An architecture resume should explain your contribution to a project: what you designed, documented, coordinated or reviewed, and under what responsibility. A portfolio can show the work, while the resume supplies employment history, qualifications and context.

This guide uses a fictional example and distinguishes licensure, professional memberships and certification. It does not claim that every firm uses the same ATS sequence or that a missing Revit keyword prevents a portfolio from being opened.

Read the role’s project types, phase responsibilities, software and licensure requirements. Then select evidence you actually have:

• Qualification status: state the jurisdiction and current status when relevant. Membership and certification do not replace a practice license.
• Tools: name software used and the task, such as producing a Revit drawing set or reviewing markups in Bluebeam.
• Project context: describe the building type and permitted scale information without claiming the entire project as your own work.
• Phases: distinguish schematic design, design development, construction documents and construction administration. Participation in one phase does not establish all-phase leadership.
• Presentation: use readable text and check submission requirements and the exported file.

There is no universal rule that one page, a specific credential suffix or a numerical result determines whether the resume succeeds.

Fictional example: Julian Ortega, the employers, schools, project, training and recognition below are invented. Links and contacts are placeholders. The sample presents design-coordination work since 2016 and does not assert an actual license, NCARB Certificate, LEED credential or award from a professional organization.

Licensed applicants should add their real jurisdiction and accurate status. Check the relevant board’s rules for titles and practice; a suggested resume label is not legal permission to use a protected designation.

Compare these architecture terms with the vacancy and your actual experience. They are possible evidence areas, not measured ATS filtering rules.

A keyword comparison can highlight wording differences. It cannot reveal a firm’s hidden screening settings. Use only truthful terms; see keyword guidance.

Header: use accurate contact details and an optional portfolio link when appropriate. List credentials only when held, following issuer rules. A license valid in one jurisdiction does not by itself authorize practice everywhere.

Summary: connect project types with actual responsibilities. The fictional example explains documentation and coordination work without invented construction values.

Experience: identify your deliverable and authority. Preparing a submittal log, reviewing a submittal and approving an action are different responsibilities. A building’s scale provides context; it does not establish your personal budget ownership.

Skills: group software and technical work for clarity. A code-review task should explain your contribution rather than declare blanket legal compliance.

Early-career applicants can emphasize relevant studio work, internships or production tasks. Label academic, competition and unbuilt projects clearly. A proposed building is not a delivered building, and an award submission is not an award win.

For a U.S. licensure path, report AXP or ARE progress accurately when useful. An active NCARB Record is not an NCARB Certificate, logged experience is not necessarily approved experience, and exam progress is not licensure. Check your record and the relevant board before stating status.

Use the actual degree, institution and completion status. A degree title alone does not establish program accreditation or eligibility in every jurisdiction. Place education or experience according to relevance; there is no automatic two-year switch. See section-order guidance.

Fictional junior example: “Prepared unit-plan drawings and updated door schedules in Revit under the project architect’s review.” This states contribution without inventing full-set ownership.

This page does not supply a verified job-posting dataset establishing Revit as every firm’s first filter. Use the actual vacancy to decide which tools and responsibilities to emphasize. AutoCAD-only experience should be stated honestly, not supplemented with an unearned Revit claim.

Explain depth through tasks: model coordination, family creation, drawing production or visualization. Software names are useful, but familiarity with a tool does not prove responsibility for a whole BIM process.

Use the vacancy’s wording when it accurately describes your work. Expanding a phase abbreviation can improve clarity, but no exact-string ATS guarantee follows. Select useful examples rather than forcing a duplicate bullet for every tool.

NCARB explicitly distinguishes its Certificate from a license to practice. AIA designations identify membership categories and have their own rules. Do not treat “AIA,” an NCARB Record and state registration as interchangeable credentials.

GBCI administers professional credentials and project certifications. An individual LEED credential and a project’s certification are different. Work on a LEED-targeted project does not establish either a personal credential or an achieved project rating. See keyword guidance.

Project scale can help, but disclose only information you are permitted to share. Rounding a confidential budget or turning it into a range does not remove confidentiality. Omit it or use an authorized public description when necessary.

• Area: identify the basis, such as gross building area or tenant area, and units. Do not add overlapping phases as separate delivered space.
• Cost: distinguish a construction estimate, approved budget, contract value and final cost. None automatically equals a budget you managed.
• Deliverables: describe the actual drawing or coordination work. A 60% design milestone is not necessarily 60% of the project personally completed.
• Status: distinguish planned, issued, permitted, under-construction and completed work. Issuing documents early does not prove earlier occupancy.

Fictional example: “Produced unit-plan drawings and coordinated structural comments for a multifamily permit package.” Add supported scale when useful, but do not invent numbers to make an honest contribution sound senior.

If a portfolio is requested or useful, provide a tested link or file in the format the firm specifies. Test permissions and links from the exported resume. Share only work you may disclose, credit collaborators and identify your contribution. Do not publish restricted client plans or security-sensitive drawings.

Follow instructions about separate or combined files and size limits. No evidence here establishes that combined portfolios are always silently rejected.

A qualification section can state actual jurisdiction, status and relevant dates. Add a license number when requested or useful, rather than treating it as mandatory public resume data. Credential suffixes follow issuer and jurisdiction rules. See placement guidance.

If reporting progress, state the exact completed or approved stage and date where needed. Do not turn exam study into a passed division or NCARB certification into automatic registration in another jurisdiction.

Use readable typography, clear headings and an understandable reading order. Keep important information as text rather than relying on icons or rating dots. Text converted to outlines or images can make extraction harder, although some systems use OCR; lack of selectable text does not prove every ATS sees an empty page.

Follow the employer’s accepted file type and inspect exported text, links, page breaks and application fields. PDF is not accepted by every portal and does not guarantee perfect parsing.

Choose length around relevant work and instructions. A separate project list can help if requested or useful, but one page for the first decade is not a universal rule. See length guidance and format checks.

Different practices may need different project evidence. A healthcare role, a visualization role and a housing-documentation role can emphasize different responsibilities. Read the vacancy rather than assuming each firm uses a fixed keyword screen.

Keep a factual base and tailor its emphasis. Preserve titles, dates, jurisdictional status and project contributions. A Roleframe match assessment is an editing aid, not the employer’s ATS score or a guarantee that all hiring criteria are known.

Use Roleframe to organize and edit a draft. After import or AI-assisted editing, check project names, dates, software, credentials and contribution wording against your source material.

Inspect the exported document and portfolio links before submitting. Current feature access and account requirements should be checked in the product; the resume still needs your factual review.