How To Pick The Right Resume Format
There are three types of resume formats: reverse chronological, functional or skills-based, and a combination of the two. The choice depends on the type of job you are applying for and your level of experience.
The 3 resume formats are:
1) Reverse chronological resume format – This is the most popular resume format and is ideal for people with plenty of work experience that is relevant to the position theyre interested in.
2) Functional/skills-based resume format If you lack relevant work experience because you are a student/recent graduate, or you are looking to make a career change, the skills-based format is a better choice.
3) Combination resume format The combination resume is a great choice for job-seekers with a very diverse skill-set. Its useful if youre applying for a role that requires expertise in 3-4 different fields, and you want to show all that in your resume. Say, for example, youre applying for a senior management role, and the requirements are expertise in Management, Sales, and Software Development.
So, which one do you go for?
In 90%+ cases, youd want to stick to the reverse-chronological resume format. This is the most common one, and most HR managers are used to this. Hence, in this guide, were going to focus on this specific format.
If youre a recent graduate, or possess a diverse set of skills & work experience, you might want to pick one of the other 2 formats. Check out our guide to resume formats to learn how to write either.
Professional Summary Example For Data Analyst
A graduate in Information Systems with two years of hands-on data analytics experience. Passionate about working with large amounts of data and to turn this data into information, information into insight and insight into business decisions. I also have a keen interest in the field of data visualization and am fascinated by the power to compress complex datasets into approachable and appealing graphics.
Check Examples From Your Industry
Most resumes are relatively similar, but looking at examples from your industry can help you to get an idea of the elements that should be highlighted.
It can also help you to identify keywords that are regularly used, as well as give you the opportunity to see the standard formats and popular fonts used.
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Transferable Skills Vs Job
Transferable skills can be carried with you from one job to the other. These skills can be a hard skill or soft skill, as long as they can be used in any type of role, regardless of the industry, company, or position.
Examples of transferable skills:
If you are writing a resume from scratch, try using this free and easy-to-use resume builder from Resume.com. The sections and formatting are already created for you, so all you need to worry about is filling in the blanks to finish a free printable resume.
How To List Education On Your Resume
The next section were going to cover is your Education. Lets start with the basics – how to format the education section & what to mention there. Then, well move on to tips & tricks thatll help you stand out
- Program Name. E.g.: B.A. in Business Administration
- University Name. E.g.: New York State University
- Years Attended. E.g.: 08/2008 – 06/2012
- GPA. E.g.: 3.9 GPA
- Honors. E.g.: Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, Summa Cum Laude.
- Academic achievements. Any interesting papers youve written, courses youve excelled in, etc.
- Minor. Minor in Psychology
Here’s an example:
Tips on perfecting your education section:
- If you dont have any work experience, mention your education section first.
- Mention your latest educational entry on top.
- If you have a university degree, dont mention your high school at all.
- ONLY mention GPA if you had a very impressive academic career .
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Example About Me Section For A Nurse Resume
Here is an example of an “about me” section for a nurse role:
Example:Multilingual registered nurse with over five years of experience in community hospital ICUs and PICUs. Interested in joining the Sunshine Hills Hospital team to use management experience and patient care talents as a Pediatric Resident Nurse. Because of a thorough understanding of hospital protocols and excellent service standards, I frequently earned above 90% in compliance rate assessments.
And Lets Wrap It All Up
If youve followed all of our advice until now, congrats! Youre probably an expert on how to make a resume.
To wrap it all up, lets brush up on some of the most important lessons weve learned so far…
- Use the rightresume builder. You dont want to mess around with formatting for hours before even starting to work on your resume!
- Focus on achievements. Mention your achievements instead of responsibilities, so that you stand out from all the other applicants.
- Include the must-have sections. That is, resume summary, work experience, education, and skills.
- Tailor for the job. Everything listed on your resume should be relevant for the job youre applying for.
- Perfect your cover letter. Its as important as your resume, so make sure you pay as much attention to it!
At Novorésumé, were committed to helping you get the job you deserve, every step of the way! Follow our career blog to stay up to date with industry-leading advice. Or, check out some of our top guides:
Andrei Kurtuy
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Write An Impactful Ceo Resume Summary
Your resumes summary serves as a quick introduction to your professional profile.
It is important because, in just a few sentences, it can sum up your:
- Experience
- Background
- Achievements
As such, an effective CEO resume summary can help grab recruiters attention like bees to a honeypot and ensure you the executive position youre after.
Use the summary to give a detailed account of your executive experience based on some of your most noteworthy measurable achievements.
