Choose from a wide range of NEWCV resume templates and customize your NEWCV design with a single click.
Use ATS-optimised Resume and resume templates that pass applicant tracking systems. Our Resume builder helps recruiters read, scan, and shortlist your Resume faster.
Use professional field-tested resume templates that follow the exact Resume rules employers look for.
Create Resume
Use professional field-tested resume templates that follow the exact Resume rules employers look for.
Create ResumeA strong Canadian resume template is simple, targeted, and easy for both recruiters and applicant tracking systems to read. In Canada, your resume should usually be one to two pages, use a clean reverse chronological structure, and focus on relevant experience, measurable results, skills, education, and certifications. Do not include a photo, age, marital status, full street address, or personal details that do not help the hiring decision.
The best Canadian resume template is not the fanciest one. It is the one that helps a recruiter understand, in seconds, what role you are suited for, what you have done, and whether your experience matches the job. That is the part many candidates miss. A resume is not a biography. It is a hiring document.
Most Canadian employers prefer a clean, reverse chronological resume because it makes screening faster. Recruiters are not reading your resume like a novel. They are scanning for fit, risk, relevance, and proof.
Here is the basic Canadian resume structure I recommend for most job seekers:
Full Name
City, Province
Phone Number
Professional Email
LinkedIn Profile
Portfolio, Website, or GitHub if relevant
Professional Summary
Two to four lines summarizing your target role, strongest experience, industry background, and most relevant value.
Core Skills
A focused list of skills that match the job posting and reflect your actual experience.
Professional Experience
Job Title
Company Name, City, Province or Country
Month Year to Month Year
Bullet points showing scope, achievements, tools, responsibilities, and business impact.
Education
Degree, Diploma, Certificate, or Relevant Training
Institution Name
City, Province or Country
Graduation Year or Expected Completion
One of the biggest mistakes I see is candidates trying to make their resume look impressive before making it useful. They add icons, columns, colours, graphics, ratings, photos, and design elements that look nice on a screen but often make the resume harder to process.
Here is the recruiter reality: I am rarely impressed by decoration. I am impressed by clarity.
A hiring manager wants to know:
Can this person do the job?
Have they done similar work before?
Are they at the right level?
Do they understand the industry or function?
Are there obvious gaps, inconsistencies, or unexplained jumps?
Is this resume easy to compare against other candidates?
A Canadian resume template should reduce friction. Every section should help the reader make a faster and better decision.
Certifications and Licences
Include only relevant certifications, professional licences, safety tickets, technical credentials, or industry specific training.
Technical Skills
Software, platforms, systems, tools, languages, equipment, or technical competencies relevant to the role.
Volunteer Experience, Projects, or Additional Experience
Use this only when it strengthens the application. Do not add it just to fill space.
That is the structure. The real work is deciding what earns space inside it.
This is why simple templates often perform better than creative ones. Not because recruiters dislike creativity, but because hiring is a comparison process. If your resume makes basic information hard to find, you are making the reader work harder than necessary. That is not a power move. That is a small administrative hostage situation.
Use this template as your starting point. Replace the bracketed text with your own details and tailor every version to the specific job.
[Full Name]
[City, Province]
[Phone Number]
[Professional Email]
[LinkedIn URL]
[Portfolio, Website, or GitHub if relevant]
Professional Summary
[Job title or target role] with [number] years of experience in [industry, function, or environment]. Skilled in [skill one], [skill two], and [skill three], with experience supporting [business outcome, customer group, operational area, or technical function]. Known for [relevant strength] and [relevant strength] in [type of workplace, team, or setting].
Core Skills
[Relevant skill]
[Relevant skill]
[Relevant skill]
[Relevant skill]
[Relevant skill]
[Relevant skill]
[Relevant skill]
[Relevant skill]
Professional Experience
[Job Title]
[Company Name], [City, Province]
[Month Year] to [Month Year]
Managed [scope of work], supporting [team, department, clients, customers, or business function].
Improved [process, result, metric, customer experience, compliance, efficiency, revenue, quality, or delivery] by [specific outcome if available].
Used [tools, systems, software, equipment, or methods] to complete [type of work].
Collaborated with [stakeholders, departments, vendors, customers, or leadership] to deliver [result].
Resolved [problem type] by [action taken], resulting in [measurable or practical outcome].
Maintained [records, reports, standards, documentation, safety requirements, service levels, or operational process].
[Previous Job Title]
[Company Name], [City, Province]
[Month Year] to [Month Year]
Delivered [main responsibility] for [customer group, department, project, or operation].
Supported [business area] by [specific action].
