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Chronological vs. Functional Resumés
Your resumé is your most important tool in your job search. It provides potential employers with a overview of your qualifications so they can determine quickly if you are a possible fit with their organization and they should pursue hiring you. While there are numerous ways to format your resumé, there are two main resumé styles: chronological and functional.
As its name implies, a chronological resumé is one that lists your experience and education in order, starting with your most recent jobs or achievements. This type of resume is sometimes also referred to as reverse chronological resume, because the order of the listing moves backward from your current job to list each previous job. This type of resumé is generally considered the default style -- employers will want to know what job you currently hold so that they can better asses your qualifications for the job of your interest. The same is true for your education; your potential employer would rather know your most recent scholastic achievement.
Listing your experience and education in reverse chronological order also gives your potential employer a clear image of your overall career progress. It also is easy to determine the length of time you were employed at each organization, and indicates any gaps in your career (in case of gaps, make sure to address them in your cover letter as to not lead your employer to believe that you are omitting information on purpose). A chronological resumé should list your current job, as well as two to four previously held positions. Don't deliberately skip any employment information; if your employment history is long, or if you have held jobs further in the past that align well with your current career objective, you can address these qualifications in your professional profile or in your cover letter. However, if you have held part-time jobs concurrently with a full-time job, and particularly if they were taken primarily to earn extra money and involved minimal responsibility, you may omit them. Because the chronological resumé is teh default format, if you have any work experience you will want to use it unless you have a significant reason not to.
Functional resumés focus on your qualifications rather than your career timeline. This style of resumé highlights your skills and accomplishments rather than where and when you acquired or utilized them. Instead of listing your experiences by your job titles and workplaces, your resumé will contain sections focusing on specific skills such as verbal and written communication, customer satisfaction, project management, and the like. This resumé style is recommended for college students seeking internships or their first jobs out of school, for people with no professional experience, people who have not worked for some time (for example, people returning to the work force after full-time parenthood or people who have been unable to work for an extended period due to significant medical issues), or for career changers. While potential employers will appreciate the overview of your skills the functional resumé provides, if you hold any professional experience, you will want to strongly consider using the chronological resumé or a combination resumé over the purely functional format. Hiring managers who see a functional resumé tend to assume that the person is trying to make the best of a problematic job history.
A combination resumé, although not often discussed, has become a popular format in recent years. As its name implies, it combines the chronological and and functional resumé styles. This hybrid style allows professionals to highlight their qualifications that are critical for the job of their interest while at the same time providing a reverse chronological history of their employment. A word of caution -- don't overwhelm the combination resumé by including too many sections with too wide a variety of information. Even in the combination-format resumé is best to keep the information you provide firmly focused on what is relevant for the job.
A few basic rules apply for all styles. Don't exceed two pages, tailor your resume to your career objective and put your best foot forward in order to get the interview that can land you the job.
