by Charles McConnell

By now, if you have been listening to me, you have heard my theme repeated like a mantra: “For a resume to be productive, the career objective must be matched with supporting rationale.” We recommend you make certain that you include your skills, achievements and qualifications relative to the position you are targeting. Without back-up specifics for your claim of being a qualified candidate, your resume may fall flat and your candidacy will not make the cut. But, there still remain questions of style and format…areas where you have options. Just to be certain that we are using the same terminology, I want to define the three basic types of resumes and recommend one for your serious consideration.

The Chronological Resume:

  • Most often a summary of experience, followed by a listing of organizations worked in, titles held, and years spent in the positions.
  • It assumes your reader, primarily, wants to know what you’ve done in your work history, when you did it and for whom.
  • When using this format, list your current or your most recent position first….next most recent position and the balance in descending order.
  • You need not list all positions you have held to include part-time and jobs held in your early career unless they help strengthen your candidacy.
  • This format is easy to produce. It is your chronologically stated autobiography, your personal work history, and no one is more expert in stating it. But, it has its drawbacks:
    • Accentuates number of jobs and duration if you have moved around.
    • May highlight your lack of directly related experience for the target position, especially for those who are seeking to redirect their career track into a related field that does not qualify as a linear career path.
    • Tends to pigeon-hole candidates in previous career fields and titles even though the goal is to re-career and explore new employment opportunities.
    • Buries skills and achievements within the historical summaries where they may lose focus and relevancy.

The Functional Resume:

  • Usually presents a summary of qualifications, core competencies and previous or current responsibilities that are related to the position being targeted.
  • Accomplishments, specific success stories, can be highlighted to stand out and allowed to cross time lines, job titles and organizations served.
  • Concentrates upon skills gained in previous positions and achievements of which you are most proud.
  • Effective format for candidates with highly diverse backgrounds, numerous job changes, those with substantial consulting background and others with experience that is not directly related to the target situation.
  • There are some drawbacks here as well:
    • May be criticized for selective memory, i.e., including only those background points that support the candidacy.
    • Some employers may be sticklers for accuracy with absolute full disclosure and may demand an unbroken time line.
    • May appear overly assertive of skills without sufficient rationale…possibly overstating the case and calling credibility into question, the dreaded TGTBT syndrome (Too Good to Be True).
    • Having said all of the above, the functional format can be difficult to use with confidence that sufficient bases are covered to qualify for the position targeted.

The Combination Resume:
It is just that: a combination, functional summary with chronological backup to provide support, using the best elements of the above two formats and avoiding their drawbacks. Needless to say, this is our recommended format.

  • The summary statement can embrace and support the career objective.
  • Skills and achievements may be presented as themes that support the targeted position specifications.
  • Emphasis can be placed upon career growth and qualifications resulting from past experiences.
  • It can be positioned to deemphasize breaks in employment or career restarts.
  • It places the most important key word attributes up-front where they can pass the 15 second fit test that is applied by both human and electronic scanners.
  • It maximizes the impact of a skill set that matches position specifications…and it is the perfect resume to follow the recommended Tee Cover Letter format.