Which certifications are worth listing

The ones a person in your field would recognise, the ones a posting asks for by name, and the ones that are still current. A certificate from a weekend course ten years ago is taking space from something newer.

What does an entry need

The name as the issuer writes it, the issuer, and the year. An identifier or a verification link where one exists, because a certification that can be checked is worth more than one that cannot.

Should I include the expiry date

Yes where the certificate expires and the expiry matters to the job, such as a licence or a safety qualification. Write both years.

Do certifications earn points in the ATS check

Not in the completeness dimension, which scores identity, email, phone, experience, education, skills and summary. The heading is recognised as a section and the text adds to readable volume, so the effect is indirect.

Where should the section go

Below education for most people. Above it when the certificate is the licence the job requires, because then it is the first thing the reader needs to see.

Guide · Résumé

Certifications on a résumé, and where to put them

A certification is checkable, which is what makes it worth listing. Here is the form that survives a parser, and which certificates are worth the space.

ConxfolioPublished 2026-09-12

— name, issuer, year. In that order.

A certification is one of the few claims on a résumé that a stranger can verify in a minute. That is its whole value, and it is why the form matters more here than almost anywhere else on the page.

What an entry holds

The name of the certificate as the issuing body writes it, the issuer, and the year. "AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services, 2024". Where an identifier or a public verification link exists, add it. Where the certificate expires, give both years so a reader is not left calculating.

Which ones are worth a line

Three kinds. Certificates a posting names, because the reader is looking for exactly that string. Certificates your field recognises without explanation. Licences without which you cannot legally do the job, which outrank everything else on the page and belong near the top.

Everything else competes with your experience section for room, and usually loses. A short course with a downloadable certificate is not evidence of much unless the work you did in it is.

Where the section goes

Below education, in most careers. Above it when the certificate is the licence the role requires, or when you have retrained and the certificate is your newest and strongest evidence for the new field. The education guide covers the same judgement for degrees, and the two blocks move together.

Certificates in progress

Write the truth in the same shape: "In progress, examination booked for March 2027". A reader treats that as a plan, which is what it is. What causes trouble is a certificate listed without qualification when only the course has been completed, because the difference surfaces at exactly the wrong moment.

What the check does with them

The ATS résumé checker recognises Certifications, Certificates, Awards, Publications and several similar words as section headings, so the block is read as a section rather than as stray text. It does not award completeness points for it: those seven checks cover identity, email address, phone number, experience, education, skills and summary. What the section contributes is readable content, which feeds the content dimension.

The honest summary is that certifications help a human reader and a keyword search far more than they move this score. That is worth knowing before you rearrange a page around them.

In the builder

Certifications are their own section in the résumé builder, reached through Add content alongside languages, awards and custom sections. Each entry keeps the name, the issuer and the year in separate fields, so the design lays them out consistently rather than leaving you to format a line by hand.

If you imported an existing file and the review said it could not confidently identify a certification, that is the reading being careful rather than the section being missing. It fills a field only when the document supports it, and it never composes an entry of its own. Add the certificate in the editor and it appears on the page immediately.

One last check

Read the section as a stranger. Every line should be something they could look up, and nothing should need a sentence of explanation from you. Where an entry fails that test, either add the issuer that makes it checkable or take it off the page and give the room to a line about work you did.

Expired, and what to do with it

An expired certificate is not a lie and it is not evidence of current competence either. Where the qualification still matters, write it with both years and a word about the current position: renewed, lapsed, or under renewal with the date booked. Where it no longer matters, take it off. A page of expired credentials reads as a record of intentions rather than of capability.

Licences are the exception that has no flexibility. A licence that has lapsed cannot appear on a page as though it has not, and the date is the first thing a compliance check looks at.

Where the evidence sits beside the certificate

A certificate says you passed an assessment. A line in your experience section says you used the thing afterwards. The two together are much stronger than either alone, and the second one is the part most people leave out. Where you trained in something and then applied it, name the application in the role it happened in, and let the certificate sit quietly in its own section as the proof that the training was formal. The measurement guide covers how to write that line so it carries a result.

Add the section

Certifications have their own section in the editor, under Add content, with the name, the issuer and the year in separate fields.

Open the résumé builder See what the check reads

Questions

Which certifications are worth listing: The ones a person in your field would recognise, the ones a posting asks for by name, and the ones that are still current. A certificate from a weekend course ten years ago is taking space from something newer.
What does an entry need: The name as the issuer writes it, the issuer, and the year. An identifier or a verification link where one exists, because a certification that can be checked is worth more than one that cannot.
Should I include the expiry date: Yes where the certificate expires and the expiry matters to the job, such as a licence or a safety qualification. Write both years.
Do certifications earn points in the ATS check: Not in the completeness dimension, which scores identity, email, phone, experience, education, skills and summary. The heading is recognised as a section and the text adds to readable volume, so the effect is indirect.
Where should the section go: Below education for most people. Above it when the certificate is the licence the job requires, because then it is the first thing the reader needs to see.

Conxfolio is a free set of four career tools: a résumé builder with 37 rendered layouts, an ATS résumé checker that prints its own arithmetic, a cover letter builder that traces every proof paragraph back to the line it came from, and a portfolio builder with 20 authored designs. There is no account to create, nothing is held back for a paid plan, and no language model is used anywhere in the product, so the readers, the score and the letter are deterministic code you can check.