What Format Will You Use to Create Your Résumé?

February 14, 2024

Because many employers read résumés quickly, the order of the information on your résumé is very important. Some industries prefer certain résumé formats. Talk to people in your network to find out how you should format your résumé. If you are still unsure, use the chronological format, as it is the most common. The main résumé types are:

Recent Graduate

  • Includes most important educational accomplishments.
  • Provides work history in a chronological format. 
  • May include classes or projects relevant to the job you are applying for.

Chronological

  • Lists work experience from most recent to least recent.
  • Good for people with recent related experience or no breaks in employment.
  • Most commonly used résumé format.
  • Can make gaps in employment harder to explain.

Functional-Skills

  • Relates your skills to the employer's needs.
  • Good for people with a broad range of experiences.
  • Skill statements must be more descriptive as they are not presented in the context of a job.

Regardless of how you format your résumé, there should be no spelling or grammatical errors. It should be clean, neat, and easy to read. Don’t use flashy paper or odd fonts.

The length of your résumé will depend on your experience and the requirements of the job you are applying for. Potential employers may be turned off by wordy or unnecessarily long résumés. Try to keep your résumé to one or two pages.

There are several ways to present your résumé online, as well. LinkedIn is the most popular, and can also be an effective networking tool.

For more examples of different résumé types, go to oregoncis.uoregon.edu.

Source: Excerpted from Oregon Career Information System, ©2023, University of Oregon, All Rights Reserved.

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