An outstanding CV will catch a recruiter’s or hiring manager’s attention and help you stand out from the crowd. You can style your resume in a variety of ways, but the chronological, functional, and combination forms are the most typical. Depending on your background and goals, each of these resume kinds can be advantageous. Your goal is to deliver an easily scannable document that allows employers to immediately discover why you’re a good fit for the job when making certain formatting selections, such as margin size or font style.
We’ll go over the best ways to format your resume for your job goals in this article. Let’s start with the three most common sorts of resumes and which one is suitable for you.
What are the most common formats for resumes?
The chronological, functional, and combination resume forms are the most frequent. Consider your work experience and the position you’re looking for when determining which resume format to utilize. If you have little work experience, for example, you may use a functional resume to highlight academic work, volunteer work, or apprenticeships rather than a chronological resume, which emphasizes job history.
In the following sections, we’ll go through each resume format type in depth, including which one is suitable for different job search scenarios.
Chronological Resumes
Your employment experience is listed in reverse-chronological order on a chronological resume, with the most recent position at the top. This is the most classic resume format, and it has remained the most popular for many years.
The following information is normally included in this sequence in a chronological resume:
- Contact information
- Objective or summary statement
- Relevant skills
- Professional experience
- Education
- Additional information (i.e., volunteer work, certificate and seminar)
When is it okay to utilize a chronological resume?
A chronological resume is a fantastic choice for anyone with a steady, upward career path in their work history. If you’ve spent several years in the same business and each role you’ve held has been more senior than the last, you can use a chronological resume structure. People who are seeking for a job in the same or similar field as the majority of their employment experience frequently use it.
If you have many gaps in your employment history, are changing careers, or have a wide range of work experience, you might want to explore a functional or combo resume.
Functional Resumes
Functional resumes place a greater emphasis on applicable abilities rather than employment experience. While the chronological approach emphasizes work experience with extensive analyses of accomplishments within each position, the functional format emphasizes the applicant’s skillset as it relates to the position you are applying for.
When is it appropriate to utilize a functional resume?
Consider a functional resume if you have one long or numerous employment gaps in your CV in the last five years, are a first-time worker, or are significantly shifting career paths. You can stress the correct qualifications for the position you want by showcasing talents that translate across industries and your most relevant successes. This also focuses on the facts that a recruiter cares about, rather than focusing on a career history that isn’t relevant to the position.
A functional resume may be overly restrictive in some instances. A hybrid resume may be the best option if you have some experience and few or no gaps in your career history.
Combination Resumes
The chronological and functional resume categories are combined in a combination resume. You can use this resume format to highlight both your professional experience and applicable talents. You may need to omit optional parts like a summary statement, volunteer activities, or special hobbies because your skills and career history will take up the majority of your resume space.
Because the combination resume is a more flexible style, you can prioritize your talents or job experience, depending on which you believe is more important for the role. For instance, if you have a number of unique abilities that are very useful to the field in which you’re searching for job, you might want to prioritize them over your previous experience. It’s also a good idea to seek for indications in the job ad to figure out what the employer values most in a candidate.
When should you utilize a combined resume?
If you’re making a minor job change or have a varied work experience where the relevance to the position you’re going for isn’t immediately apparent, a combination resume may be the best option for you. If you’re seeking a people management role and have substantial expertise managing teams but have never had the title of “manager,” for example, you might utilize a combo resume. This structure might help you highlight your leadership achievements and transferable talents.
What makes these the most effective resume formats?
Recruiters are frequently required to analyze a large number of resumes for a single open position. Because they know where to search for the information they need, they can read a resume in a standard format more quickly and comprehensively. If a job demands a specific skill, for example, a recruiter will check for it in your skills area, which can be found above or below your work experience. They only have so much time to analyze each resume, so if it takes too long to get the information you need, they may move on and believe you don’t have the qualifications.
In addition, most applicant tracking systems will review your resume more thoroughly if it is short, plain, and follows a few fundamental criteria.
