chrono functional resume template

• Chronological, Functional or Combination Resume Format: Pick the Best One (with examples)

 Probably writing a resume is not the best thing you used to do. It takes a lot of forces and strengths to make a really good one that catches the recruiter’s attention and emphasizes all your skills. However, the mission is possible if you’re familiar with the different types of resumes. Resume format may differ due to your working background, proficiency, type of work and skills. Make resume formatting isn’t that hard and we prepared a list of 3 types of resumes, so you may take the one that would present your strongest sides to the hiring manager.

1. Chronological resume

What is a chronological resume.

This is the most common and standard resume format and telling the truth, many employers typically prefer this type to others as it's easy to see what jobs you have held and when you have worked at them. A chronological resume focuses on your work history first as the most relevant point for hiring managers. Obviously, your jobs are listed in reverse chronological order with your current or most recent job with brief explanations of each job. 

When should you use a chronological resume?

A chronological resume format is the most common resume type, which suits those people who have an extensive work history that is in the same line of work as the job for which they are applying. It’s a safe choice for virtually all job seekers. 

When should you avoid using a chronological resume?

The chronological resume does not work well for career changers. You might have a lot of work experience in different industries but a chronological format demands related and smooth working history. As well as career changes, chronological resume doesn’t like gaps in employment and will only emphasize these issues.

Chronological resume structure

A chronological resume often includes an eye-catching career summary at the top. Then you should define chronology of your previous work experience and make it as clear as possible - it’s the main part of such resumes. Education, certifications, and special skills are also included in this type of resume but are listed after your work experience section.

Have a look at a chronological resume example to get a clearer visual understanding. 

A proper reverse chronological resume order should be as follows:

• Contact information
• Resume summary or resume objective
• Work experience
• Additional Sections

2. Functional resume

What is a functional resume.

The functional resume format allows you to take the pressure off your work history and focus more on your skills and abilities. That’s why it’s also called the skills-based resume format. The focus is shifted from job titles and dates to your actual relevant skill set.

When should you use a functional resume?

It is typically used by job seekers who are changing careers, who have gaps in their employment history , students with less working experience or people, whose work history is not directly related to the job. If you are looking for a job in creative industries, where your portfolio matters more than your resume, go ahead and use creative functional resumes. 

When should you avoid using a functional resume?

Through, it’s a great one for teens, students, and graduates, who lack work experience, but have their education, internships, projects, volunteering or campus work on their back, it’s still the most tricky resume type. The functional format might not work as it just throws your job history out. If you’re a fresher looking for a summer or entry-level job – it’s your choice to show up. But if you already have some achievements under your belt, your experience section would be presented only by a tiny list of your past employers at the bottom of the resume, and that’s not what you need.

Functional resume structure

No worry, if you don’t have a perfect work experience with a treasure trove of relevant skills and competencies. You’re not the only one and there are numbers of strategies you can employ to cover up gaps on your resume. To get an idea of how a functional resume can conceal your work gaps, you must understand the structure of current resume format.

Take a look at the functional resume example and let it become clear to you. 

Keep in mind the correct functional resume order:

• Resume objective
• Skills Summary
• Additional Skills
• Work Experience

Remember, even if you don’t have much work experience, you should still link your skills with either your academic achievements or part-time jobs and volunteer experience. The functional resume can be an ideal resume format for freshers as its ultimate goal is to make the hiring manager see your potential and desire to work.

3. Combination resume

What is a combination resume.

The combination resume format (or hybrid resume) is a middle ground between the reverse chronological resume and functional one. As the name suggests, it combines the aspects of the other two resume types. The combination style focuses more on skills but leaves plenty of room to provide details on your past work. Shortly, it focuses on skills without throwing off the work experience section. The more transferable skills you include, the easier it will be to make a successful resume. 

When should you use a combination resume?

Combination resumes were designed for job seekers who already have a relevant work experience or even looking to jump into a new industry. Moreover, if you’re applying for a position that requires a lot of technical skills and expertise, using a combination format is the best way to showcase these abilities to the hiring manager. If you had an impressive set of accomplishments and job duties in previous positions and want to highlight the skills you’ve developed over the years this style is perfect to help you succeed in a career path.

When should you avoid using combination resume?

