Career Tips

Writing an Effective Resume or CV

An effective resume or curriculum vitae (CV) concisely describes your key professional accomplishments and experience, and is required for all applications at Amazon. Note: The use of the term resume vs CV varies by country. For the purpose of this article, we will use the term resume, but the tips are applicable to both types of documents.

Don't have a resume? Or need to update it? Learn more below.

Format Your Resume for Easy Reading

You want your resume to make an impression fast. Typically, first round resume reviews are done quickly, meaning important information may be missed if the resume is hard to read, poorly organized, or too long. Check out the formatting Do's and Don'ts below, and if you don't have a resume, try our resume template.

Do's of resume formatting

  • Include specialized skills, education and work experience (starting with the most recent job first).
  • Use bullet points to call attention to important accomplishments, skills or experiences.
  • Use the STAR method to highlight key accomplishments (more on this in the next section).
  • Include your phone number and an email address that you check regularly.
  • Use our resume template.

Don'ts of resume formatting

  • Don't exceed 2 pages for a resume, and 1 page is strongly preferable.
  • Don't use a format that is tough to read (avoid uncommon fonts, colors, or excessive formatting).
  • Don't format text inconsistently.
  • Don't make grammatical or spelling mistakes (have someone you trust proofread your resume).

Write Powerful Bullets with the STAR Method

Your resume should focus on what you did in the job, NOT what your job was. There's a difference!

The best way to make sure the Hiring Manager understands your accomplishments is to use the STAR method to write powerful bullets for each of your work experiences. Start by thinking through these questions:

  • Situation: What was your role?
  • Task: What was the task? And why was it important?
  • Action: What did you actually do?
  • Result: What was the results and impact of the actions you took?

Once you have those thoughts written out, combine them into a bullet while following these tips.

Do's of resume bullets

Don'ts of resume bullets

  • Don't write more than 3 lines per bullet (ideal is 1-2).
  • Don't stop with just your role's responsibility.

Example of how to use STAR for resume bullets

BEFORE

Amazon.com, Inc. - Orlando, Florida

Process Guide

  • Quantify the impact of your action on the team's goals and key results (use percentages, dollars, number of employees).

STAR METHODOLOGY

  • Situation: Served as a process guide in the stow department.
  • Task: Improve safety and standard work
  • Action: Coached 20 Associates per shift on key injury-prevention techniques (20% more than other Process Guides)
  • Result: Safety incidents per month within the stow department fell from 5 to 1 incident.

Now that we have our thoughts organized, let's choose a strong power verb. See here for a list of suggestions for power verbs.

“Coached” captures what we did pretty well, and let's make sure to include the impact and data points from our STAR brainstorming. The result could look like:

AFTER

Amazon.com, Inc. - Orlando, Florida

Process Guide

  • Coached 20 stow Associates per shift (20% more than most Process Guides) on injury-prevention techniques, which reduced safety incidents from 5 to 1 incident per month.