What to include on a personal resume page

A public page and the file you send are different documents

The resume file goes to a named recipient for a stated purpose, and even then you lose control of where it is forwarded. A public page has no recipient at all. Anyone with the address reads it, search engines may index it, and copies are made without your knowledge and kept after you have changed the page. Every decision about what to include follows from that difference.

So the page is edited down from the file, never the other way round. Content that exists to let a reader decide whether to contact you belongs on it: what you do, where you are, what you have done, how to reach you. Content that exists to identify you administratively, to pay you or to check your background belongs on the file you send, or on the employer's own form later, or nowhere public at all. A useful test is whether you would be comfortable seeing the line on a poster in a railway station with your name above it.

What belongs on the public page

The public set is small and it is enough. Each item below gives a reader something to act on without giving a stranger something to misuse. Write it in the same plain style as the resume, and keep every fact consistent with the file, because a reader who has both will compare them.

• A headlinewhat you do, in one line, without a job title you have not held.
• A location at city level, with a note on remote work or relocation if either is true.
• A short summary of two or three lines that could only be about you.
• Selected experienceemployer, title, dates and one or two results for the roles that show your direction.
• Skills you could be questioned on, named as the field names them.
• Educationthe qualification, the institution and the year.
• One link that worksa portfolio, a code repository, publications or a professional profile.
• A way to reach you that is not your personal phone number: a work or dedicated email address, or a contact form.

What belongs only on the file you send

Some details are right on a resume sent to one employer and wrong on a page anyone can read. They move onto the file at the moment there is a recipient, and they stay off the page indefinitely. The market you apply in decides a few of them; our market guides cover what each country expects on the document itself.

• Your phone number, once there is a named person to give it to.
• A full postal address, in the markets that still expect one on the document.
• The complete work history, including roles that do not show your direction.
• Referees, supplied when asked, with each person's consent and current details.
• Salary expectations, notice period and availability: in the form or the conversation, not on either document.
• Identity documents and numbers, through the employer's own channel after an offer, never on a resume or a page.

What belongs nowhere public

The list below is not about taste. Each item is either something a stranger can use to impersonate you or to contact people who did not agree to be contacted, or something an employer is not meant to weigh and should not be handed. None of it helps a reader decide whether to get in touch, which is the only job the page has.

• Date of birth and age.
• National identity, tax, social insurance and passport numbers, in any country; our market guides explain the local ones.
• Bank details, and any image of an identity document or a signature.
• Your street address.
• Marital status, children, religion, and any other detail an employer is not meant to consider.
• Referees' names with their contact details; they are somebody else's private information.
• Current or past salary.
• Anything about a current employer's work that is not already public.

A fictional page outline

The outline below describes the shape of the fictional example page on this site: Maya Chen, a product designer in Calgary, who is invented and not a real person. It shows what a page holds and in what order, not what any real page says.

• Headlineone line saying what she does and for whom, with no target title.
• LocationCalgary, Alberta, and nothing more precise.
• Contactone email address and one portfolio link, with no phone number.
• Summarytwo lines on the kind of design work she does and how she works.
• Selected experiencetwo design roles, newest first, each with employer, title, dates and one or two results.
• Projectstwo or three pieces of work, each in a sentence, with the detail living behind the portfolio link.
• Skillsthe tools and methods she would be comfortable being questioned on.
• Educationthe qualification, the institution and the year.
• Not on the pagestreet address, date of birth, phone number, salary, referees, and any client detail that is confidential.

How the personal webpage here works

A personal webpage here is built from a resume that has already passed its checks: either your master resume or the verified resume of one of your applications. There is one page per account. It is private to search engines until you turn indexing on, and you can unpublish it. Your email address, your phone number, your location and each link are separate switches, so each of those is shown or hidden on its own, which is how the public set described above is kept apart from the details that stay on the file you send.