Resume sections
Work experience: one block per job, dates a parser can sort
Give each job one block: employer, official title, city, and dates a parser can sort. Use a heading Workday already maps — Work Experience or Professional Experience. Then write three to five bullets with a verb, a noun, and a number or tool. Skip contractions that break Taleo date sorts.
Written by EnhanceCV Editorial Team·Editorial review: CPRW
Published August 27, 2026·Last updated August 27, 2026
Key takeaways
- · One block per role: company, title, city, month–year. Workday and Greenhouse hang fields from that shape.
- · Heading: Work Experience or Professional Experience — not “My journey” or a briefcase icon.
- · Dates as “Mar 2022 – Present” or “03/2022 – 11/2024.” “’22–now” and “summer-ish” break Taleo sorts.
- · Three to five bullets on the most relevant job. Older roles can take two. Duties without a noun are not finished.
- · Export selectable text, then check the parse so employer and dates still exist after the extract.
One block per job: employer, title, city, dates
Key takeaway: If the recruiter cannot see who employed you and when, the bullets do not matter. Parsers are worse: they will not store what they cannot tokenize.
Start every role the same way, even if the work was contract, intern, or promotion. Company name as the employer knows it. Official title — the one on the offer letter or badge. City and region (remote is a location: “Remote, US” beats a blank). Dates immediately beside or under the title, not in a thin sidebar.
Workday maps employer, title, start, end. Greenhouse search hits those strings plus the bullets. If the company line is a logo only, both miss. If the title lives in a text box, Taleo may attach it to the previous job and your timeline looks like a gap. That is how people get rejected for “inconsistent history” when the PDF looked fine.
Promotions at the same employer: one company heading, then stacked titles with their own dates, or two blocks if the work changed enough that mixed bullets would confuse a screen. “Acme Corp — Analyst (2019–2021), Senior Analyst (2021–2024)” is readable. Repeating the company three times with identical bullets is noise. See mid-career resume for stacking versus cutting.
Contract and agency work: put the client and the agency in the same block so the employment graph does not look like a hole. “Analyst, ClientName (via AgencyName), Jun 2023 – Jan 2024.” iCIMS will still want a single employer field — pick the name on the pay stub for the form, and keep both names in the PDF line. For the rest of page order, resume format and how to write a resume.
What not to hide in the header line
- Do not replace the company with a parent corporation unless that is what colleagues would search.
- Do not invent a title from the posting. Parenthetical translation is allowed; a fake Director line is not.
- Do not omit months if a gap of ten months would otherwise look like two years. Month + year is the default.
- Do not put only years when you are hiding a layoff you could explain in one line — employment gap.
Internships belong here if they used the same tools as the posting, not in a hobbies cloud. Students: internship resume and student resume. Unpaid clinic or a capstone can be a block if it is the strongest proof; label it honestly (Practicum, Capstone, Volunteer) so a background check is not surprised.
Date formats Workday sorts and contractions Taleo breaks
Key takeaway: Month and year, a real hyphen or en dash, Present for current roles. Cute abbreviations are how the timeline shuffles.
Safe: “Mar 2022 – Present”, “March 2022 – Present”, “03/2022 – 11/2024”, “2022-03 – 2024-11.” Risky: “’22–now”, “2022 to current”, “summer 22 / fall 24”, “ongoing!!”. Taleo and some Workday tenants tokenize month names and numeric months. They do not tokenize vibes. If two jobs overlap, say so with real dates; overlapping gig work is common and better than a fake sequential story.
Present vs Current vs Today: pick one word and stay consistent. “Present” is the usual ATS-friendly token. Do not write “Present” on a job you left in April. After upload, open the Workday preview. If End Date is blank on a past role, the parser missed the hyphen or the date sat in a column it read last. Fix the file. Retyping the form and leaving a broken PDF means the next recruiter still opens the broken PDF.
Layoffs and gaps: keep the real end date. One line in the summary or a single bullet under the last role (“Role ended in a reduction in force, Apr 2025”) is enough. A skills-only resume makes the hole look larger. Functional layouts that hide dates under skill clouds still parse in Greenhouse and still distrust humans. Keep chronology.
