A Practical Guide to Resume Formats

Reverse-chronological – It puts your work history and experience first, right after the contact information in the reverse chronological order, so that your achievements can be highlighted. This one tends to work for amateurs.

Pros:

1. It is pretty much standard and easy to scan at a glance. The format lends easy reading that allows the reader to look for important areas quickly.
2. Even application scanning software can read it.
3. It emphasizes on your work experience and work related history, while it relegates the rest of the details.

Cons:

1. It doesn’t make you stand out of the crowd. Sometimes it may be brushed off as “yet another resume”.
2. It doesn’t work well if you have gaps in your professional career this is not the kind of emphasis that you need. You may want to show off your skills rather than experience.

Combination – If you are a go-getter, this format is certainly for you. It typically shows off your professional assets, primarily for the purpose of job-hopping. It is very much used by highly skilled or experienced professionals. In fact, it is the only real kind of resume that can get you a great job.

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It starts with a summary of your qualifications, which can be a paragraph or bullet points, putting in concise form, all that you stand for.

Pros:

1. It combines professional achievements as well as your skills. It first focuses on your skills, leading to your achievements in due time.
2. The experience section still stays close to the top, preceded by skill section, thus making both relevant to each other.
3. It starts with a qualification summary allowing you to put your best foot forward.
4. A great choice for all who have a lot of experience as well as skills as it is, it makes the job-switch easy.

Cons:

May not be a great choice if you do not have an impressive skill set.

Skill-based/Functional – As the name suggests, this kind of resume is based totally on the professional skill that you possess. This is not-so-rarely used, but there are good reasons why it should be avoided by all.

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Pros:

1. If skills are all you need for the job, go ahead with this resume. (Psst…it is rarely the case)
2. May work for you if it is your first job ever since no emphasis is laid on work experience here.

Cons:

1. There is no mention of your professional achievements. All you mention is a concise list of your old employers. If you are looking for a job that doesn’t require skills, bit only experience. You may want to use this format.
2. Since there are only skills without any achievements, roles and responsibilities, not a real impressive resume to read.
3. With too much of bragging, it may just start speaking against you as it reflects your vanity.
4. The absence of any real experience shows that you have no proof to show if you have actually used these skills at a real workplace.
5. Your candidature ends up looking suspicious.
6. Also, application tracking systems cannot read it.

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The combination resume format seems to be the best by far, and trust me, it works extremely well if you need to further your career. If you are just starting, you may consider reverse-chronological. The functional format, however, may be best kept at bay.

Consider tailoring your resume as well to best fit the position you’ll be applying for as it will hugely impact how potential employers will see your skills. If you’re looking at a list of software engineer jobs, your resume should look like it’s been tailored for job positions relevant to it

So, ready to write a new resume for yourself?