How To Choose the Right Resume

Three of the most popular resume formats are functional, chronological, and combination. Each of these formats has distinct qualities and objectives, which is why you need to choose the right one.

3 of the Most Common Resume Formats

1. The Functional Resume Highlights Your Skills

The functional resume emphasizes your skills, strengths, and abilities. However, it doesn’t highlight your work experience.

The functional format sections:

• A summary or objective
• Skills
• Education
• Work History (brief)
• Certifications

Although you’ll still list your work, dates aren’t included. There’s also nowhere to provide details about job tasks or accomplishments. Instead, a functional format resume provides sections where you can list your dominant skills. Nonetheless, you’ll still be able to include several bullet points underneath each skill to show how you acquired and strengthened the skill. Here's a good example.

You should use a functional format if:

• You’ve decided to change careers and are applying through a hiring manager or recruiter.
• You have experience working in different professions (e.g., a freelancer or consultant) or across various industries.
• You have gaps in your employment. Since this resume concentrates on skills, it helps downplay those gaps.
• The ad for the job emphasizes skills rather than years of experience in a particular field.

How to write a functional resume:

1. Tailor your functional resume to each type of job you’re applying for. Then, focus on your most relevant skills for each job.
2. Avoid using a broad professional summary. Instead, create a statement outlining your career goals. Make sure your statement aligns with the job you're applying for.
3. Instead of using a job title, group your key achievements underneath a skill category.
4. Remember to include transferable skills and process-related changes. This information helps demonstrate your influence across the various businesses you’ve worked for.
5. Even though the chronological resume works better for application tracking systems (ATS) scoring, you can still increase your chances of landing an interview by including appropriate keywords throughout your functional resume.

2. The Chronological Resume Focuses on Your Career Path

This format is the most common because it makes it easy for potential employers to visualize your career path. The chronological resume places less emphasis on your skills. It concentrates more on highlighting your educational background, certifications, and work experience. Using this layout, you’ll be able to show how each professional experience built upon your last. See a chronological résumé sample.

This format includes:

• A summary or objective (optional)
• Education
• Work History (Detailed)
• Skills
• Certifications

This resume’s layout is a good option if you’re using keywords for the ATS. Therefore, if you’re looking for work using online platforms, you have a better chance of being noticed if you use a keyword-rich chronological resume than a functional resume. Since you list your most recent role first, this format is also called the reverse chronological resume.

You should consider using a chronological resume if:

• You have an extensive list of roles where you're working in the same field without any gaps.
• You’re applying for a position in the field that you typically work in.
• You want to emphasize your career progression.

How to write a chronological resume:

1. In the work experience section of your resume, list your job roles, the companies you’ve worked for, and your employment timeframe.
2. You should go ahead and list any career breaks you’ve had. For example, if you took time off work to help care for an elderly or sick loved one, add this to your resume.
3. If you have experiences that align with the role you’re applying for, be sure to include them (e.g., volunteering or freelancing).
4. Include your achievements in each of these roles. This helps you demonstrate your career growth and the impact you’ve made while working in each role.
5. Prominently display your highest level of education, especially when it supports the role you’re applying for.
6. As you create your executive summary, use job description keywords. This helps your resume reach a high ATS score, which can make you stand out to employers.

3. The Combination Resume Highlights Your Skills and Career Path

The combination resume is also referred to as a hybrid or targeted resume. It emphasizes your skills as well as your career path. This resume's layout is quite flexible. However, a combination resume can be lengthy and somewhat repetitive. You can see a well-done example here.

A combination resume includes:

• A summary or objective
• Work History (Detailed)
• Skills
• Education
• Certifications

This resume’s format is a middle-ground between the functional and chronological resumes. It doesn’t have a defined structure, so it allows you to decide which sections you’d like to include.

You can include a highly detailed section about your work history, providing specific information about your employment dates and descriptions. You can create another section to highlight your skills.

When to use a combination resume:

• This resume is ideal if you want to show how you’ve developed your skills. In addition, with a combination resume, you’ll be able to demonstrate how your skills qualify you for a specific role.
• Whether for a role with another company or as a tool for progressing your career with your current employer, the combination format is a good option.

How to write a combination resume:

1. You can customize this resume's formatting, which means you'll be able to use your specific needs to arrange its sections. For example, if your current position doesn’t offer the most impressive accomplishments, you can create a career highlights section. In this section, you can demonstrate your skills and abilities from previous positions.
2. Keep in mind that if you create a professional experience section, you’ll still use the reverse chronological order.

Why Every Resume Must Have Appropriate Keywords

Today, most companies use ATS software. With this software, employers can easily find resumes that include the keywords matching their open positions.

It's also worth checking out MIT's guide to format and tailoring and this quick ATS checklist and templates.

How to use keywords to make your resume stand out:

• Use terms that align with the job description.
• Avoid over-formatting.
• Use standard fonts and colors.
• Spell out terms and include their acronyms. This ensures that all forms of a potential keyword are represented.
• Use a format that includes the dates of your employment.

Now that you have this information, you can create a resume that'll get you noticed. Best of luck on your job-search journey!