Resume Styles!

Yesterday, LinkedIn asked me to contribute to an article on resume styles.

So, I wanted to share it with you!

Here's the article.

In summary, there are 3 main ways you can write a resume:

1. Chronological - Where your work experience is ordered in reverse chronological order (like on your LinkedIn profile).

2. Functional - This focuses less on your experience and more on your skills. For example, you might list out the key skills you have and evidence of your competency.

3. Hybrid - This combines the 2! There is a part where you focus on skills and a part where you focus on work experience, usually in reverse chronological order.

If you're a student, graduate, or junior professional, I'd usually recommend using a chronological or hybrid style.

These are what we’ve used time and time again to help our clients land 100s of offers.

But how do you choose between them? Chronological or hybrid??

I'd recommend starting by writing a chronological resume.

If, once written, your resume has a real kick to it, i.e. you think it will quickly catch the reader's attention and convince them to interview you, then stick with chronological.

However, if it doesn’t quite have that kick you’re looking for, test out using a hybrid style.

You see, a chronological resume doesn't work for everyone.

For example, you work 3 part-time jobs as a customer service rep, but you did an impressive consulting internship at a top company 2 years ago.

If you go for a chronological resume, there's a good chance the reader won't even see your consulting internship experience from 2 years ago.

Why?

Because it will be stuck far down in the resume.

The people reading your resume usually skim over it very quickly at first. They'll move on to the next resume if nothing catches their attention quickly.

Side note: this is why it’s important to give the reader what they are looking for right at the top of the resume and, at minimum, on the first page.

If you instead use a hybrid approach, you can customise the resume in a way such that you mention your most impressive selling points (e.g. the internship in the previous example) towards the top of the resume, which will catch their attention and maximise the chance of you securing an interview!??

Another cool thing you can do, which we do all the time, is to split your experience into 2 sections: highlighted experience and additional experience.

In the highlighted experience section, you place the work experiences you want to highlight to the reader. This helps you highlight key information whilst keeping the reverse chronological order.

In the additional experience section, which sits below this, you place other valuable work experiences you have that aren’t quite as important to communicate as those in the highlighted experience section.

Anyway - these are just my 2 cents!

And whilst I’m sure functional resumes can work, your best bet is probably a chronological or hybrid resume.

We’ve used these time and time again with massive success.

If you’re job searching, I hope this helps.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

To your success!?

Mackenzie?

Founder, Grad Jobs