When To Use a Chronological Resume
Sep 29th, 2007 by emgra
Many job seekers who are about to write a resume for the first time are often confused by some of the terminology used in resume writing courses. e.g formats, styles, templates, whitespace, functional, combination and chronological resumes.
Don’t be put off… it’s quite simple really and I will explain everything as I go through this article.
I am frequently asked… What is a chronological resume and when should I be using it?
Let’s start off by answering the first question.
A chronological resume is simply one in which you present your job skills an career experience in chronological sequence. i.e in date order with your most recent jobs listed first and the oldest ones last. The reason for this is quite simply that your most recent job history is far more relevant than a job you were in many years ago. Make sense?
Typical examples would be an accounts manager resume and an agriculturist resume.
One of the potential drawbacks to using a chronological resume is if you have any significant gaps in your employment history. This is especially true if you have more than one gap or the gaps are particularly long. On the other hand, if you have very good explanations for any gaps in your employment you may be able to get away with it.
The following chief architect resume and defense attorney resume are further examples of this format.
Getting back to employment gaps… if they are obvious, don’t take a chance, it’s far better to use a functional resume. I will be posting an article on this resume style in the near future. Sometimes you even have to use a combination of both types of resume, but more of that in a future article.
A few other resumes for you to study are the charter pilot resume and financiers resume. I am giving you lot’s of real life examples to study as I always find that this is the best way to get ideas and understand the principles involved.
Although there are some general guidelines on how to choose the most appropriate template, it always helps to look at resumes that have been created for your specific occupation. At the very least you should study examples for jobs that are written in the same style.
The bus drivers jobs resume and tellers resume are both worth looking at for some unique features of the chronological style.
In jobs where education and experience are most important, make sure to place them in a prominent position within each section. Always remember that your number one objective is to present the most important information that the hiring manager wants to see, in a position that gets his / her attention.
The worst thing you can do is to write in a functional style when you should be writing your resume it in a chronological format. The final two examples I have for you are the drivers resume and osteopath resume templates.
If you want to get more details on this important subject, I suggest you visit my sample resume template home page.