A resume for the US usually has no photo, runs to 1–2 pages and is printed on US Letter paper. The 11 designs below suit students and open in the free builder with our sample student resume filled in, and the checklist further down shows what to change before you apply in the US.
A US resume is short, factual and focused on results. Most people with under ten years of experience keep it to one page, and two pages is normal for senior candidates. It leaves out the photo, date of birth, marital status and other personal details that employers avoid because of anti-discrimination rules. Jobs run in reverse-chronological order with month and year dates, and each bullet leads with an action verb and a measurable outcome.
Each design below opens in the free builder with our sample student resume, Aditya Kulkarni, Graduate Software Engineer, already filled in. The list further down takes that sample section by section and shows what to change before you send it to an employer in the US.
Why the sample works: Aditya’s internship bullets quote response times and test coverage, so a hiring engineer can judge real technical depth instead of reading a list of languages. Both resumes place CGPA and relevant coursework in the education line, answering the first filter most campus recruiters apply before reading further.
No photo. Most US employers prefer not to see one. None of the designs below has a photo slot.
Length
One page under about ten years of experience; two pages for senior roles.
Paper size
US Letter size (8.5 × 11 inches), not A4. Pick US Letter in the builder before you download.
Personal details
Name, city and state, phone, email and LinkedIn URL only.
Dates
Month and year for each role, not just the year, listed newest first.
Spelling
American English: organize, color, center, résumé usually written as resume.
Section names
Call it a resume. The usual order: Contact information, Professional summary, Skills, Work experience, Education, Certifications, Projects or volunteer work.
File
PDF is common; submit a Word file if the portal or posting asks for it.
The sample student resume, adapted for the US
Header
Keep Aditya Kulkarni and “Graduate Software Engineer”, then city and state, phone, email and a LinkedIn URL only. No photo, date of birth, nationality or full street address.
Professional summary
“Final-year B.Tech Computer Engineering student with two software internships, a full-stack capstone project and a strong grounding in data structures. Builds React front ends and Spring Boot services, writes unit tests by habit and has shipped code used by real users.” A US professional summary runs two to four lines and names the role, the level of experience and the strengths that matter most for the posting.
Skills
Java, Spring Boot, React, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, Git and GitHub, JUnit, Docker basics.
Work experience
Software Engineering Intern, Series-B logistics technology startup: “Built three REST endpoints in Spring Boot for shipment tracking, cutting average response time from 800 ms to 240 ms with query indexing. Wrote over 90 JUnit tests for the billing module, lifting its line coverage from 41 to 78 percent.” Earlier: Web Development Intern, mid-sized digital services agency. Start each bullet with a past-tense verb and say what changed because of the work; three to six bullets for recent roles, fewer for older ones, and keep it to one page under about ten years of experience.
Education
B.Tech, Computer Engineering (final year), private engineering college affiliated to a state university. Education goes after experience once you have a few years of work. List degree, school, city and state; a GPA only if it is strong and recent.
Certifications
Oracle Certified Associate, Java SE; NPTEL course in Data Structures and Algorithms (Elite).
Leave out
Leave out “references available upon request” and any objective statement, which US recruiters now read as filler.