Achieved [result] through [method, process, or skill].
Trained, supported, coordinated, analyzed, maintained, processed, supervised, or improved [specific responsibility].
Worked with [systems, tools, people, or processes] in a [fast paced, regulated, customer facing, technical, unionized, remote, hybrid, or high volume] environment.
Education
[Degree, Diploma, Certificate, or Program Name]
[Institution Name], [City, Province or Country]
[Graduation Year or Expected Completion]
Certifications and Licences
[Certification or licence]
[Certification or licence]
[Certification or licence]
Technical Skills
[Software, system, tool, language, equipment, platform, or technical competency]
[Software, system, tool, language, equipment, platform, or technical competency]
[Software, system, tool, language, equipment, platform, or technical competency]
Additional Experience or Projects
[Project, Volunteer Role, Freelance Work, Placement, or Relevant Experience]
[Organization or Context], [Location if relevant]
[Year]
Completed [relevant work] involving [skill, tool, audience, or outcome].
Demonstrated [relevant ability] through [specific task or result].
A template is only useful if you know what each section is supposed to do. Many resumes fail not because the person lacks experience, but because the resume gives the wrong information in the wrong order.
Keep this section clean. Include your name, city, province, phone number, email, LinkedIn, and relevant portfolio links.
Do not include:
Full street address
Date of birth
Marital status
SIN number
Photo
Immigration status unless directly required for the application process
Personal identification details
Canadian employers do not need personal demographic details to screen your resume. Including them can make the resume look outdated and can create unnecessary risk for the employer.
Your email should also be boring. Boring is good here. A professional email is not where we need personality. Save the personality for the interview, not for something like hockeygirl1998 or bossmanforever.
Your summary should tell the recruiter what box to put you in. That sounds blunt, but this is exactly how screening works.
A weak summary says:
Weak Example
Motivated and hardworking professional seeking an opportunity where I can grow and contribute to a dynamic company.
The problem is not that it sounds bad. The problem is that it says almost nothing. I still do not know what role you fit, what you have done, or why I should keep reading.
A stronger summary says:
Good Example
Customer service professional with five years of experience in high volume retail and contact centre environments. Skilled in complaint resolution, CRM documentation, order support, and de escalation. Known for handling difficult customer situations calmly while maintaining service standards and accurate records.
This works because it gives me function, experience level, environment, skills, and practical value.
Your summary should answer:
What type of role are you targeting?
What experience do you bring?
What industries, environments, or functions have you worked in?
What are your strongest relevant skills?
What value would a hiring manager recognize quickly?
Do not use your summary to talk about being passionate unless that passion is attached to something concrete. Hiring managers do not hire passion in the abstract. They hire capability, judgement, reliability, and evidence.
Your skills section should not be a random drawer of keywords. It should act like a bridge between the job posting and your experience.
For most Canadian resumes, eight to twelve skills are enough. Choose skills that are relevant, specific, and believable.
Weak skills section:
Weak Example
Communication
Teamwork
Leadership
Microsoft Office
Problem solving
Hardworking
This is too generic. It could belong to anyone.
Better skills section for an administrative assistant:
Good Example
Calendar and inbox management
Meeting coordination
Travel arrangements
Microsoft Excel and Outlook
Vendor communication
Data entry and records management
Invoice processing
Office supply coordination
Confidential document handling
This gives a recruiter useful information. It shows the work, not just personality traits.
A recruiter does not search only for soft skills. We search for the work behind the soft skills. Instead of saying communication, show the communication context. Customer escalations, executive correspondence, stakeholder updates, client onboarding, patient intake, vendor coordination, and team training all tell me more than communication by itself.
This is where most hiring decisions start. Your experience section must show more than duties. It should show scope, context, tools, decisions, and results.
A weak bullet says:
Weak Example
Responsible for customer service.
A better bullet says:
Good Example
Handled 60 to 80 customer inquiries per day through phone, email, and live chat, resolving billing issues, order questions, account updates, and service complaints.
The good version tells me volume, channels, task type, and environment. That helps me assess level.
A strong experience bullet often includes:
Action
Scope
Tool or method
Business context
Outcome
You do not need every bullet to have a number, but you do need every bullet to carry information. Some candidates avoid metrics because they cannot access exact numbers. That is fine. Use scope instead.
Instead of saying:
Weak Example
Helped with reports.
Say:
Good Example
Prepared weekly sales and inventory reports for store leadership using Excel, helping identify stock gaps, fast moving items, and replenishment priorities.
That is more useful even without a percentage.
Place education after experience unless you are a student, recent graduate, career changer, or applying for a role where your education is the main qualifier.
