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Archivist resume examples from 2026

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Updated March 26, 2025
6 min read
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How to write an archivist resume

Craft a resume summary statement

A well-written resume summary is basically an elevator pitch. You are summing up your skills and experience in a few sentences to wow recruiters, hiring managers, and decision makers into giving you an interview. Here are some tips to putting your best foot first with your resume summary:

Step 1: Mention your current job title or the role you're pursuing.

Step 2: Include your years of experience in archivist-related roles. Consider adding relevant company and industry experience as relevant to the job listing.

Step 3: Highlight your greatest accomplishments. Here is your chance to make sure your biggest wins aren't buried in your resume.

Step 4: Again, keep it short. Your goal is to summarize your experience and highlight your accomplishments, not write a paragraph.

These four steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some archivist interviews.

Please upload your resume so Zippia’s job hunt AI can draft a summary statement for you.

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List the right project manager skills

Use your Skills section to show you have the knowledge and technical ability to do the job. Here is how to make the most of your skills section and make sure you have the right keywords:

  1. You often need to include the exact keywords from the job description in your resume. Look at the job listing and consider which of the listed skills you have experience with, along with related skills.
  2. Include as many relevant hard skills and soft skills as possible from the listing.
  3. Use the most up to date and accurate terms. Don't forget to be specific.
These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some archivist interviews.

Here are example skills to include in your “Area of Expertise” on an archivist resume:

  • Archival Collections
  • Online Database
  • Archival Materials
  • Reference Services
  • Archival Research
  • Manuscript Collections
  • Cataloging
  • News Articles
  • Collection Development
  • Historical Research
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Digitizing
  • PDF
  • Digital Preservation
  • Research Assistance
  • Toolkit
  • Digital Library
  • Rare Books
  • Reference Assistance
  • EAD
  • Marc
  • FDA
  • Government Agencies
  • Digital Archive
  • GLP
  • Oral History
  • Linear Feet
  • HTML
  • Digital Format
  • Contentdm

Zippia’s AI can customize your resume for you.

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How to structure your work experience

Your work experience should be structured:

  1. With your most recent roles first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order.
  2. Job title, along with company name and location on the left.
  3. Put the corresponding dates of employment on the left side.
  4. Keep only relevant jobs on your work experience.

How to write archivist experience bullet points

Remember, your resume is not a list of responsibilities or a job description. This is your chance to show why you're good at your job and what you accomplished.

Use the XYZ formula for your work experience bullet points. Here's how it works:

  • Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
  • Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
  • Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

This creates bullet points that read Achieved X, measured by Y, by doing Z.

Here are examples from great archivist resumes:

Work history example #1

Archivist

Sirius XM Holdings

  • Scanned media against internal and external databases.
  • Saved audio and metadata to archiving database.
  • Scanned, ingested, catalogued and applied necessary metadata to digital assets in DAM system.
  • Maintained and enhanced web interfaces (Django Python framework templates, HTML, CSS).
  • Ingested all published company assets magazine issues, books, images, layouts, video cataloged each with metadata.

Work history example #2

Reference Archivist

Smithsonian Journeys

  • Increased client chargeback of Westlaw and LexisNexis costs by 60%.
  • Conducted in-house training classes on searching the Internet and various CD-ROM products.
  • Utilized spreadsheets to construct an index of product planning, testing, and implementation for over 500 boxes of documentation.
  • Constructed archival indices using Microsoft Excel Sorted, organized files in archives Created word-searchable PDF versions of archival documents
  • Instructed classes on keyboarding, basic Internet, basic databases and database searching.

Work history example #3

Gallery Attendant

Smithsonian Journeys

  • Worked as a barricade during different events and worked special VIP events where I helped supervise in any areas necessary.
  • Helped setup and breakdown exhibits and coordinate on and o -site events.
  • Helped with gallery setup and takedown for the Art Fair.
  • Aided residents and verified IDs.
  • Informed facility technicians of unusable equipment or broken hardware in facility.

Work history example #4

Archivist

Morgan Stanley

  • Updated and converted finding aids to Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and assigned appropriate metadata.
  • Managed project database, prepared reports, created MARC cataloging records.
  • Used Adobe Photoshop for the creation and editing of surrogate digital objects.
  • Edited MARC records using Horizon.
  • Worked with Microsoft Office, Paradox, and Photoshop.

Zippia’s AI can customize your resume for you.

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Add an education section to your resume

The education section should display your highest degree first.

Place your education section appropriately on your resume. If you graduated over 5 years ago, this section should be at the bottom of your resume. If you just graduated and lack relevant work experience, the education section should go to the top.

If you have a bachelor's or master's degree, do not list your high school education. If your graduation year is more than 15-20 years ago, it's better not to include dates in this section.

Here are some examples of good education entries from archivist resumes:

Master's Degree in history

University of Wisconsin Colleges, Madison, WI

2009 - 2010

Highlight your archivist certifications on your resume

Certifications can be a crucial part of your resume. Many jobs have required certifications.

To list, use the full name of the certification and the organization that issued it, along with the date of achievement.

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