Resume Formats and Overview

A well-written resume acts like a good advertisement and entices the Recruiter to learn more about you through personal contact. It should include your selling points that are relevant to the Recruiter’s interests and needs of their business.

1. Chronological Resume - In the chronological resume, job history is organized chronologically with the most recent job listed first. Job titles and employers are emphasized and duties and accomplishments are described in detail. A chronological resume is easy to read, and can highlight career growth. It is suited to those whose career goals are clearly defined and whose job objectives are aligned with their work history.

A chronological resume has it's advantages when:

• Your recent employers and/or job titles are impressive
• You are staying in the same career field
• Your job history shows progress
• You are working in a field where traditional job search methods are utilized (e.g., education, government)

A chronological resume is not advantageous when:

• You are changing career fields
• You have changed employers frequently
• You have been recently absent from the job market or have gaps in employment

2. Functional Resume - In a functional resume, skills and accomplishments developed through work, academic, and community experiences are highlighted. Your skills and potential can be stressed and lack of experience or possible gaps in work history de-emphasized. The functional resume is advantageous when:

• You want to emphasize skills not used in recent work experience
• You want to focus on skills and accomplishments
• You want to market skills and experience gained through coursework and/or volunteer experience
• You have a variety of unrelated work experiences

The functional resume is not advantageous when:

• You have little work experience or leadership experience
• You want to emphasize promotions and career growth
• You are working in highly traditional fields such as teaching, accounting, and politics, where employers should be highlighted

Be Strategic in Describing Unrelated Jobs - Employment

• Many students have part-time, seasonal or temporary work experience that is unrelated to future career goals.
• Don't pack your resume with irrelevant details. On the other hand, prospective employers value candidates who demonstrate dependability and a strong work ethic, even if the experience is in a different industry.
• Pull out the most important aspects of your work experience. Go into detail about projects you were involved in that show leadership, drive and determination. Extract the skills and achievements that are most relevant to employers' needs and leave out details that don't add value.

Think Like an Employer & Act Like a Job Seeker - Experience

• Study job ads or internship announcements that interest you.
• If an ad states that communication skills are important, think about times when your communication skills came into play. If you worked in any customer service-related position, you definitely used communication skills. You can emphasize these skills on your resume.
• Look at your experience through your own eyes. What work did you enjoy? While these skills and experiences may not be directly relevant to the positions you're targeting, they're good indicators of areas where you're likely to excel in the future.

List any relevant experience that establishes you have the background the employer is seeking.
The key word is "experience," not "employment." So consider your full-time paid experiences, of course, but also remember to consider your part-time and unpaid experiences of all types, as well.

• Experience listings are usually listed in reverse chronological order, which means that your most recent experience will be listed first. List the city/state of employment and the month/year of employment.
• You may choose to divide your experience listing into parts, such as "Related Experience" and "Additional Experience," or "Professional Experience" and "Student Employment."
• Put the information in order of interest to your targeted reader. Anything that establishes that you have the knowledge, skills, abilities, or personality traits that an employer is seeking should be featured before other experiences.
• You can place headings down the left margin to alert the resume reader to what is important about the experience listed to the right. Highlights such as "leadership" or "sales" help a reader to notice these aspects of an experience listing.
• Write the resume in the first person, but omit first-person pronouns such as "I“, “my”, “me”, or "we."
• Start your sentences with action verbs
• Verb tenses should be accurate. If you are reporting something that you continue to do, use the present tense; if you are discussing an accomplishment or task that has been completed, use the past tense.