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There are essentially 3 different resume formats: the chronological
resume, the functional resume and the combination resume. Each has
its advantages and disadvantages which this article will explain.
Chronological Resume
The chronological resume is the format that is most common and the
one that people are most familiar with. In the chronological format,
each of your jobs and corresponding descriptions of responsibilities
are listed in chronological order starting with the most recent job.
Dates of each job are included on the resume and it usually includes
a career objective section, skills & attributes section or profile
section and an education section.
Functional Resume
The functional resume format is not as common and most often recommended
for people who have gaps in the work history or for those who have
been out of the workforce for a while. What is most prominent about
this resume format is the candidate’s skills, attributes
and accomplishments. A career objective should also be included
as well as any educational qualifications. The actual jobs however,
do not include the dates. The career history section will typically
be limited to a list of company names, location of each company
and job titles. One advantage to using this format is that it usually
shortens the length of a resume. If you’ve got a 25 year
job history and several jobs where you’ve performed a lot
of the same duties, you can imagine how lengthy (not to mention
repetitive) your resume might get. The functional resume format
is an effective way to reduce the number of pages that an employer
will have to read and will make your application more impactful.
Recruiters will spend between 10 and 30 seconds reviewing a resume
and their primary goal is to whittle down the piles of resumes
that they receive each day to a manageable stack of “keepers.” So,
you do not want to have your resume stretch beyond two or three
pages. The disadvantage to this resume format is that recruiters
don’t like it. They get suspicious about your job history
if no dates are included and may toss it in the garbage if it raises
too many questions. Although, at one time I used a functional resume
because in my chronological resume I had gaps in my work history
that I suspected were keeping the phone from ringing with interview
requests. I changed the format from chronological to functional
and the phone started to ring! So, for the best of both worlds,
you might want to try the combination resume if you’ve got
gaps in your work history or have been out of the workforce for
a while.
Combination Resume
The combination resume as its name implies, combines the best of
both the chronological resume and the functional resume. A functional
resume format is followed but the job dates are included. The employer
is primarily interested in knowing what value you can bring to the
company so that if your first page (or the first 2/3rds) of your
resume can effectively show what value you bring to the company,
then any gaps may be overlooked in favour of bringing you in for
an interview.
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