For Canadian resumes, include:
Program name
Institution
Location
Graduation year or expected completion
Relevant coursework only if it matters
Academic awards only if they strengthen your candidacy
If your education is from outside Canada, include the original credential clearly. If you have a Canadian equivalency assessment, you can mention it if relevant. Do not try to disguise international education. Canadian employers hire internationally educated candidates all the time, but they need clarity.
This section matters a lot in regulated, technical, safety sensitive, healthcare, trades, finance, IT, project management, and operations roles.
Include certifications such as:
CPA
PMP
CPHR
WHMIS
First Aid and CPR
Smart Serve
Food Handler Certification
Forklift licence
Red Seal certification
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or cybersecurity credentials
Put critical licences near the top if they are required for the job. If a posting says the role requires a specific licence and you hide it at the bottom, you are making the recruiter hunt for the answer. Do not make people hunt for the thing that qualifies you.
Technical skills should be specific. Microsoft Office is usually too broad unless the role is entry level. If Excel matters, say Excel. If advanced Excel matters, mention pivot tables, VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, Power Query, dashboards, or reporting.
For technical roles, separate tools into categories if needed:
Programming languages
Frameworks
Databases
Cloud platforms
Ticketing systems
CRM systems
ERP systems
Reporting tools
Design software
Lab equipment
Do not exaggerate technical skills. Recruiters and hiring managers notice when a candidate lists every tool under the sun but cannot explain where they used them. A resume should position you strongly, not set a trap for your interview.
For most candidates, the best Canadian resume format is reverse chronological. That means your most recent role appears first, followed by previous roles in order.
This format works best because it answers the recruiter’s first questions quickly:
What are you doing now?
What did you do before?
Is your experience progressing logically?
Have you done similar work recently?
Are there gaps or changes that need context?
A functional resume, which focuses mainly on skills instead of job history, is usually weaker for most Canadian job applications. Candidates often use it to hide gaps, career changes, or limited experience. Recruiters know this. That does not mean functional resumes are always bad, but they can create suspicion when they make the work history hard to understand.
A combination resume can work well if you are changing careers, returning to work, or bringing transferable experience from another country or industry. But even then, I would still include a clear work history. Hiding your timeline rarely helps.
The safest structure for most people is:
Professional summary
Core skills
Professional experience
Education
Certifications
Technical skills
Additional relevant experience
That structure gives recruiters both context and evidence.
Canadian hiring culture values clarity, relevance, and professionalism. It is not about being stiff or boring. It is about knowing what information belongs in a hiring document.
Avoid including:
Photo
Age
Date of birth
Marital status
Religion
Nationality unless directly relevant to eligibility
Full mailing address
Personal health information
Salary expectations unless requested
References on the resume
The phrase references available upon request
Long objective statements
Unrelated hobbies
Graphics, charts, icons, and skill bars
Every job you have ever had if it is not relevant
References available upon request is one of those lines that refuses to retire peacefully. Employers know they can ask for references. You do not need to use valuable resume space announcing that references exist somewhere in the universe.
Also, avoid skill bars. Saying you are 80 percent skilled in Excel tells me nothing except that we have both been forced to look at a strange little graphic. Use real examples instead.
Applicant tracking systems matter, but candidates often misunderstand how they work. The goal is not to stuff your resume with keywords until it sounds like a broken job posting. The goal is to make your resume readable, searchable, and aligned with the role.
An ATS friendly Canadian resume should:
Use standard headings such as Professional Experience, Education, Skills, and Certifications
Avoid tables, text boxes, columns, headers, footers, and heavy graphics
Use simple fonts such as Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Times New Roman
Save the file as a Word document or PDF unless the posting says otherwise
Include keywords naturally from the job posting
Spell out important acronyms at least once where useful
Use consistent dates and job titles
Keep formatting clean and predictable
The ATS is not the only audience. A human still has to believe the resume. This is where many candidates go wrong. They optimize for keyword matching and forget that the hiring manager will eventually ask, “Does this person actually look right for the job?”
Use keywords where they reflect real experience. If the job posting says vendor management and you have done vendor coordination, contract follow up, invoice issue resolution, or supplier communication, use the right language. But do not claim vendor management if you only once emailed a supplier about a missing box of printer paper. That is not vendor management. That is office survival.
Tailoring does not mean rewriting your entire resume every time. It means adjusting the most visible parts so the resume matches the role more clearly.