Combination resumes don’t work well when you don’t have much work experience or your duties weren’t specified. Also, if you didn’t get any promotions, awards or achievements over the course of your career don’t go for the hybrid resume. You should better use a chronological resume structure. However, if you eventually got one, do not forget explain and emphasize each of them.  

Combination resume structure

Formatting a resume demands your skills and qualifications first. Those skills that are most relevant to a particular job opening must be on the top. Underneath each skill, you make a bulleted list of professional achievements that highlight the skill. Your employment history is listed next, in reverse chronological order. It would be perfect to divide the descriptions of your work experience into “Related Work Experience” and “Additional Professional Experience” sections. This allows you to focus recruiter’s attention on your most relevant experience while at the same time providing a complete work history.

Let’s have a look at combination resume sample.

A proper combination resume order should be as follows:

If you are still unsure of your ability to create a good resume format on your own, don’t hesitate to use our professional resume writing help and get your documents done on a higher level! ---

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How to design a chrono-functional resume for your job?

Are you looking for a new job? Or are you supposed to look for a job in the near future? If so, you will have to think about formulating or updating your existing resume. Before that, you must know that you need a strong resume to get considered for a job. With a weak resume, it is nearly impossible to land the dream job. Now, a question must spring to your mind: what makes a resume strong or weak? That is a valid question, and the answer is pretty simple. Your resume should have all the information required for the employer to know about your educational and professional background in the most structured manner. Structure, yes the structure is a critical element that determines how you offer the extract of information that is easy to comprehend. 

A resume has three essential types based on the structure: Chronological, functional, and chrono-functional or hybrid resume. So before discussing chrono-functional resumes thoroughly, let us get an overview of other types for better understanding.

Types of Resume:

1.    chronological resume: .

A chronological resume is a kind of resume that focuses on your work experience. It lists down the professional work history in reverse order. For example, it begins with the current job and ends with the very first job. It is the most common type of resume, acceptable in most industries. The benefit of this resume is that it offers the employer a quick overview of your professional experience and tells how you have evolved professionally. Also, it puts the recent work experience at the top, which is more relevant to the recruiters. It helps the recruiters find the current position you are holding.

Who should use it?

This kind of resume must be used by those who have some professional experience. However, the fresh graduates with no experience cannot use the chronological resume as they do not have any experience to list down.

Sample of Chronological Resume:

2.    Functional Resume:

A functional resume mainly focuses on skills, strengths, and achievements(if any). It omits the dates and does not follow a chronological order. It offers the employer an overview of your skills and strengths to identify if they fulfil specific criteria.

A functional resume is a resume used by fresh graduates who have little or no professional work experience. This format helps them to highlight their skills and strengths to appeal to the employer. However, this format is not useful for those with lots of professional experience as their work experience speaks itself about their abilities and strengths.  

Sample of Functional Resume:

Click here to find various  resume samples  that will help you differentiate between chronological and functional resumes.

3.    Chrono-functional or Hybrid Resume:

Last but not least, a chrono-functional resume, also known as a hybrid resume, is an amalgamation of a chronological and functional resume. It focuses on the skills and strengths while also offering enough space to list work experience. A chrono-functional resume is a better option compared to a chronological or functional resume to provide a balanced overview of skills and experience.

It can be used by those who intend to highlight both skills and work experience. It is the most used resume that offers a comprehensive and straightforward overview of skills and work experience. Sometimes, your work experience does not use the skills and strengths you have. So using this resume, you can pinpoint those skills for a relevant job. The following job seekers can use this format:

• Career changers:

The Chrono-functional resume works well for candidates who wish to change their career or department of work. Such people may have lots of experience, but that doesn’t match their aspired job. In such a scenario, the candidates can amalgamate the relevant skills and work experience to be considered by the recruiter.

• Fresh graduates:

The fresh graduates with no experience can also use this format to land a job. In the work experience, they can add their leadership roles, volunteer works, and internships and in addition to the skills.

Veterans with a vast set of skills and experience may find it difficult to encapsulate on one paper. They can create a resume with a Chrono-functional format in such a scenario, adding the relevant skills and experiences according to a job requirement.

• Candidates with significant gaps in employment :

Due to some reasons, people have to take long breaks from employment; these breaks can be months or years long. When applying for a job, their recent job gets relatively outdated. Therefore, such candidates can use a Chrono-functional format. 

How to write a Chrono-functional resume?