Heres an example of a winning CEO resume summary:
Choose Your Font Layout And Paper Carefully
It can be tempting to insert some creative flair into your resume by choosing an exciting font or unusual layout, but be careful not to go overboard.
Your resume still needs to be professional and give a good impression to your potential future employer.
Its a good idea to stick to a font that is easy to read and in a standard size. This will help the recipient to read it quickly and easily.
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What To Include In Your Resume
An effective resume lays out a summary of qualifications that will push the hiring manager or employer to move forward and invite you to interview for the position.
For many people, it can be helpful to sit down with a pen and paper, or a blank Word or Google document, and jot down their work history from start to finish. Of course, if you have been in the workforce for many years, this is not going to be time-efficient, so you may choose to focus on your most prominent and relevant positions.
No matter your approach, your goal will be to produce a chronological list of experience that is relevant to the jobs youre applying to.
Required and Optional Resume Sections. As well as details on skills, education, and work history, resumes can also have optional sections, such as an objective, summary statement, skills, or career highlights. Those sections can be added after youve compiled all the factual information you need to list on your resume.
List the Details. Make sure to include the name of the company, its location, dates of employment, and several bullet points describing your role and responsibilities for each position you list. Although you may need to expand on the bullet points later on, youll need this information at the minimum.
Match Your Resume to the Job. Be sure to match those accomplishments to the criteria the employer is seeking in the job posting.
Review Your Job Descriptions. Review the descriptions you’ve written for each job you’ve held:
Include An Education Section
An education section will be especially valuable if you have limited work experience or if you are transferring to a new industry. You can include information such as:
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Relevant coursework
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Grade point average
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Participation in clubs or organizations
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Leadership positions held
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Awards, achievements or certifications
When writing your education section, you should include the name of the institution, dates of attendance and your degree or area of study. If you are applying to mid or higher-level positions, you might remove all but the name of your school and dates of attendance to make room for more relevant professional experience on your resume.
If you have certifications or licenses that are relevant to the job description, you can include them in this section as well. To save space, you can leave off any credentials that are not directly related to the requirements of this job.
Related: How to Include Relevant Coursework on a Student Resume
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How To Make A Resume In 2021
For most job-seekers, a good resume is what stands between a dream job and Choice D. Get your resume right, and youll be getting replies from every other company you apply to.
If your resume game is weak, though, youll end up sitting around for weeks, maybe even months, before you even get a single response.
So youre probably wondering how you can write a resume that leads to HR managers inviting you to interviews daily.
Well, youve come to the right place!
In this guide, were going to teach you everything you need to know about how to make a resume:
How to Make a Resume – Step by step
So, lets dive right in!
How To Choose A Font For Your Resume
You might have read that and said, Font? Seriously!? I’ve got way more important stuff on my plate right now.
I used to think the same thing until I came across this article on Font Psychology. It consolidated information from 75+ academic studies on the subject that all point to a similar conclusion fonts have a huge impact on our perception of the written product be it a paper, a website, or a resume.
There are five main font categories in existence today: Serif, Sans Serif, Monospace, Fantasy, and Cursive. Here’s an infographic illustrating the emotions that each of these font families evoke in the reader:
When it comes to the best font for your resume, the safest bet is to use something simple and easy to read. In my opinion, Sans Serif fits that bill best so choose from fonts like Avenir, Helvetica, Arial, or Geneva.
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Showcase Your Relevant Skills
Writing a strong resume skills section will set you apart in your job search and increase your chances of landing an interview. However, if youre like most no-experience job-seekers, your technical skills may be limited.
In this case, use your resume to highlight the soft skills youve acquired throughout your life. Soft skills are applicable for nearly any industry, and are valued by employers.
Here are some examples of soft skills:
- Critical thinking
- Positive attitude
- Assertiveness
Additionally, listing foreign language skills on your resume is a great way to stand out from other applicants and fill out your skills section.
What Is A Resume Profile
A resume profile is a concise overview of your qualification for the job. It can include your goals, education, experience or skills, but also information like marital status, places lived and even childrens names and ages.
The intent of a profile is to provide a snapshot of the persons life, not to persuade a recruiter to call for a job interview.
The main difference between a professional summary and a profile is their purpose. A professional summary is constructed with a recruiter in mind and is designed to attract their attention. On the other hand, a profile briefly lists titles or positions held, which can serve as an introduction to prestigious roles the person occupied.
While the professional profile only mentions a single achievement, a resume summary highlights multiple quantifiable achievements. A profile contains fewer details about actual work experiences and more personal information which could be helpful.
Since its not necessarily targeting a specific position, a profile is great when uploading your resume to job search sites and networking resumes.
