Right Format for Resume

Before you start arranging information in your resume, you need to determine the correct format. There are three formats used for the resume writing:

- Chronological

- Functional

- Combined

Here you will read the description of all three formats :

1. Chronological Format

It is the most preferred format by the employers. Using chronological format you can present your previous work history and professional portfolio in most suitable way. This format emphasizes on your responsibilities. You must use this format if you need to highlight your accomplishments at your previous/running job showing the stability, professional growth and urge to make development in career. This format is also helpful to highlight your career history including dates along with accomplishments made at every job. Employer will easily read out and reveal your qualification with which he is interested most. Chronological format is best choice if you are going to apply for the job similar to your running or previous job category.

Chronological format is not for those who do not want their frequently changed job history to be revealed. It emphasizes more on the accomplishments, but not on the skills. If your are having limited job experience, this format is not ideal for you.

2. Functional Format:

If you have frequently changed career in your job history, or there have been inconsistent gaps in your career, you should choose Functional format for your resume. This format can represent your skills and capabilities in an appropriate way and the employer will take less notice of those inconsistent gaps, job changing frequency and even less experience. This format is more helpful if you are going to apple a different career because it will emphasize directly your abilities and skills drawing out the focus from responsibilities and experience. It also relates tour qualification to the job your are going to apply for.

Candidates who want to tie their experience with job titles to the new different career, should not choose this format. Employer will be looking for the relevancy of the vacant job with your resume, and if he does not find it, he will take your resume is less impressive or you are hiding something. Also this format does not make your career growth and developments prominent.

3. Combined Format:

Combined format is ideal if you want to emphasize on specific points like relevant skills, capabilities and accomplishments in your resume. Using this format you can create different sections where you can highlight the aspects as per your requirement. It includes the features of both the Chronological and Functional formats because it enables you to highlight either your skills and capabilities, your work history and responsibilities, or any part of your resume information. Using Combined format, you can even include the primary accomplishments and every transaction of your job history. This format is more helpful in grouping the relevant qualifications and objectives together and keep maintaining the focus of employer on relevancy of your data.