Resume Statistics 2022 (Analysis of 133,000 Documents)

We’ve extracted and analyzed data from 133,000+ resumes created on Zety. Here’s what candidates across all industries write about their job histories and skills.

Michael Tomaszewski, CPRW

Career Expert

Updated 12/13/2022

As seen in:

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Is your resume up to par? How does it compare to other resumes from your industry? We’re here to help you find out.

After countless hours spent with our data science team, a couple weeks’ worth of sleepless nights, and a few double espressos too many—

We’re proud to present our hottest piece of state-of-the-art resume data so far.

We’ve analyzed data from over 133 thousand documents created in our builder. We wanted to see what candidates across the most popular professions write about their job histories, career objectives, and skills.

Plus, we aimed to find out how today’s job seekers approach their job hunt. What are the keywords they use to describe their expertise? How long are their resumes? How many different versions of a resume each user creates?

The data we’re presenting concerns three key characteristics of resumes created by candidates in different fields.

Key resume features analyzed

1. Sections used

What “typical” resume sections (Personal Information, Resume Objective/Resume Summary, Work History, Education, Skills, Certifications, Languages, Software, etc.) candidates in a given field use.

2. The most common skills

The lists of the most common skills feature singular skill items entered in the “Skills,” “Software,” or “Certifications” sections.

3. The most important resume keywords

Finally, we analyzed all words used by candidates on their resumes to and applied the TF*IDF (short for term frequency—inverse document frequency) statistic to identify the most profession-relevant keywords used by candidates in a given field. We ran separate analyses for nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

The data presented below is divided into general data extracted from all downloaded resumes and specific data from resumes for 10 most common professions.

What we learned about all resumes (and how you can use it to boost your job search)

First, let’s discuss what an average resume for a job created in 2022 looks like. (Spoiler alert: job seekers tend to make fundamental mistakes you can avoid to outperform most of your competition with little effort).

Resume length

Average resume length: 489 words (standard deviation of 310 words)
Median resume length: 369 words

Distribution (limited to resumes no longer than 1000 words):

For a typical resume created in our builder, about 380 words is the single-page cut off point. The data clearly shows that an average user tries to keep her resume one page long.

Is this the ideal strategy, though? Nope, not at all.

Contrary to the popular belief, nowadays recruiters prefer two-page resumes. Data shows that recruiters are 2.9x more likely to pick a candidate with a two-page resume for managerial roles and 1.4x more likely for entry-level positions.

What’s more, 77% of employers say seasoned workers should NOT use a single-page resume.

The takeaway is simple: in 2022 and beyond, to boost your chances of scoring an interview, you should use a two-page resume. Especially if you’re an experienced professional. First of all, that’s what recruiters expect. Secondly, that’s what your competitors are not doing.

But this was not the worst resume sin we’ve discovered. Here’s the biggest, most common mistake most job seekers make:

How many resumes per user?

Average: 1.73 resume per user
Median: 1 resume per user

The statistics above are particularly worrying: the most effective job-hunting strategy is to customize each resume to match the requirements from the job ad (63% of recruiters want to receive resumes tailored to the open position). To do so, it’s advised to create a new resume for each job application. Yet—most users prefer to create one generic resume and send it with all job applications. Here’s why it’s such a grave mistake:

On average, 10% of job applications result in interview invites.
Out of those who land the interview, 20% are offered the job.
Depending on the study, the job application success rate is between 2% and 3.4%.
This means that, on average, you need to send between 30 and 50 resumes to get hired.

That said—

Certain job seekers do create multiple resumes to fit the needs of various employers. Some take it to extreme: we’ve seen 17 users with over 100 resumes created. Our first thought? They’re using our tool to run their own resume-writing business and create documents for *their* clients. We checked. Not the case. All those resumes were written by users for their personal use—they just made minor tweaks and alterations in key skills and job duties described.

The user with the most resumes created 339 of them. Is this the exact approach we’re looking for when saying “tailor your resume to match the job ad?” Maybe not. Is it more effective than spamming the same resume around 300+ companies? A non-scientific guess: at least 10x more effective.

So far, it’s not looking too good, right? Let’s dive into the actual contents of a typical resume.

What resume sections do job seekers use?

A vast majority of the users whose resumes we analyzed included the 5 main sections:

Standard, “must-have” resume sections:

Personal Information: 99.85% of resumes
Work Experience: 98.33%
Education: 97.25%
Skills: 89.81%
Summary or Objective: 88.75%

Solid! What’s particularly heart-warming from a career expert’s perspective is how common the “Skills” section, as well as the heading statement (Summary or Objective) are.

See, recruiters want to learn about your skills. In fact, not using a list of professional skills can hurt a resume as much as one year of unemployment. When it comes to the heading statement, despite the controversy, it’s best practice to use one—just don’t make it read like the old-school “career aim,” and focus it more on what you can bring to the table.

Also, contemporary job seekers don’t stop at “standard” resume sections. Most of them use at least one “additional” resume section to show they have an extra string in their bow.

The bottom line for you: in order to stand out from the crowd, use at least one or, ideally, a few additional sections in your resume to back up your qualifications).

Below you’ll see the most popular additional resume sections.

Additional sections:

Any additional section: 66%
Languages: 31%
Certificates: 27%
Additional Activities: 21%
Interests: 19%
Software: 18%
References: 16%
Courses: 11%
Licenses: 5.5%
Publications: 5.3%
Conferences: 4.7%
Legal Clause: 4.7%*

*In some countries, personal data processing regulations oblige job seekers to give prospective employers consent to having their data processed during recruitment.

Don’t have the time to get certified? Attend industry conferences and brag about it on a resume. Only 4.7% of job seekers list conference participation yet every recruiter will be interested to learn more about conferences you took part in (yes, you can list conferences in which you participated without giving a talk).

Finally, let’s look into the most common skills job seekers list on resumes.

Why is it important to you? Think about it this way: demand generates supply. If certain skills are used on resumes more often than others, it probably has something to do with recruiters expecting to see those skills.

I’m not saying you should stuff your resume with whatever skills you see below. But if you feel you have those skills, do mention a few. Pay close attention to soft skills (“people” skills in particular) and don’t neglect basic software skills such as MS Office—you’d think proficiency in Microsoft’s products is implied and not worth mentioning on a resume yet it’s the gold standard and not listing it might make your job application look suspicious.

Top 10 most common “soft” skills listed in resumes

Communication: 11% of resumes
Leadership: 9%
Time Management: 8%
Problem Solving: 7%
Customer Service: 5%
Teamwork: 5%
Adaptability: 4.3%
Organization: 2%
Creativity: 1.7%
Conflict Resolution: 1.6%

Top 10 most common “hard” skills listed in resumes

Microsoft Office: 12% of resumes
Project Management: 6%
Microsoft Excel: 6%
Python: 3.8%
Salesforce: 3.6%
Java: 3%
SQL: 2.9%
Microsoft Word: 2.7%
JavaScript: 2.4%
Public Speaking: 1.9%

Top 10 most common foreign languages listed in resumes

Spanish: 5.7% of resumes
French: 4.1%
Arabic: 3.6%
Hindi: 2.9%
German: 2.8%
Russian: 1.5%
Italian: 1.2%
Portuguese: 1%
Mandarin: 0.9%
Tamil: 0.8%

Table of Contents (Most Common Professions)

1. Software Engineer: 1720 resumes analyzed