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The Unorthodox Route: A Functional Or Skills
Rather than listing out your experience in reverse chronological order, a functional or skills-based resume has bullet points that reflect how each of your skills is demonstrated by the work youve done over the course of your career. At the bottom, youll include everything else, such as your education, job history, professional achievements, community involvement, and other technical skills. This is a good option if you have a somewhat all-over-the-place work history and want to tie everything together neatly.
Who its good for: Career changers whose work experiences may not appear to be relevant and people with an abundance of temporary jobs or gaps in their work histories.
How To Identify Resume Keywords
If you’re not already familiar, Applicant Tracking Systems are pieces of software that companies use to help automate the hiring process.
After you hit submit on your online application, the ATS software scans your resume looking for specific keywords and phrases.
If the language in your resume matches up, the software sees it as a good fit for the role and will pass it on to the recruiter. However, even if you’re highly qualified for the role but you don’t use the right wording, your resume can end up sitting in black hole.
Translation? If you want to boost your chances of getting seen and getting hired, you need to write a resume that is optimized the right way, using the right resume template.
This can be a little tricky to figure out on your own, which is exactly why I created a tool called ResyMatch.io!
ResyMatch is a free resume scanner and optimizer that will help you identify the exact keywords, experience, and formatting you need to include on your resume for each job you apply for!
Here’s how it works:
First, head over to ResyMatch.io, upload your resume on the left, and paste your target job description on the right:
ResyMatch will scan your resume and compare it to your target job description. The tool will spit out a match score based on four categories ATS Best Practices, Hard Skills, Soft Skills, and a Sales Index :
When you write a resume, your goal is to include those keywords at the same frequency that you’d find on the job description.
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Education Resume Summary Examples
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Self-motivated university graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education and critical experience in learning technology.
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Compassionate and organized Caregiver with 3+ years of experience in providing expert care to both English and Spanish-speaking children aged 0-5. Experienced in working with special needs children and maintaining their emotional comfort and safety.
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Imaginative, patient Special Education Teacher with 3+ years of experience focusing on meeting IEP goal requirements for students with special educational, behavioral and mental health needs.
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Dedicated Tutor with 3+ years of experience improving student grades by focusing on total comprehension with targeted lessons in a variety of subject areas. Quickly identifies individual student learning styles to tailor exercises to their needs.
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Motivated Teaching Assistant with 3+ years of experience promoting collaboration with the lead teacher to support student educational needs.
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Conscientious Counselor with 3+ years of experience staying attentive to the needs of children, students, and parents, while ensuring a welcoming, trusting environment. Enjoys creating customized plans and programs to spur educational and emotional growth.
Think Beyond Your Job Duties
Hiring managers don’t want to read a list of your job duties. They want concrete examples of your accomplishments in previous positions that show how you can make a difference in this new position. Rangel noted that specific merits are more engaging to read than just your experiences. For example, “I reduced operating expenses by 23% in six months” is far more interesting to an employer than “I have 30 years of sales experience,” she said.
When deciding what information to keep or cut out of your resume, focus on striking abstract traits and qualifications in favor of concrete, quantifiable results.
“The best resumes highlight a job candidate’s actions and results,” said Bob Myhal, director of digital marketing at CBC Automotive Marketing. “Employers want employees who get things done, and who take great joy and pride in what they do. Rather than a laundry list of your qualifications, your resume should reflect your accomplishments and enthusiasm for your career.”
You shouldn’t ignore your skills section either. Sade reminded job seekers to list any industry-relevant apps or programs they’re familiar with, and find ways to incorporate examples of their soft skills into their job descriptions.
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Resume Format : Functional Resumes
Functional resumes focus more on relevant skills than work history. While the chronological format highlights work experience with detailed summaries of the achievements within each position, the functional format focuses on the applicants skill set relevant to the role you are applying for.
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Use The Right Language To Stand Out
Trite, lackluster descriptions of your job duties and accomplishments won’t do you any favors. Make sure you’re using strong action words like “achieved,””designed,””improved” and “established” to describe your roles and projects, said Sade. This, he said, will make you sound confident while imparting vital information. But be cautious about depending on action verbs make sure to include details about how you improved a process or achieved a goal.
“Words such as ‘professional,”results-driven’ and ‘detail-oriented’ provide very little helpful information,” Sade said. “It’s better to use actual job titles than these words.”
Diya Obeid, founder and CEO of applicant tracking software company JobDiva, also said that you should remove buzzwords like “go-getter,””team player” and “go-to person” from your resume. These come off as fluff and only take up precious space on your resume.
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