Quintessential Careers Press: Surefire Resumes for New Graduates and Other Entry-Level Candidates Chapter 7: Strive for Readability Page 45 Resume Formats Chronological. Functional. Chrono-Functional. Hybrid. Combination. Print. Formatted. RTF. Electronic. Text. Scannable. PDF. Web-based. All of these are terms that are tossed around when people talk about resume formats. How is a job-seeker supposed to know the best resume format in any given situation? Do you need more than one format? Just how many formats do you need? First, it's important to note that the term "format" has a couple of different meanings. When people talk about resume "format" they may be referring to: The way the content of the resume is organized. The technological approach to the resume's preparation according to how it is intended to be delivered to its recipient. Both of the above. What are the advantages and disadvantages of different types of resumes? What are the common elements of all resumes? Which Organizational Format? One of the first decisions job-seekers must make when preparing their resumes is how to organize the resume's content. Today's resumes generally are: Chronological (actually reverse chronological, listing all your experience from most to least recent). Functional, which lists experience in skills clusters. A combination or hybrid of those two types, sometimes known as a chrono-functional format. Chronological Resumes The traditional, default format for resumes is the chronological resume. This type of resume is organized by your employment history in reverse chronological order, with job titles/names of employers/locations of employers/dates of employment/ accomplishments, working backwards 10-15 years. The chronological resume is preferred by the widest variety of employers, as well as by recruiters and many Internet job boards. Recruiters and hiring managers tend to like this resume format because it's easy to read and clearly demonstrates your job history and career advancement/growth. This format is also recommended for all conservative career fields (such as accounting, banking, law, etc.) and international job-seeking. If you can look at a chronological resume without a stated career objective and know exactly what field the jobseeker is headed toward and would be good at, then the chronological format probably is working just fine. But if you can't guess what the jobseeker wants to do and would be good at by looking at the chronology of past jobs, a chrono-functional format may be indicated. Previous Page Next Page Back to Surefire Resumes for New Graduates and Other Entry-Level Candidates Index Page