A journalist resume is a concise job application document that demonstrates your skills and experience in investigating, interviewing, writing, and more. Its purpose is to showcase your competence to hiring managers and potential employers, helping you land your desired job.
This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to write a journalist resume that grabs attention and presents you as an adept professional. We’ll give you detailed instructions on how to write each section and show you expert-made examples you can use for inspiration. Let’s dive in!
Key Takeaways
The best format for most journalist resumes is the chronological resume format.
A catchy resume objective or summary that highlights your key strengths can grab the recruiter’s attention and convince them to focus on the rest of the document.
The work experience section is typically the most important, so it should take up most of your resume.
Optional sections can add a lot of value to your application as long as the information they contain is relevant to the role you’re applying for.
Journalist Resume Format: Which One Should You Use?
There are several ways to format your journalist resume to arrange its contents in an optimal order.
The most common format by far that works well for the majority of candidates is the chronological resume format. It lists your past jobs and accomplishments in reverse chronological order, giving recruiters an orderly view of your career’s progress. Plus, the format is compatible with the ATS, so it can help you pass software screening.
There are two other formats used in specific cases, and they are:
Other Popular Formats
Functional resume format, which is best used for a journalist resume with no experience. This format puts your skills in the spotlight to help you emphasize your key strengths when you lack a professional history.
Combination (hybrid) resume format, which features elements from chronological and functional formats. This format also focuses on skills, but it supports each one with relevant achievements. This makes it perfect for candidates who have employment gaps in their work history.
Resume templates
Resume templates that are designed to help you win a jobJournalist Resume Layout
To make your journalist resume visually appealing, you need an elegant layout. In addition to making your resume aesthetically pleasing, a good layout also boosts the legibility of your document.
Here are some guidelines to help you create an impeccable one:
Resume Layout Guidelines
In the vast majority of cases, your resume should be concise and one page long.
Choose a professional font for your resume (e.g., Times New Roman or Helvetica).
Font size should be 10–12 pt for regular text and 14–16 pt for section headings.
Margins should be at least 1 inch and uniform on all sides.
Line spacing should be 1.0 or 1.15.
Journalist Resume Sections
There are five core sections every journalist resume should have, and they are:
Resume Mandatory Sections
Contact information
Resume summary/objective
Work experience
Education
Skills
Following that, you can include as many optional sections as you want, as long as they are relevant to the role you’re after, and don’t make your resume too long. Some of the best additional sections for a journalist resume include:
Resume Optional Sections
Personal projects
Publications
Languages
Hobbies and interests
Now that you know the basics of your journalist resume format, layout, and section division, you can craft a professional document from scratch. However, there’s no need to start with a blank page since you can use our tailor-made resume builder to help you speed up the process and minimize the chances of making a mistake.
Our software comes with numerous journalist resume templates you can use or customize to your liking. Afterward, you simply input your information in predesignated spots, and your resume will be ready for submission in minutes.
Here’s one of the many journalist resume templates you can find when you use our resume builder:
Journalist Resume Template
Name and Surname
Phone number: 000-000-0000 | Email: namesurname@gmail.com | Location: City, State
[Adjective] [your job title] with [years of experience, if applicable] in [your area of expertise, if applicable] looking for a [position] job at [company name]. Eager to apply [relevant skills] gained through [work/volunteer/other experience] to help [company name] [mention what you can do for the company].
Work Experience
Most Recent/Current Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For recent jobs, use 5-6 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Previous Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For recent jobs, use 5-6 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Oldest Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For older jobs, use 2-3 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Education
[Degree] in [Major] [University/college name] [Start date] - [Graduation date]
Skills
Soft Skills
Skill #1
Skill #2
Skill #3
Skill #4
Skill #5
Hard Skills
Skill #1
Skill #2
Skill #3
Skill #4
Skill #5
Additional Sections
Add any relevant additional sections (languages, licenses, publications, hobbies, etc.)
How to Add Contact Details to Your Journalist Resume
Contact information goes in your resume’s header. It’s a standard section where you should briefly and orderly list the following details:
Header mandatory Details
Your name
Job title
Phone number
Email address
It’s optional, but highly recommended, to include relevant social media, especially LinkedIn, and any other relevant info, such as a personal website, newsletter, etc.
Here’s what that looks like in an example:
Contact Information Example
Eduardo Callahan Journalist + 949 258 0817 eduardocallahan@example.com linkedin.com/in/eduardo.callahan Santa Ana, CA
Employers are prohibited from discriminating during recruitment, so you should avoid including any sensitive information. Details like your age, marital status, gender, and religious or political affiliations can result in your resume being outright dismissed, as employers don’t want to risk getting in trouble.
