Which sections should every resume have?

Contact details, work experience (or its equivalent), education and skills. These answer the core questions every employer has: who you are, what you have done, what you have learned, and what you can do.

The essentials:

• Contact details: name, phone, email, city and country, and a professional link if useful.
• Work Experience: jobs with titles, employers, dates and achievement bullets. For students, Internships, Projects or Volunteer Work can fill this role.
• Education: your highest relevant qualifications.
• Skills: relevant tools, methods and abilities.

Most resumes also benefit from a short professional summary at the top, two to four lines that tell the reader what you offer.

Everything else, such as Certifications, Languages, Awards or Projects, is optional and depends on your field and the job. A clean resume with the essentials done well beats a long one with many thin sections.