Professional resume writing

There is a lot involved in creating a professional resume that grabs attention and gets interviews. Did you know that some job postings can generate up to 500-1,000 resumes? And recruiters will spend between 10 and 30 seconds going through a resume with their primary goal of reducing the stacks of resumes they receive each day to a manageable stack of “gatekeepers.” Obviously, there is a lot of competition from other job seekers competing for the same position.

You should start writing your resume by deciding on a format. There are basically 3 different resume formats: the chronological resume, the functional resume, and the combined resume. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages that are explained below.

The chronological resume format

The chronological resume format is the most common and the one with which people are most familiar. In chronological format, each of your jobs and the corresponding job descriptions are listed in chronological order starting with the most recent job. Dates for each job are listed on the resume and typically include a career goals section, a skills and attributes section, or a profile section and an education section.

The functional resume format

The functional resume format is not that common and is most often recommended for people who have gaps in their work history or for those who have been out of the workforce for a while. The highlight of this resume format is the candidate’s skills, attributes, and achievements. A career objective should also be included, as well as any educational qualifications. However, the actual jobs do not include the dates. The career history section will generally be limited to a list of company names, location of each company, and job titles. An advantage of using this format is that it generally shortens the length of a resume. If you have a 25-year work history and multiple jobs where you’ve done many of the same tasks, you can imagine how long (not to mention repetitive) your resume could get. The functional resume format is an effective way to reduce the number of pages an employer will have to read and will make your application more impactful. The downside to this resume format is that recruiters don’t like it. If dates are not included, they are suspicious of your work history and may throw it away if you raise too many questions. Although, at one point I used a functional resume because my chronological resume had gaps in my employment history that I suspected were preventing the phone from ringing with interview requests. I changed the format from chronological to functional and the phone started ringing! So for the best of both worlds, you may want to try the combined resume if you have gaps in your work history or have been out of the workforce for a while.

The Combined Resume Format

The combined resume, as the name implies, combines the best of the chronological resume and the functional resume. A functional resume format is followed, but work dates are included. The employer is primarily interested in knowing what value you can bring to the company, so if your first page (or the first 2/3) of your resume can effectively show the value you bring to the company, then any gaps can be overlooked in favor of bringing him in for an interview.