How to Write a Journalist Resume Objective/Summary
Objective and summary are introductory sections for your journalist resume. They should be brief (between two and four sentences), highlighting your biggest strengths to grab the recruiter’s attention.
Entry-Level Journalist Resume Objective
If you’re an entry-level professional, you should write a journalist resume objective. Use it to emphasize your key skills and highlight your career goals, demonstrating long-term thinking and commitment.
Here’s a good example:
Good Example
“Recent graduate with a bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication seeking an entry-level position. Led a college newspaper club, authoring more than 30 articles on school events. Adept at using MS Word, WordPress, and Adobe Creative Suite. Looking to bring a fresh perspective to your organization on the road to becoming an editor-in-chief.”
For comparison, here’s a bad example that lacks any substance and showcases no concrete qualities:
Bad Example
“Entry-level journalist looking for a job. No work experience, but I’m a fast learner.”
Experienced Journalist Resume Summary
A journalist resume summary is best written when you have a work history. You should use this paragraph to showcase one or two exceptional accomplishments and give recruiters an idea of your capabilities.
Let’s start with a good example:
Good Example
“Awarded journalist with more than 7 years of experience in the field looking for a senior position at Santa Ana Weekly. Wrote 150+ in-depth stories covering politics and business, achieving an average reader engagement of 43% and boosting website traffic by 23%. Eager to bring extensive expertise in investigative reporting to your esteemed organization.”
If you don’t include any concrete details about your efforts or work-related results, you’ll end up with a poor resume summary, like in the following example:
Bad Example
“Highly experienced journalist looking for a senior position. Adept at covering a variety of topics.”
How to List Professional Journalist Experience
In most cases, the professional experience section is the most important one in a journalist resume. Let’s learn how you can make it perfect.
General Tips
Your work experience section is vital, as recruiters look at your past efforts to predict your future performance. To give them an orderly view of your professional experience, you should list your past jobs in reverse chronological order.
For each previous job, you should include:
Job title
Company name
Employment dates
Results and achievements
Avoid mentioning jobs that are irrelevant to the role you’re applying for. Your goal should be to emphasize the skills and qualifications that recruiters are looking for in candidates.
Here are some tips to help you polish your professional experience section:
Use bullet points instead of blocks of text, and aim for 3–5 bullet points per job.
List notable achievements and exceptional results over everyday tasks and assignments.
Use action verbs and power words to make your writing more impactful.
Leverage numbers to add measurable value to your achievements and make them stand out.
Journalist With No Experience
If you’re writing a journalist resume with no work history, you can include substitute activities to craft a professional experience section. For instance, you list your academic accomplishments, volunteer experience, or internship, write a freelance journalist resume, and more.
Here’s a good example:
Journalist With No Experience Example
Work Experience
Journalist Intern
Arizona Mail
Phoenix, AZ
July 2023–August 2024
Contributed to more than 35 published stories by conducting research to assist journalists and managing editors.
Wrote briefs for the daily newsletter, contributing to a 13% increase in open rates.
Collaborated with social media teams on post copies, boosting article engagement by 11% and website visits by 7%.
Experienced Journalist
As an experienced journalist, you want to demonstrate a diverse set of accomplishments and a wide array of abilities. For instance, on top of your role-specific skills, you can emphasize your capacity to contribute to an organizational level. This includes showcasing your leadership skills and managerial prowess.
Here’s an example:
Experienced Journalist Example
Work Experience
Journalist
The Monthly Report
Santa Ana, CA
February 2017–Present
Promoted published articles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram to gain a 17% increase in online following and an 11% boost in website visitors.
Managed a team of 7 junior journalists, including conducting their onboarding processes and providing mentorship for their first six months in the company.
Won the 2024 Journalism Excellence Award for in-depth reporting on a company conglomerate’s environmental law violations.
Journalist Resume Education Section
In most cases, the education section should be brief, showing your highest degree.
Here are the details to include:
Education Mandatory Details
Your degree
The institution that issued it
Years of attendance
And here’s what that looks like in practice:
Journalist Resume Education Section Example
Education
Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies
Santa Ana College, Santa Ana, CA
2013–2017
If you’re an experienced journalist with an extensive work history, this is enough. However, if you’re a recent graduate or an entry-level professional, you can use this section to validate your expertise.
One of the best ways to do that is to add bullet points with notable academic accomplishments. You can mention relevant coursework, extracurricular activities, abroad studies, and even a high GPA.
Journalist Resume Skills
Your journalist resume skills section should neatly and concisely display your skill set. The trick to creating a list of skills that portray you as the best candidate for the role is including those abilities you know recruiters want to see.
That’s why you should research the company and read the job ad to determine the qualifications recruiters seek in candidates. Cross-reference those with your abilities, and you’ll have a tailored list of skills to add to your journalist resume.
