write a Compelling Work Experience Resume Section

A resume work experience section can make or break your chances of landing a dream job.

You’re likely to breeze through other areas of your resume but find the work experience section challenging.

Perhaps you fail to figure out anything worth mentioning or remember anything you did. But this doesn’t have to be the case.

So, how do you write a resume work experience section that stands out?

There’s no doubt you have the necessary skills to get the position.

Still, your prospective employer must prove that you’re worth the job offer.

And this is where your resume work experience section will come into play.

Most job seekers struggle to write a concise and compelling resume work experience section.

This section in your resume should clearly and concisely showcase that you have the necessary qualifications.

So, use the section to portray yourself as a likable person that the employer must invite for an interview.

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The work experience section is one critical component for adding essential skills for your resume to be effective.

It should be compelling enough to grab the prospective employer’s attention and prove you’re the right candidate.

Make this section relevant to the job you’re applying for and accurately highlight your accomplishments.

Also, ensure you show the value you can bring to the company if offered the job.

But don’t worry if you find writing the work experience section challenging.

In this article, we’ll give you eight tips on how to write a resume work experience section that stands out from the rest.

So, let’s get rolling, shall we?

Introduce Your Experience

The hiring manager will need to learn about your professional experiences.

And since the first impression matters a lot, you should introduce your experiences compellingly.

Also, make it easy for the hiring manager to get the information they’re looking for by listing experience in reverse chronological order.

Here are some of the things to include when introducing your experience.

Organizations You Worked for and Their Locations

Mention companies you worked for and where they were.

Start with the most recent company, followed by the next most recent.

And to keep everything relevant, include companies you’ve worked for in the last ten years.

Incorporating companies that serve the same interests as the one you’re applying for will increase your chances of landing the interview.

When writing about the locations of the companies, mention the towns or states where they were.

Employment Dates

Indicate when you started working for each organization and when you stopped.

The best way to include employment dates is by using the month-year format.

For example,
Jan 2018 – Sept 2021

January 2018 – September 2021

01/2018 – 09/2021

If you have several gaps in your work experience, explain briefly why.

Job Titles

Your prospective employer needs to know your job titles in each company you’ve included.

If you want to stand out from other job hunters, provide different job titles relevant to the one you’re applying for if that is your situation.

In that case, your employer will know you have the necessary skills after working in different positions.

Be Honest About Your Job History

Everything you include in the work experience section must be factual.

Whether it’s the companies you’ve worked for, the locations of these companies, or dates of employment, everything should be factually correct.

Honesty is one of the soft skills hiring managers will look for when recruiting.

You don’t want to get embarrassed when your interviewers note that you lied in a given section.

Also, being dishonest may tarnish all the skills and accomplishments you’ve worked so hard to earn.

Include Strong Action Verbs

Your word choice matters a lot when writing work experience in a resume. The idea here is to make your prospective employer visualize your contributions.

Use strong action verbs to introduce your duties, responsibilities, or accomplishments. Also, ensure you vary action verbs to avoid all your descriptions sounding the same.

These are some of the action verbs you might consider using in your resume work experience section:

supervised
assisted
adapted
built
cooperated
exchanged
implemented
awarded
fostered

For more action words, see our list of 250+ action verbs for your resume.

When introducing ongoing activities, use the present tense.

Use past tense to introduce activities in which you’re no longer involved.

Mention Any Awards, Honors, or Accolades

If you have any awards, honors, or accolades you received during your past employment, you can include them.

They show the accomplishments you made working for other companies.

Including awards, honors, and accolades gives the hiring manager a better idea of what you can accomplish in your field of work if they give you the opportunity.

The thing is, awards, honors, or accolades don’t have to be shiny.

Some of the professional awards you can put in your resume work experience section include:

Employee of the Month awards
Leadership awards
Innovation awards
Top performer awards
Volunteering awards

Ensure you include the title of your award, the year awarded, who gave you the award, and why you won the prize.

These awards can help increase the chances of landing the interview faster than your competitors, who don’t include any awards.

List a Few Skills You Developed

You won’t land that dream job without proving you have the necessary skills.

The prospective recruiter will know you can succeed by listing some of your best skills.

Often, job seekers find it difficult to identify the skills needed to include.

To make it easier, assess your achievements or strengths that coworkers recognize.

Ensure you include a mix of hard and soft skills.

Every type of job will have a set of technical skills.

These skills are more specialized and are often measurable.

Some of the hard skills you might include are:

Data analysis
Mathematics
Project management
Computer software and application knowledge
Writing skills
Calendar management
Shipping
Referral marketing
Contract negotiation
Lead prospecting, among others

On the other hand, soft skills (people skills or social skills) come naturally or are strengthened over time.

You can apply soft skills in any job. Some of the top soft skills to include are:

Problem-solving
Critical thinking
Flexibility
Communication skills
Teamwork
Creativity
Organization skills
Attention to detail
Responsibility, among others

For a comprehensive list, see our 24 categories of soft skills you can choose from for your resume.

Explain Why Your Experience Makes You the Perfect Candidate

Your prospective employer will review your resume work experience section, asking, “What do you have to offer my company?”

Most jobseekers think listing their responsibilities, skills, and achievements will make them stand out.

The hiring manager seeks an employee to fill a gap and solve the problem.

After highlighting your responsibilities, accomplishments, and best skills, you can further prove you’re the right candidate.

The good thing is you have already mentioned that you worked elsewhere and made a few achievements.

You can use this chance to clear any doubts by stating that you have all it takes to be the right candidate.

Use your previous successes and best skills to elaborate that you will do everything possible to make such contributions if offered the job.

Final Thoughts

You now have the best tips to write a resume work experience section that stands out.

After verifying that you provided the necessary information, you can head to other areas of your resume.

But before that, ensure you conclude your work experience section with a sentence summarising how well-equipped you are for the job.

How to Write An Amazing Work Experience Section of Your Resume