Your resume should always include your name and contact information, a summary of your work experience, your relevant skills, and your education and/or certifications.

At its most basic, a resume is a summary that helps an employer decide whether or not you are relevant for a job. After reviewing a resume, an employer will decide to reject a candidate for interview them for the position. The resume is the first, best, and often only document that will be used to make that decision. So, it’s important to include the right information on your resume.

Your resume should never include a picture of you, but it should include your name, a phone number, and an email address. Make sure the phone number is one you can answer during business hours or has a voicemail set up on it (with a professional sounding voicemail message that includes your name). Use an email address that contains your first and last name, and doesn’t contain any inappropriate or unprofessional language. Try to use a simple email address such as “firstname.lastname@domain.com” and not words related to your interests, hobbies, or pop culture such as “AnimeFan420@domain.com.”

Next, your resume should include your work history in reverse chronological order. Include the company name and your job title at each company. For each role, include a few bullets that explain what you were responsible for, what actions you took, and what the results for the business were. Make sure each bullet you write is relevant to the job you are applying for by matching items from the job description to your experiences. Include more bullets (3-5) for your more recent jobs, and fewer bullets (1-3) for your older jobs.

Include a short list of 3-10 skills that you have that are relevant to the job. Each of these should be a single word, or a short phrase. Since each of these skills should be relevant to the job description, you don’t need to provide an explanation for the skills. For example, you may list programming languages you are proficient in, software that you have been trained on, or general skill categories like customer service, accounting, or project management. Be sure to include languages you speak, and your proficiency level for each one (limited, conversational, advanced, or professional).

Finally, add your education and any relevant certifications you might have. You should list the highest level of education you have completed: some high school, high school diploma (or equivalent), some college, associates degree, bachelor’s degree, or advanced degree. Only list certifications that relate to the job. For a Linux Administrator role, you would want to list your Red Hat Certification because that is directly related to the role. You would leave off your CPR certification, because that doesn’t explain why you’d make a good Linux administrator.

These are the basics that every resume you write should have on it. There’s lots more you could add. It’s optional to include volunteer experience, coursework, projects, and a professional objective to name a few. Whether you choose to include other information or not, always make sure that each item you add to a resumé speaks to a requirement in the job description and would explain to a reader why you would be a good match for that role.