To write the Chrono-functional resume, you will first need to understand the elements that need to be included. You can design your Chrono-functional resume by incorporating the following elements:

• Name and Contact information:
• Summary/Objective
• Professional History

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Name and Contact Info:

The first thing that goes into any resume be it functional, chronological, or hybrid, is the contact information. You must add your name on the top or on the right, according to the layout design you pick. It is essential to mention your phone number and email address in the contact information, as they are means of contact. However, it is optional to add a postal address and links to online portfolios.

Summary/ Objective:

It is an essential part of a hybrid resume that is mostly overlooked. It is a personal statement that sets the tone for your resume. It must be concise, precise, and to the point. If the statement is long and hard to read, it will be ignored by the recipient. Such personal statements loathe employers, but if it is clear and provides a quick context, they will get a good first impression. The essential things you can include in a summary are skills and experience, and short-term goals. 

Skills and abilities:

This section of the resume must include the relevant skills and abilities for the job. You must give equal or almost equal weightage to skills and abilities to the professional experience in a hybrid resume. Make sure you mention the credentials or certificates you have earned for a skill. Also, like the professional experience, don’t bulk your resume with unnecessary or irrelevant skills. It is essential to list down the essential skills required for a job. For example, you must need skills related to Illustrator, InDesign, or Photoshop for a graphic designer job. Adding writing skills, swimming skills, and teaching skills to resume would be unnecessary.

 Professional History:

Then comes one of the essential parts of a chrono-functional resume: professional history. This section will list the work experience, mostly in chronological order, like the chronological resume. So, for example, you can start adding your current work experience and going back to the first job experience. One thing that you need to be careful about is adding the relevant experience. If you are applying for a radiologist job and adding the work experience of a marketeer, that would be insignificant and may negatively affect the application. One thing that applicants do wrong is sending the same resume for different kinds of jobs. Resumes must be modified for each job; you should add relevant experiences for increasing your chance of getting considered for a job.

In the hybrid resume, you will add education in order. The education, like the professional experience, must be listed in reverse order. For example, you will start with the latest degree you earned and go back to high school. Make sure to mention the achievements, if any. For example, you can add the distinction you have achieved or your GPA. Remember, this information can strengthen your application. So make sure you do not avoid any significant detail. However, it is also essential to avoid jumbling your resume with lots of details and information. An effective resume is one page long, and you must try not to exceed the limit.

Pro tip: You can avail of  resume writing services  to get a professionally written Chrono-functional resume.

Chrono-functional Resume Sample:

Tips for writing Chrono-function Resume:

• Combine your key skills into professional history:  

You can intelligently mix your skills into professional history to let the reviewer realize how you endeavoured your skills into work and how your skills provided benefit to your previous organization. 

• Prioritize skills required by the employer:

Make sure you do your research about the job requirements before creating or formatting a resume. The research findings will help you streamline your skills according to the needs of the recruiter and job. 

• Use proper formatting:

Proper formatting is a highly essential part of a resume. Make sure you use a standard font like Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, Helvetica, or Georgia. Also, avoid using bigger or smaller than 11 or 12 point font. 

The 6-­60-6 rule for writing a Resume:

Keep the 6-60-6 rule in mind while writing the chrono-functional resume.

The 6-60-6 rule indicate:

6- Six seconds

60- Sixty seconds

6- Six hours

It means that your resume must be organized, well-structured, and a comprehensive document. If the reviewer looks at it for six seconds, he should skim all the key points. It means that the essential points in the document must stand out that come with a good structure. Also, if the reviewer reads the resume for sixty seconds, that is one minute, he can maintain his focus and consider your resume. And if the reviewer keeps looking at the resume for six hours, he must be unable to find any flaws, which means that it should be void of grammatical mistakes. 

So, the 6-60-6 rule tells us that the resume should have a good structure, content and be free of errors. 

Strengths of Chrono-function Resume:

• A Chrono-function resume is a resume that directs the reader’s eyes to essential information of the resume that you want to highlight. It is a very specific resume catering to the requirements of a particular job. 
• It helps you target the requirement of the employer. For example, if the employer has emphasized that he wants high technical writing skills, you will formulate your resume, stressing the employer’s required skills.  
• This resume format helps you omit unnecessary or subordinate skills and work history that do not support your objective. 