Two jobs at once: two blocks, overlapping dates, different employers. Do not merge them into “various clients” unless you were truly a freelancer with a business name — then that business is the employer and clients go in bullets. For file type while you test dates, PDF vs Word still applies: the ATS on that page wins.
Heading words that map
- Work Experience, Professional Experience, Employment History — mapped.
- Experience — usually mapped. Safer with Work or Professional in front.
- “What I do,” briefcase icons, or a timeline graphic — unmapped or scrambled.
- Separate “Relevant experience” and “Other experience” only if both still have dates; otherwise you taught the parser to ignore half the timeline.
Country notes: some EU CVs put dates on the left in a table. That can work for humans and fail Workday. If you are uploading into a US tenant, use the US-shaped block even if your Anschreiben is in German. Same facts. Different wrapper. Pair with workday resume format.
Rewrite weak experience lines: three before-and-after transforms
Key takeaway: A header line without dates, or bullets that could sit on anyone’s file, is not ready for Greenhouse search.
Fix the block header first, then the bullets. Pretty verbs on a missing employer still fail. For more bullet patterns, resume bullet points and resume achievements.
Before
Acme. Helper. 2022-ish to now. Responsible for a lot of things on the team.
After
Acme Logistics — Warehouse Coordinator, Dallas, TX, Mar 2022 – Present. Scheduled inbound appointments in WMS for a 12-dock facility.
Before
Promoted several times at BigBank (titles mixed in one paragraph, no dates per title).
After
BigBank — Senior Analyst, New York, NY, Jan 2021 – Jun 2024. Analyst, Jul 2018 – Dec 2020. Same employer, stacked titles, each with dates.
Before
Worked with stakeholders to improve processes across the board while wearing many hats.
After
Mapped the returns process in Asana for a 12-person warehouse team, cutting average refund cycle from 9 days to 4.
Customer service and clinical-adjacent work: name the queue and the system (Zendesk, Epic) in the bullet, not only in a skills cloud. Software: ship a system in the bullet, keep the stack under Skills — software engineer resume. Analysts: SQL in Skills, the business question in the bullet — data analyst resume.
Stop at three to five bullets on the role that matches this posting. Older roles: two, or a one-line header with no bullets if they only prove continuity. A two-page dump of every task is how a hiring manager never reaches the line that would have gotten you the screen.
A 12-step playbook to rebuild Experience in one evening
Key takeaway: Do headers and dates before you polish verbs. A beautiful bullet under a missing company is still a failed parse.
Ninety minutes with the job ad and your last file. If you want a known-good layout, start in the Enhance CV builder and paste one role at a time into the body.
- List every role from the last 10–15 years on scratch paper: employer, title, city, start, end.
- Delete roles that do not help this posting and are not needed to explain a gap or a background check.
- Create one block per remaining job. Type company, title, city, dates in the body — not in a header box.
- Use month + year. Write Present only on the current role. Kill “’22–now” and “summer-ish.”
- Stack promotions under one company with separate date ranges per title.
- For agency work, put client and agency in the same header line.
- Under the most relevant role, draft 8 messy bullets of things you actually did. Do not polish yet.
- Delete anything that does not help this posting. Move leftovers to the master file.
- Rewrite remaining bullets as verb + object + number or tool. Read them out loud.
- Older roles: two bullets or a header only. Consistent punctuation and tense (past for past jobs).
- Export selectable text. Confirm you can highlight every date.
- Paste resume and job into the ATS checker. If an employer or date is missing, fix columns and boxes, then upload to Workday or Greenhouse.
Step 2 is not “delete anything unpaid.” It is “delete the weekend retail job from 2011 unless it teaches a tool in the ad.” Relevance beats completeness. Completeness belongs on a CV or a federal form, not on every corporate Apply click.
If two target fields need two stories, keep two files. LinkedIn can be broader; the Workday attachment cannot. Product manager and project manager are different nouns in Greenhouse.
Experience choices that parse versus ones that scramble the timeline
Key takeaway: If the choice is not in the table: will Workday store employer and dates, and will a human still follow the story on a phone?
Keep this beside the draft. Design templates love timelines. Parsers love left-aligned month–year.
