Section headings, and which ones are recognised

Once a file is extracted, headings are the only structure left. Here is the list this checker recognises and what happens to text under anything else.

ConxfolioPublished 2026-09-12

— a heading is the only structure that survives.

After extraction a résumé is one stream of text. Columns, spacing, rules and boxes are gone. The only structure that survives is the headings, which is why a system that reads résumés keeps a list of the ones it knows.

The list this checker knows

• Summary. Summary, Professional summary, Profile, Objective, About me, Career profile.
• Experience. Experience, Work experience, Professional experience, Career experience, History, Employment, Employment history.
• Education. Education, Academic background, Academic qualifications, Qualifications, Studies, Education and training.
• Skills. Skills, Technical skills, Core competencies, Technologies, Tech stack, Tools.
• Projects. Projects, Selected projects, Personal projects, Key projects.
• Other recognised sections. Certifications, Certificates, Awards, Honours, Publications, Languages, Volunteering, Achievements, References.

An employer's system keeps its own list, which will differ in the edges and agree on the middle. The plain names are the ones every list contains.

What happens under an unrecognised heading

It is not treated as a boundary. The lines under "My Journey" or "What I Bring" are read as a continuation of whatever section came before, so material lands in the wrong place. The most common version of this puts an interests line inside the skills block, which the interests guide covers.

Why an empty heading costs twice

A heading with nothing substantive beneath it earns no completeness points for its section, and it also costs parseability: the rules look for sections that have both a recognisable name and readable evidence underneath. With only one such section, eight points come off; with none, twenty-four, and parseability is then capped at forty-five.

Four sections carry the weight

Experience, education, skills and summary are the ones counted as evidence-backed sections here, and between them they hold seventy of the hundred completeness points, with experience alone at thirty. The other recognised headings are read as sections and earn no points of their own, which the certifications guide explains in more detail.

Headings with text on the same line

"Skills: Go, Python, PostgreSQL" works: the heading is recognised and the run after it is read as the section's first content. A long sentence that begins with a section word does not become a heading, which is deliberate, so a line such as "Experience designing payment systems for regulated markets" is read as prose rather than as a new section.

Check the count

The report prints the number of recognised headings it found alongside the words and lines it read. Four or five is a normal résumé. One or two on a full page means your headings are not landing, and that is usually the highest-value fix available, because it unlocks the completeness points underneath. Change them in the résumé builder, re-export, and check again.

Formatting a heading so it is read as one

A heading should sit on its own line, be short, and not run past about a dozen words. Capitalisation, bold and size are visual choices that carry no meaning after extraction, so they neither help nor hurt: what identifies a heading is the word itself, on its own line, with content beneath it. A heading inside a text box or a sidebar has the additional problem that it may land somewhere unexpected in the stream.

Markdown-style marks and asterisks left over from a paste are stripped before matching, so a stray one is harmless, though it is worth removing for the reader's sake.

Keeping personality without losing structure

Where you want a heading with character, put it in the summary or in an additional section rather than over the material that carries points. Experience, education and skills should use the plain words. A page that calls its experience section "Where I have been" is paying for its personality with thirty points of completeness, and the same personality in the opening paragraph costs nothing. The opening paragraph guide covers what that paragraph can carry.

Translating a creative page back into plain words

Where a résumé already uses invented section names, the repair is usually twenty minutes. Rename the four that carry points to their plain words, leave the personality in the opening paragraph, and re-export. Nothing about the content changes, and sections that were being read as continuations of each other become sections again.

Then compare the recognised-heading count before and after in the report. It is one of the few changes on a résumé whose effect you can see as a number the same afternoon.