Keeping all the information and guidelines above in consideration, you can create your perfect chrono-functional resume; However, you can also get the services of ResumeCroc to avail of the services of highly professional resume writers.  

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Resumes That Get You Interviews

Chronological & Functional Resume Template

Using the right resume template.

Creating a resume is difficult enough for most people, but trying to choose a right resume format on top of that can be downright torturous. There is an extense resume templates range available on Internet: from the classic reverse chronological resume template , beginning with your most recent job and moving back, to the functional resume template sample, focusing on skill areas and experience; and, of course, the combination of the two , providing a snapshot of your responsibilities and skills for each job position listed.

Let’s face it, choosing the right free resume template to use can be confusing.

Most people will simply choose one over another based only on preference, instead of carefully studying which one boosts his or her professional image.

Click Here To View 85 FREE Functional And Chronological Resume Templates!

Free Resume Templates Tricks

There is a trick, however, to resume templates that should not be overlooked, and that is that each format has unique features about it that can help minimize failed job situations while maximizing your responsibilities and skills. Knowing which resume template samples are right for you can save you hours of time and stress, and give your interviewer the best possible impression of your professional abilities.

Chronological Resume Templates

The reverse chronological resume template has historically been the format of choice for most job hunters, simply because everyone knew how to do it.

The focus of this template is on your work history, beginning with your most recent job and moving back. The problem with this format is that it works best only for people who have held jobs in uninterrupted succession to each other . Job seekers with gaps of unemployment or with little work experience are shortchanged since their history could quite possibly be perceived as negative.

It’s true that some employers might prefer this format, since it is easy to skim over and highlights career progression, but if you are just starting out in the workforce or have had periods of unemployment, stay away from the reverse chronological format.

There are also better ways to provide this «quick scanning» or skimming in resume templates, without having to use a reverse chronological format. It’s called a resume profile and is one of EasyJob’s resume outline conerstones.

EasyJob Resume Builder has specific resume templates for different jobseekers. Either if you:

• are looking for your first job
• have a short work experience
• have gaps in your work history
• are returning to the job market after a long period of unemployment
• have a long and consistent work experience
• are near or over fifty and fear that «ageism» might hurt you

EasyJob has 25,000 free resume templates for YOU! Check it out NOW for FREE!

Functional Resume Templates

Functional resume templates are a much better choice for those with less than stellar work history. Functional resume focuses on your skills and abilities rather than time spent at each individual job, and can be used to demonstrate expertise and accomplishment in a certain area.

You may have changed jobs four times over the past two years, but if you’ve held consistently similar responsibilities, point the spotlight on those. With a functional resume, it is acceptable to eliminate start and end dates for job positions, putting a shinier spin on your company-hopping ways. It can also be used for new graduates to include experience gained in college without appearing arrogant or naïve.

All this is done «automagically» by EasyJob ! Check it out NOW for FREE!

Combinations of Both Resume Templates

A combination of the styles of these two resume templates can be useful for those with a steady job history as well as a variety of responsibilities and skills. Designating one section for abilities and areas of expertise can highlight your accomplishments and talents while a reverse chronological work history can help an employer determine your value as a potential employee. If you’ve got the history and skills to back it up, the combination approach is a smart choice.

In a Nutshell…

Regardless of your choice of resume templates, focus on communicating your best assets to prospective employers so that they realize you are a serious professional with the ability to learn, grow and change.

Free Functional & Chronological Resume Templates by EasyJob

No matter what resume template you choose, with EasyJob you will build a winning resume and cover letter that get you interviews! Click on the following link to take a look at the free resume template samples done by EasyJob and download EasyJob demo here to check it out creating resume templates with your own career data .

Once you’ve done that, no employer will be able to resist you!

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Functional Resumes

• Professionals who are making a large career change.
• Those with disparate career experiences and jobs that don't show a clear-cut career path.
• Individuals with gaps in their work history. (A chronological resume will draw attention to gaps in work history.)
• Students with mimimal work experience or unrelated work history.
• Military transitioners who are entering the private sector for the first time.
• Individuals with a strong work history who want to avoid getting stuck in a similar position.
• Older workers who do not want to emphasize their age.

• You have very diverse set of career experiences that do not demonstrate a clear career path.
• You are a college student with very little work history.
• You are a mid-life career changer that is moving into a field that is very different from your previous experience.
• You are a homemaker re-entering the workforce after having been away for several years.