When a dream C-Suite job opens up it becomes time to dust off the old resume and format it in the most marketable fashion.
There are two types of recognized resume services: chronological and functional. Almost always, professional resume writers will choose to provide executive-level clients with a chronological resume to best showcase their skillset and past working experience.
Resume writing and resume services are structured to provide clients with the best possible resume for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and chronological resumes often fulfill those requirements.
Here is the difference between the two resume formats:
Chronological –
A chronological resume chronicles one’s work experience from most recent down to oldest. Professional resume writer favors this format because the idea is to highlight the client’s most recent skills while highlighting important roles and accomplishments in a chronological fashion. Resume writing’s best practices are to ensure clients are satisfied with the resume service provided, and delivering the proper format is important.
Chronological resumes are necessary for executive-level clients because professional resume writers can showcase all of their work experience and special accomplishments. This resume format is the recommended format for any executive-level client.
Functional –
This resume format is utilized most often by professional resume writers for those looking for resume services that will help them change career paths, or for those just starting their careers. The functional resume design still highlights skills and career accomplishments, but instead of going down a list of all past work experience, professional resume writers take select accomplishments and build a new generic section. Then at the bottom of that section, all companies will be listed.
The idea behind a functional resume is to hide past experience if it doesn’t directly match up with the client’s next target position. This type of resume service showcases a client’s potential more than their past. Executive-level employees shouldn’t need to do this because they will want to highlight all past accomplishments in past positions. Professional resume writers can ensure clients are getting their best possible resume services by utilizing knowledge on these two formats and knowing when to use one over the other.