Grouping resume items has two immediate benefits for you:
- the employment representative can more quickly grasp the meaning of a few broad categories, and
- each section can represent a major selling point supported by several bits of evidence.
The cardinal rule to follow for effective and powerful arrangement of resume items is to list them in their order of importance. Basically, the items that make up a resume section should be sequenced, ordered, or listed from top to bottom or from beginning to end, with the more important items nearer to the top or beginning and the less important items nearer to the bottom or end.
This order of importance (descending or rank-order arrangement), of course, requires that you know the relative importance of items in a section. Following this organizing principle, a section can be developed in two possible ways:
- according to the times in which the various items occurred-this is a dated section, or
- according to the relative importance of the resume items within a section—this is an undated section.
If you decide to organize a resume section according to a time frame, you will, in most cases, arrange the items in reverse time (chronological) order. This means placing the most recent item at the top and the next most recent item below, moving backward in time as you move downward on the page. Using the dated section, you assume that employment representatives are generally more interested in your more recent accomplishments and less concerned with earlier foundational work, although that might have some interest to them as well.
Work experience and education sections are usually dated sections; and in all of the sample resumes that include distinct experience and education sections, you will notice the reverse time order applied. If you want to develop dated experience and education sections but find one or two recent accomplishments unrelated to your particular job goal, you may have to deviate from using a perfect reverse time order. Many resume sections should definitely be "undated." This is because resume items within such sections do not occur within natural time frames QR because the relative values of section items are more important than any time frames that might exist.
The experience and education sections should be dated in reverse time order if your experience and educational records are progressive in nature and demonstrate growth and development in your line of work. Yet some people who are very capable may, on paper, reveal a broken, spotty, or otherwise undesirable work or educational pattern. Such job seekers, who do not want to emphasize the times and places of their work or education, may organize resume sections "functionally" instead of "chronologically" A functional section is a group of related items that, together, support or prove an applicant's expertise, capability, or potential in a vital function of a job.
We classify resumes as either chronological or functional based on the types of sections used. A chronological resume is one in which the experience and education sections are clearly arranged according to reverse time order, even though undated sections may appear in other parts of the resume. A functional resume contains no clearly defined experience or education section and, instead, groups all items around four to six or seven key job functions.
Although the functional resume pattern is used less frequently than the chronological resume pattern, it nevertheless has important advantages that make it a valuable organizing format in certain situations. For example, the functional resume pattern helps to
- emphasize impressive job capabilities;
- de-emphasize dates, names, and places that might be considered undesirable if placed in the resume, but which, if necessary, could be handled with greater tact, clarity, and persuasiveness within the live interview;
- show off your knowledge of critical job areas considered important by the company;
- prove directly that "you have what it takes."
There are two basic resume patterns, chronological and functional, and there are also two basic resume layouts: centered and block. Resume layout is simply the way resume sections are physically placed on the page. The balance of the resume, called the resume body, contains the applicant's credentials and is the bulk and heart of the resume. The weakest part of most resumes submitted for interviews is the introduction. Yet skillful development of the three introductory sections can often impress employment representatives even more than the body itself.
The employment representative wants to know the answers to three questions quickly:
- Who are you?
- What do you want? and
- What can you offer?
By careful development of the introduction, you can convey the three desired answers quickly and impressively. With this quick profile of you in mind, the reader can then inspect the resume body with greater ease, understanding, and interest. The enhanced readability of your job resume certainly adds to the favorable image you would like to project.