How to Write a Resume for a Government Job

Application Steps

These steps describe the federal process on USAJOBS. State, county and school-district systems use their own portals and forms, so check the posting's instructions first — in many states the online application form, not the resume, is the document that gets scored.

1. Create a USAJOBS profile before you search. The profile is where you build or upload a resume, save jobs, automate searches and store required documents (USAJOBS, undated). Set up at least one saved search for your occupational series.
2. Open one announcement and copy the "Qualifications" section into a blank document. Highlight the specialized experience paragraph sentence by sentence — those sentences are the scoring criteria for that announcement.
3. Draft a two-page resume for that single announcement. For each relevant job, list employer name, job title, start and end dates by month and year, hours worked per week, descriptions showing you can perform tasks at the required level, and series and grade for federal positions (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS Help Center, undated).
4. Add an education block with school or institution name, completion date, degree type and GPA (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS Help Center, undated). Upload transcripts if the announcement lists them as required documents.
5. Upload eligibility documents the announcement names. Applicants claiming 10-point veterans' preference must submit Form SF-15 or other acceptable documentation; the DD-214 Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty is issued to military members upon separation (USAJOBS, undated).
6. Complete any agency-required steps before submitting — additional personal information, extra documentation, eligibility questions, or an occupational questionnaire (USAJOBS Help Center, undated). Answer the questionnaire with the resume open beside you so every rating is backed by a line of text.
7. Work through the five application steps after clicking Apply: Select Resume, Select Documents, Review Package, Include Personal Info, and Continue Application with Agency (USAJOBS Help Center, undated). At the final step you must certify that your application is true, complete, and made in good faith (USAJOBS Help Center, undated).
8. Check progress with the "Track This Application" link in your USAJOBS profile (USAJOBS Help Center, undated) rather than emailing weekly. The agency places applicants into quality categories and sends the highest qualified applications to the hiring official (USAJOBS Help Center, undated); the IRS, for example, states its hiring process takes 2–4 months on average (Internal Revenue Service, undated).

Resume Bullet Examples

Use concise, results-focused language and use numbers, percentages, dollars or descriptions to highlight accomplishments (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS Help Center, undated). Each "after" bullet below names the situation, the task, the action and the measurable result in one sentence.

Program analyst (GS-0343 series)

Before

Responsible for preparing reports for management on program performance.

After

Rebuilt a quarterly program performance report for a 40-person division after leadership flagged gaps, consolidating four spreadsheets into one tracker and cutting preparation time from 12 hours to 3 hours per quarter.

Contract specialist, state transportation department

Before

Handled contracts and worked with vendors on purchasing.

After

Administered 28 active construction and maintenance contracts valued at $6.4 million, resolving 9 vendor invoice disputes within an average of 11 days and closing all files before the June 30 fiscal year deadline.

Public health nurse, county health department

Before

Provided immunizations and health education to community members.

After

Delivered 1,100 immunizations across 36 mobile clinic days in rural ZIP codes with low coverage, training 5 volunteer staff on cold-chain handling and achieving zero vaccine spoilage incidents over 14 months.

IT specialist (information security)

Before

Responsible for monitoring systems and responding to security issues.

After

Triaged roughly 60 security alerts per week for a network of 2,300 endpoints, closing a backlog of 140 overdue patch tickets in 6 weeks and reducing average remediation time from 9 days to 4 days.

Administrative assistant moving into grants management

Before

Assisted with grant paperwork and tracked deadlines for the office.

After

Tracked 17 federal grant awards totaling $2.1 million, built a deadline calendar that eliminated 3 recurring late reports, and submitted 100 percent of quarterly financial reports on time for 2 consecutive years.

Logistics supervisor transitioning from military service

Before

Supervised SSA operations and managed PLL in support of BN missions.

After

Supervised a 12-person supply team issuing parts for 85 vehicles, writing plain-language procedures that cut average parts request turnaround from 72 hours to 30 hours across an 18-month assignment.

Note the last pair: use plain language and avoid acronyms and terms that are not easily understood, because the hiring agency will not make assumptions about what's in the resume (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS Help Center, undated).

Final Checklist Before You Submit

• Export the resume to PDF and confirm the page count is two pages or fewer (U.S. Department of the Treasury, undated).
• Confirm every job entry shows a month and year for start and end dates plus hours worked per week, and series and grade for any federal position held (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS Help Center, undated).
• Set body text to 10-point and titles to 14-point in one of the recommended fonts — Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open Sans, Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noto Sans — with 0.5-inch page margins (U.S. Department of the Treasury, undated).
• Search the document for capital-letter strings and spell out each acronym on first use.
• Confirm the education block lists school name, completion date, degree type and GPA (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS Help Center, undated).
• Enter your references in the USAJOBS resume builder, up to five (Job-Hunt.org, undated), and confirm each phone number and email.
• Upload Form SF-15 and your DD-214 if you are claiming 10-point veterans' preference (USAJOBS, undated).
• Save the file as LastName_FirstName_Resume.pdf before selecting it in the Select Resume step.
• Reread the certification statement that your application is true, complete, and made in good faith before you continue to the agency site (USAJOBS Help Center, undated).

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (USAJOBS Help Center) — How do I write a resume for a federal job?
2. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (USAJOBS Help Center) — How do I write a resume for a federal job? — What to include