To truly make your resume skills pop, you should also mention them throughout your resume, next to relevant achievements. This is best done in the resume summary and work experience sections, and it helps prove your competence.
Journalist Hard Skills
Hard skills are job-specific and a must-have when applying for a job. Here are some of the most notable hard skills for journalists:
Hard Skills
Interviewing
Investigative reporting
Research
Photography
Video editing
Photojournalism
Game coverage
Journalist Soft Skills
Soft skills are typically obtained through experience. They are often interpersonal and transferable between roles. Some of the most sought-after soft skills include:
Soft Skills
Attention to detail
Time management
Collaboration
Organization
What Other Sections to Add to Your Resume
Other sections can help you further demonstrate your competence, increasing your chances of landing the job.
Personal Projects
Personal projects highlight a proactive approach to work. They indicate your passion for journalism and storytelling, signaling that you go above and beyond what’s required. Personal projects can be anything from blogs or podcasts to independent investigative efforts.
This section is particularly effective for entry-level journalists, as it can compensate for a lack of work history.
Publications
Publications add to your credibility and expertise, and having notable ones in your resume means you’re recognized as an authority in your field. You can use this section to show the influence you have, boosting your chances of impressing the recruiter.
When adding publications to your journalist resume, it’s essential to choose an appropriate citation style and use the reverse chronological order since recent publications are often more relevant.
Languages
Language skills can offer a significant advantage to journalists looking for a job. Depending on the role (e.g., when writing for diverse audiences or conducting interviews without translators), proficiency in foreign languages can be a must.
When adding language skills, you should pick the established framework of reference and list them in descending order.
Hobbies & Interests
Hobbies and interests add a touch of personality to your journalist resume. This humanizes your document and helps single you out among the competition. Recruiters can also mention your hobbies and interests to break the ice during an interview.
Another benefit of this section is that it can emphasize some of your soft skills, such as leadership, organization, and teamwork. Still, this section should be short, only briefly mentioning your biggest hobbies and interests.
Do I Need a Cover Letter as a Journalist?
You need a journalist cover letter to supplement your resume and significantly boost your chances of landing an interview. While this document is often optional, submitting it demonstrates determination and willingness to go the extra mile.
Plus, you get a whole new document to showcase your skills and qualifications. However, you shouldn’t use your cover letter to simply restate the information already present in your resume. Instead, talk about your motivation and accomplishments that you haven’t mentioned previously.
Cover letter templates
Create a cover letter by filling in a free template and sharing it for free.5 Final Tips for Creating a Journalist Resume
As we bring this comprehensive guide on writing journalism resumes to a close, let’s examine a few final tips that can further help improve it:
Modify your resume for each new job you apply for. This allows you to highlight only those skills and accomplishments relevant to the role. Due to the concise nature of a resume, you should aim for quality over quantity. Recruiters aren’t interested in abilities and achievements that aren’t required for the position in their organization.
Omit personal pronouns from your resume objective or summary. This way, you’re shifting focus from the fact that you’re looking for a job to what you have to offer to the employer. Show what you bring and how they can benefit from hiring you, and you’ll get ahead of the competition.
Avoid jargon. The written language in your resume should be professional. While you want to leverage action verbs and power words that highlight your knowledge of the craft, you shouldn’t use jargon and overly obscure terminology that might reduce the document’s legibility.
Proofread your resume. The last thing you want as a journalist applying for a job is a typo or a grammatical mistake in your resume. That’s why you should meticulously review the document to ensure your writing is spotless. You can also ask a friend or a mentor to give your resume one final look before you submit it.
Make links clickable. Any links you add to your resume (e.g., a link to your LinkedIn profile in contact information or a newsletter in the personal projects section) should be clickable. This makes it easy for recruiters to visit them and shows attention to detail on your end.
3 Expert-Made Journalist Resume Examples
Here are three complete examples of journalist resumes. You can use them to consolidate your knowledge or as inspiration when writing your resume.
Let’s start with an example of a journalist resume for an entry-level position:
Here’s a complete journalist resume example for an accomplished professional:
Lastly, here’s a sports journalist resume example that emphasizes skills and experiences specific to that type of journalism:
Closing Thoughts
The job outlook for journalists, news analysts, and reporters is at a decline of -3%. However, that still leaves about 4,500 new openings every year between 2023 and 2033. If you’re looking to get ahead of the competition and secure one of those spots, the best way to start is with a well-written journalist resume.
Remember to carefully read the job ad and look into the company to find out the exact qualities recruiters look for in candidates. This will allow you to tailor your resume, showcase your most relevant abilities and experiences, and get one step closer to a job interview and the role of your dreams!