Focus on these areas:
Professional summary
Core skills
First three to five bullets under your most relevant roles
Job title alignment where truthful
Technical skills
Certifications or licences
Project examples
Start by reading the job posting for repeated patterns. Look for:
Required skills
Tools and systems
Industry language
Type of environment
Level of responsibility
Stakeholders involved
Problems the employer needs solved
Then ask yourself a practical recruiter question: If I had only 20 seconds to decide whether this resume belongs in the yes pile, what would I need to see first?
Move that information up.
For example, if the job is a payroll administrator role and your resume buries payroll under general admin duties, you are weakening your application. Put payroll in the summary, skills section, and relevant experience bullets. Do not make the recruiter discover your fit like a hidden side quest.
Below are sample sections to show how the template works in practice. These are not full resumes for every profession, but they show the level of specificity that makes a Canadian resume stronger.
Professional Summary
Administrative assistant with four years of experience supporting office operations, scheduling, document management, vendor communication, and customer service. Skilled in Microsoft Outlook, Excel, calendar coordination, data entry, invoice tracking, and confidential records management. Known for keeping busy offices organized and reducing follow up work for managers and teams.
Core Skills
Calendar and inbox management
Meeting coordination
Microsoft Outlook and Excel
Vendor communication
Invoice tracking
Document preparation
Data entry and records management
Customer service
Office supply coordination
Confidential information handling
Professional Experience
Administrative Assistant
Northview Property Services, Toronto, Ontario
March 2022 to Present
Coordinate calendars, meetings, vendor visits, and internal office requests for a property management team supporting residential and commercial clients.
Prepare tenant notices, service documents, invoices, and internal reports using Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook.
Track maintenance requests and vendor follow ups, helping reduce missed updates and improve response time for property managers.
Maintain digital and paper records for leases, service agreements, invoices, and compliance documents.
Respond to phone and email inquiries from tenants, vendors, and internal staff while documenting issues accurately.
Professional Summary
Customer service representative with six years of experience in retail, call centre, and order support environments. Skilled in complaint resolution, CRM documentation, billing inquiries, account updates, and customer retention. Strong record of handling high volume inquiries while maintaining accuracy, professionalism, and service quality.
Core Skills
Phone, email, and live chat support
Complaint de escalation
CRM documentation
Billing and account inquiries
Order tracking
Customer retention
Data accuracy
Service recovery
POS systems
Professional Experience
Customer Service Representative
Mapleline Communications, Mississauga, Ontario
June 2021 to Present
Handle 70 to 90 customer inquiries per day through phone, email, and live chat, supporting billing, service changes, account updates, and technical troubleshooting.
Document customer interactions in Salesforce, maintaining accurate notes for follow up, escalation, and service history.
Resolve billing disputes and service complaints using company policies, de escalation techniques, and account review procedures.
Escalate complex technical and account issues to specialist teams with clear case notes and customer context.
Support new team members by sharing call handling tips, process updates, and CRM documentation practices.
Professional Summary
Project coordinator with five years of experience supporting construction and operations projects across scheduling, documentation, stakeholder communication, budget tracking, and issue follow up. Skilled in Microsoft Project, Excel, SharePoint, procurement coordination, and project reporting. Strong ability to keep teams aligned and identify delays before they become expensive problems.
Core Skills
Project scheduling
Budget tracking
Stakeholder communication
Project documentation
Procurement coordination
Microsoft Project and Excel
SharePoint
Meeting minutes
Risk and issue tracking
Professional Experience
Project Coordinator
Harbour West Construction, Vancouver, British Columbia
January 2020 to Present
Support project managers across commercial renovation projects valued from $500,000 to $3 million, coordinating schedules, documentation, vendor updates, and project reporting.
Maintain project trackers for budgets, change orders, risks, issues, approvals, and outstanding deliverables.
Prepare meeting agendas, minutes, action logs, and weekly status updates for internal teams, clients, and subcontractors.
Coordinate procurement follow ups with vendors and site teams to reduce delays related to materials, approvals, and delivery timelines.
Use Microsoft Project, Excel, and SharePoint to organize schedules, documentation, and project communication.
Most resume mistakes are not dramatic. They are small clarity problems that quietly weaken the application.
This is common with modern templates. The design looks polished, but the content is vague.
A recruiter does not shortlist a template. A recruiter shortlists evidence.
If your bullets say responsible for, helped with, assisted in, worked on, and participated in without explaining scope or result, your resume will feel thin even if the layout is beautiful.
A general resume can work for a general conversation, but job applications are not general conversations. If you are applying to a specific posting, your resume needs to reflect that posting.
Generic resumes often fail because they make the employer do the matching work. Employers are not motivated to interpret your potential when other candidates have made their fit obvious.