Experience decisions that survive Workday versus ones that shuffle jobs
| Topic | Do | Don’t |
|---|---|---|
| Heading | Work Experience / Professional Experience. | Icons, “My journey,” or no heading. |
| Dates | Month + year, Present on current jobs, consistent format. | ’22–now, years only to hide a gap, or dates only in a sidebar. |
| Promotions | Stack titles under one employer with per-title dates. | One blended paragraph with no dates per title. |
| Contracts | Client + agency in one line. | A gap that is really a contract you did not name. |
| Bullets | 3–5 on the relevant role; verb + noun + proof. | 12 duty lines, or “responsible for” with no object. |
| Layout | One column, selectable text, dates next to the role. | Two columns that put dates in the right rail Taleo reads last. |
Functional resumes still show up in career-change advice. Keep chronology and add Selected Projects if you must show proof outside paid titles — career change resume. Do not make the reader reconstruct when you worked.
Edge cases: gaps, first jobs, dual employment, and overqualification
Key takeaway: The block shape stays. You only change which proof you put first and how you label the dates.
Gap. Real dates. One plain sentence. Caregiving, layoff, study, visa wait. A mysterious two-year hole is worse than a short line. Details: employment gap resume.
No paid work yet. A practicum, capstone, or internship block with the same tools as the posting. “Coursework:” is weak. “Built a 4-page intake form in Google Apps Script used by a 6-person clinic” is a bullet. Pair with resume with no experience.
Overqualified. Cut early bullets that scream you want the manager’s job. Keep recent scope honest. Mirror the posting’s seniority nouns without pretending you have not led people — put leadership in a line, not in a fake target title.
Self-employed. The business name is the employer. Clients and revenue range in bullets if you can defend them. “Entrepreneur” alone is not a title Workday searchers use; “Bookkeeper, Hale Ledger LLC” is.
Classified or sensitive employers. Use the real name if you can. If you cannot, a cleared-style line (“U.S. government contractor, analyst, 2019–2023”) plus what you can say in bullets. Do not invent a commercial brand.
What to do today: pick one posting, run the 12 steps, export selectable text, check the parse. If dates are missing, kill the sidebar before you rewrite another adjective. The Enhance CV home page takes you back to the builder and the checker.
FAQ
How do you list work experience on a resume?
One block per job with employer, official title, city, and month–year dates, under a heading like Work Experience. Then three to five bullets on the role that matches this posting, each with a verb and a noun or number. Keep it as selectable text so Workday and Greenhouse can store employer and dates.
What date format should you use on a resume?
Month and year, with Present on the current role: “Mar 2022 – Present” or “03/2022 – 11/2024.” Avoid “’22–now,” “summer-ish,” and years-only when you are hiding a gap a one-line note could explain. After upload, read the Workday date fields. If they are blank, the PDF did not parse.
How many jobs should you list?
The roles that help this posting, usually the last 10–15 years. Merge very short gigs at the same employer. You do not owe a recruiter every weekend job from college unless it teaches a tool in the ad. Relevance beats completeness on a corporate ATS file.
How do you show a promotion?
Keep one company heading and stack titles, each with its own date range. Or two blocks if the work changed completely. Do not bury promotions in a paragraph without dates. Parsers and humans both need to see when each title started.
Should contract work list the agency or the client?
Both, in one line, so the timeline does not look like a gap. Use the name on the pay stub in the Workday form if the tenant allows only one employer, and keep client plus agency in the PDF. “Various clients” without dates still looks like a hole.
Can you use a functional resume to hide dates?
You can upload one. You should not. Greenhouse may parse it; humans distrust it; Workday still wants start and end. Keep chronology. If you are changing fields, add projects under dated roles. See chronological vs functional.
How many bullet points per job?
Three to five on the most relevant recent role. Two on older roles. Zero bullets on a very old job that only proves continuity — a header line can be enough. Twelve duty lines on every job is how the proof you need never gets read on a phone.
Why did Workday mix up my job titles and dates?
Usually columns, text boxes, or dates in a header. Sometimes a missing heading so the parser glued two jobs together. Put each role in one column in the body, month–year next to the title, then check the tenant preview and an ATS checker before you apply.
Build the next experience block in a layout parsers map
Open the Enhance CV builder, type company, title, and dates in the body, and rewrite the bullets that still read like a job description. Then score the file against the posting.