A resume is often the first detailed view an employer or recruiter receives of your experience. The goal is not to include everything you have ever done. It is to make the most relevant evidence easy to understand.
Resume Formats: Choose the Structure That Tells Your Story Clearly
Chronological resume
A chronological resume lists experience in reverse chronological order, beginning with the most recent position. It works well when your recent work history shows a clear connection to the role you are pursuing.
Functional resume
A functional resume emphasizes skills and capabilities more than job titles or dates. It can help career changers or candidates with employment gaps, but it should still provide enough work-history context for employers to understand where the experience came from.
Combination resume
A combination resume opens with relevant skills or qualifications and then provides a reverse-chronological work history. It can be useful when both transferable skills and career progression matter.
Include the Essential Resume Sections
Contact information
Place your name, phone number, professional email address, and LinkedIn profile at the top. Make sure every detail is current and easy to copy.
Summary or personal statement
A short two- or three-sentence summary can explain your experience, strongest capabilities, and target direction. Keep it specific to the kind of work you want to do.
Work experience
List relevant roles in reverse chronological order. Include the job title, organization, dates, and bullets that explain responsibilities and achievements. Prioritize the experience that best supports the target position.
Education
Include degrees, institutions, and completion dates when relevant. Education may deserve more space for early-career candidates and less space as professional experience grows.
Skills
List technical and interpersonal skills that directly relate to the job. A focused skills section is more useful than a long inventory of general terms.
Make Your Relevant Skills Easy to Understand
Name the tools and systems you actually use
Specific software, platforms, equipment, methods, or frameworks are easier to evaluate than broad claims such as “technically proficient.” Use the terminology that accurately reflects your experience.
Show the outcomes you helped create
Connect your work to results such as revenue, efficiency, quality, cost, customer experience, project delivery, process improvement, risk reduction, or team performance.
Use Proof, Not Resume Filler
- Start bullets with action verbs such as led, developed, improved, coordinated, analyzed, built, or delivered.
- Use measurable evidence when it accurately represents your contribution.
- Name the environment, scale, stakeholders, systems, or constraints that made the work meaningful.
- Replace vague adjectives with specific examples.
- Keep tense, punctuation, and formatting consistent.
Tailor Your Resume for the Role and the ATS
- Analyze the job posting. Identify the responsibilities, required skills, qualifications, systems, and outcomes that matter most.
- Use accurate role language. Reflect relevant terminology from the posting where it truthfully matches your experience.
- Prioritize the strongest evidence. Move the most relevant projects, achievements, and skills into easy-to-find positions.
- Update for each application. Small changes to the summary, bullets, and skills section can make the fit clearer.
Tailoring is not copying the job description. It is organizing your real experience around the employer’s stated needs.
Proofreading and Final Checks
- Read the resume aloud to catch awkward or unclear phrasing.
- Use spelling and grammar tools, then review the changes yourself.
- Ask a trusted person to check clarity and consistency.
- Confirm titles, dates, contact details, and links.
- Use a professional file name and a format the employer requested.
- Open the final file on a second device to confirm the layout holds together.
Take the Next Step
Once your resume is ready, review how to prepare for an interview, compare salary expectations, or browse current Tree Top Staffing opportunities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which resume format do recruiters usually prefer?
A reverse-chronological resume is often the easiest format for recruiters to review because it shows recent experience and career progression clearly. Functional or combination formats may help when changing careers or explaining a less traditional work history.
What sections should every resume include?
Most resumes should include contact information, a concise summary when useful, work experience, education, and skills relevant to the target role.
How can I make achievements stand out?
Start bullets with strong action verbs, describe what you changed or delivered, and use numbers or other concrete evidence when it accurately shows the scale or result of your work.
How should I tailor a resume for an applicant tracking system?
Review the job description, identify the relevant skills and qualifications, use accurate language that matches the role, and make the most relevant experience easy to find without adding keywords you cannot support.
What should I check before submitting a resume?
Confirm dates, titles, contact information, spelling, grammar, formatting consistency, file name, and alignment to the target role. Reading the resume aloud and asking another person to review it can reveal unclear wording.