What is the best way to format a resume?
The purpose of resume formatting is to provide a professional-looking, easy-to-read document. Because employers only have a few seconds to go at your resume, your formatting choices should make content obvious and easy to access. If you’re formatting an existing resume, you may need to tweak a few words or phrases to make it easier to read after you’ve made the formatting adjustments. If you’re structuring a resume before writing it, pay attention to how the material appears on the page and make any necessary adjustments.
1. Use the proper margins.
Setting suitable margins for your document ensures that the content on the page is readable. Resumes and other professional documents such as cover letters and resignation letters include one-inch margins on all sides.
If you have a short resume with a lot of white space, one-inch margins will probably be your best bet for creating a well-spaced copy with content that fills the page. Reduce your margins to.75 inches if you require additional space to describe your relevant abilities and experience. If you decide to change your margins, make sure they’re at least.5 inches.
Text that extends beyond the confines of the page. When converting a file to a PDF, the 5 inch margins are frequently removed.
Leave all of the text on your resume aligned to the left, as this is the easiest style for reviewers to read. You can center-align your name, contact information, and headline if you wish. This is the only section that should be evaluated if you desire to center-align any text.
2. Choose a readable, professional typeface
Keep in mind that the typeface you choose for your resume should be clean and easy to read. When choosing a font, the most crucial element to consider is whether or not employers will have to fight to read the language on your resume. It’s also advantageous if you send your resume through an applicant monitoring system. Many firms utilize an applicant tracking system (ATS), which does not always read and interpret complex fonts well. You should also avoid using “light” or “thin” fonts, as they can be difficult to read on a screen or on paper.
Fonts are divided into two categories: serif and sans serif. Sans serif fonts do not have tails, whereas serif fonts have. Sans serif fonts (or fonts without tails) are commonly used for resumes because they offer crisp, easy-to-read lines. However, some fonts, like Georgia, are still frequently seen as basic and professional by employers.
Here are some of the greatest resume fonts to consider:
- Avenir
- Calibri
- Cambria
- Constantia
- Corbel
- Franklin Gothic
- Garamond
- Georgia
- Gill Sans
- Helvetica
3. Use a font with a size of 10 to 12 points
Setting an acceptable font size is another key in making your content clear and readable. In general, you should aim for a score of 10 to 12 points. Choose a 12-point font if you have a shorter resume and need to fill space. Anything bigger could come across as unprofessional. If your resume contains a lot of information, start with a 10-point font and increase it as needed.
Make your ideas brief and eliminate filler words to leave only the statement’s fundamental value:
“Performed frequent inventory audits to detect and resolve over-ordering concerns, resulting in a 10% boost in revenue.”
Here are some other options for making a shorter resume:
- Filler words such “like,” “with,” “a,” “and,” and “that” should be avoided.
- Rather than outlining each function of each job you’ve held, choose 2-3 major contributions you made in those roles.
- If you have two points that are similar, try integrating them into a single short remark.
- The space between sections should be adjusted.
4. When possible, use bullet points
Employers can quickly read the most essential information from your past by using bullet points in your experience, talents, or education sections. Your accomplishments should be listed in bullet points. If you just have one or two bullet points in a single section, list them in sentence form without bullets or use other punctuation to separate various concepts.
When detailing a role you’ve held in your resume’s experience section, for example, you’d utilize bullets to show how effective you were in that role.
If you don’t have three or more ideas to present in the education part, it can look like this Sans the bullet points.
5. Request feedback
After you’ve completed writing and formatting your resume, get it reviewed by trusted friends or coworkers. Having an outside perspective and input can be beneficial. They should look at any grammar or spelling errors you may have overlooked, as well as pay attention to your formatting. Request that they check for readability, uniformity, and a professional appearance.
Good luck with your job search; perhaps, this information has helped you in creating the finest CV possible. If you require further assistance, please leave a comment below.