Some candidates focus on removing photos and using the right page length, which is good. But they still write content that does not match how Canadian employers evaluate fit.
Canadian hiring often prioritizes:
Relevant recent experience
Clear job titles and responsibilities
Proof of communication and collaboration
Tools and systems used
Local industry context where relevant
Credentials, licences, and compliance requirements
Stability, reliability, and role alignment
The resume has to answer those concerns directly.
If you have a required certification, put it near the top. If you have Canadian work experience, make it visible. If you have industry specific tools, name them. If you have managed people, budgets, customers, caseloads, projects, or territories, show the scope.
Do not assume the recruiter will figure it out. Screening is fast. Clear information wins.
Overwritten resumes are exhausting. Phrases like results oriented visionary professional with a proven track record of excellence do not help if the rest of the resume lacks substance.
Use plain, strong language. Say what you did. Show the scale. Explain the result. That is enough.
When I review a resume, I usually notice these things before anything else:
Current or most recent job title
Industry and company type
Length of time in each role
Relevance to the job posting
Career progression
Location and work eligibility signals where relevant
Required skills, tools, licences, or certifications
Clarity of writing
Gaps or sudden changes
Whether the resume feels tailored or mass sent
Candidates often think recruiters read every word carefully from top to bottom. We do not, at least not at first. First, we scan. Then, if the resume looks relevant, we read more closely.
That means your most important information has to be visible early. If the top third of your resume is vague, you are wasting the most valuable space.
The top third should quickly show:
Target role or professional identity
Relevant experience level
Key skills
Industry or environment fit
Required credentials
Strongest proof of match
Think of the top third as your screening argument. It should make the recruiter want to keep reading.
Use clean formatting that works across systems and industries.
Recommended formatting:
One to two pages for most candidates
Standard margins
Font size around 10.5 to 12 points
Simple font such as Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Times New Roman
Clear section headings
Reverse chronological work history
Bullet points for experience
Consistent date format
No photos or personal demographic details
Minimal colour if any
No graphics, icons, columns, or text boxes if applying online
File name with your name and target role
A good file name looks like:
Simar Kaur Resume Talent Acquisition Specialist.pdf
A weak file name looks like:
final final new resume 2026 version edited updated real one.pdf
I say this with love: the file name is not the place to document your emotional journey.
The reverse chronological template works for most people, but there are situations where you may need to adjust the structure.
If you are a student or recent graduate, move education higher. Include internships, co ops, academic projects, placements, volunteer experience, part time work, and technical skills.
Do not apologize for limited experience. Show what you have done that proves readiness.
Use a combination format. Keep the work history visible, but place relevant skills and transferable achievements near the top.
The mistake career changers make is explaining why they want a new career instead of proving why their previous experience still matters.
Use a clear Canadian format, but do not erase international experience. International experience can be valuable when written in a way Canadian employers understand.
Clarify:
Job titles
Company type
Industry
Scope of responsibility
Tools and systems
Team size
Client or customer type
Results
Credential equivalency if available
The issue is rarely that employers dislike international experience. The issue is often that they do not understand the context. Your resume has to translate that context.
Senior resumes can be two pages and sometimes slightly longer in specific executive, academic, medical, or technical contexts. But length still has to be earned.
Focus on leadership scope, business impact, transformation, budgets, teams, markets, stakeholders, and strategic outcomes. Do not list every task from 2008 unless it still matters.
Put licences, tickets, equipment, safety training, tools, project types, and work environments where employers can find them quickly.
For trades, the resume should make practical capability obvious. Employers want to know what you can work on, what certifications you hold, what environments you know, and whether you can show up safely and reliably.
Before sending your resume, check it like a recruiter would.
Your resume should clearly answer:
What role are you targeting?
What experience makes you qualified?
Have you used the tools, systems, or methods required?
Are your most relevant skills easy to find?
Are your job titles, companies, and dates clear?
Do your bullets show scope and results, not just duties?
Are required certifications or licences visible?
Is the resume easy to read quickly?
Is the formatting ATS friendly?
Does the resume match the job posting without sounding copied?
Have you removed personal information that does not belong?
Does the top third make a strong case within seconds?
A Canadian resume template is not meant to make every candidate look the same. It is meant to remove distractions so your value is easier to understand.
The best resume does not shout. It explains clearly. It gives the recruiter enough evidence to say, “Yes, this person makes sense for the role.” That is the goal. Not perfection. Not fancy formatting. Just a clear, credible, well positioned case for why you should be interviewed.
Customer and internal stakeholder support
Provincial licences or registrations
Machinery or production systems
Team collaboration
Vendor follow up
Upload Resume
Import from Linkedin