Three layouts, one decision: which sections lead, how a recruiter reads each one, and the exact margins, fonts, lengths and file types that survive screening.
Use the reverse-chronological format unless you have a specific reason not to. It lists your jobs newest first, it is what recruiters and applicant tracking systems expect, and it needs no explanation. The combination format is the sensible second choice when you are changing field and your job titles do not show what you can do. The pure functional format — skills grouped at the top, dates buried or missing — is a last resort, because it reads as if something is being hidden.
This guide sets out what each format contains, which situation calls for which, and the exact formatting numbers to build it with.
Each option explained
The reverse-chronological resume opens with your name and contact details, a three- or four-line summary, then employment history with the most recent role first. Each entry carries job title, employer, location, and month and year for start and end, followed by three to six achievement bullets. Education, licences and certifications, and a short skills list come after. Use it when your next job is a recognisable step from your last one, when you work in a field that checks dates and registrations — nursing, aviation, construction, accountancy, teaching — and whenever you are applying through a large employer's system such as Workday, Taleo, SuccessFactors, iCIMS, Greenhouse or Lever. The whole format rests on the bullets, so make each one an action plus a task plus a number in the units of the job. Instead of "responsible for the stockroom", write "Cut stockroom shrinkage from 2.1% to 0.8% across two branches in nine months". Instead of "responsible for social media", write "Grew the brand's Instagram following from 4,000 to 19,000 in 14 months on a £600 monthly budget".
The functional resume replaces the dated job list with two to four themed skill blocks — for example "Client management", "Data analysis", "Site supervision" — each with bullets drawn from anywhere in your life: paid jobs, volunteering, study, freelance work, a family business. Employers appear at the bottom in a bare list, sometimes without dates. It exists for a narrow set of situations: a decade out of the workforce, a stretch of unrelated short-term jobs that tell no story, or a school leaver with coursework and volunteering but no employment. Be clear about the cost. A recruiter cannot see what you did most recently, cannot tell whether the impressive bullet is from last year or 2009, and will usually assume the worst about the gap you are steering around. Many parsers will also fail to populate the work history section, which means your application arrives looking empty. If you are considering it, build the combination format instead and address the gap in one straight line.
The combination resume keeps the dated employment history intact but puts a skills summary, a core competencies block or a "selected achievements" section above it. The top third argues that you can do the advertised job; the bottom two thirds proves you have been employed and by whom. Use it when your job titles obscure the work — a project coordinator who has been running budgets, a teacher moving into instructional design, an army logistics NCO moving into warehouse management — or when your recent role is a step sideways or down from earlier ones. The discipline is not to say the same thing twice: the skills block should name the capability and the headline evidence, and the job bullets should carry the detail. Cap the top block at six to eight lines. If it runs longer, it becomes a second resume sitting on top of the first.
ATS checklist
Run this before you upload. Fix anything that fails, then re-export.
- Standard section headings. Use "Work Experience" or "Professional Experience", "Education", "Skills", "Certifications". Invented headings such as "Where I've Made a Dent" may not be recognised as a section at all.
- Complete, dated job entries. Every role has a job title, an employer name, a location and month/year dates on consecutive lines. This is the single biggest reason a pure functional resume parses badly.
- One column, no text boxes, no tables for layout. Type directly into the document body. Content inside a text box or a graphic frame can be skipped entirely.
- Real text, not an image. Open your exported PDF and try to select a line of text with the cursor. If nothing highlights, the file is an image and no system can read it.
- Keywords in the words the advert uses. If the posting says "accounts payable", "Xero" and "CIPS Level 4", use those exact terms where they are true of you, in the job bullets and the skills list. Spell out an acronym once and then abbreviate: "Certified Public Accountant (CPA)".
- Simple bullet characters. Round or square bullets from the word processor's list tool. Avoid arrows, emoji, check marks and manual dashes typed at the start of a line.
- Contact details in the body of page 1. Name, phone, email and city sit in the first few lines of the document, not in the header area or a sidebar.
- Plain file, plain name. Export to PDF unless another format is requested, keep the file under about 2 MB, and name it with your name and the role.
Frequently asked questions
Should my resume be one page or two?
One page if you have less than about 10 years of relevant experience, two pages beyond that. The rule that everyone must fit on one page comes from a US graduate-recruitment convention and does not travel well — a senior engineer or a nurse with four registrations cannot fit on one page without cutting things a reader needs. What matters more is that the page is full. A second page with three bullets on it looks unfinished; either expand it to at least half a page or cut back to one. If you do run to two pages, put your name and "Page 2" at the top of the second sheet in the body text, and make sure the strongest material is above the fold on page 1, because that is what gets read first.
Are Word, Google Docs or Canva templates safe to use?
The plain single-column templates built into Word and Google Docs are generally fine. Design templates — the ones with a coloured sidebar, a photo circle, skill rating bars and icons — are the ones that cause trouble, because the content usually sits in text boxes or table cells that a parser can mis-order or skip. Canva and similar tools are excellent for a portfolio piece or a resume you hand over in person, and risky for a portal upload. A practical test: export the file to PDF, open it, select all the text, paste it into a blank document and read the result in order. If the job titles have separated from the dates, or the sidebar text has landed in the middle of a bullet, rebuild it as a single column.
Should I include a photo, date of birth or marital status?
It depends entirely on where you are applying, and norms differ sharply. In the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada and Australia, photos and personal details such as age, marital status and nationality are conventionally left off, and many employers strip them to support fair hiring. In parts of continental Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, a photo and some personal details are still expected on a standard CV. Look at how job adverts in that country describe what to send, and at what people in the same field and country put on their public profiles. When you are unsure, leave them off — nobody has ever been rejected for omitting a photo in a market where photos are optional.
PDF or Word — which should I send?
PDF unless the advert, the portal or the recruiter asks for .doc or .docx. PDF preserves your fonts, spacing and page breaks on any machine, and a text-based PDF exported from Word or Google Docs is read reliably by modern parsers. Send Word when an agency asks, because agencies often add their own cover sheet and branding before passing your resume to the client. Never send a .pages file, a scan, a photo of a printout, or a link to a document that requires the reader to request access. Check the upload screen for a stated file type and size limit and follow it exactly.
Will a functional resume be rejected automatically?
There is no switch that deletes functional resumes, and you should be suspicious of anyone quoting a rejection rate without a source. The real problem is quieter. Parsers build a structured profile from job title, employer and dates; a skills-block layout gives them little to work with, so your application can arrive with an empty or partial work-history field, which makes you look under-qualified in a search. Then a human reads it and cannot tell when you did any of it. If your reason for reaching for a functional format is a gap, a downward move or a patchwork of contracts, the combination format handles all three without the cost: skills at the top, complete dated history underneath, and one honest line explaining the break.
Can I use two columns or a sidebar?
You can, but keep everything that must be parsed in the main column: job titles, employer names, dates and achievement bullets. A narrow sidebar holding only contact details, a skills list and languages is lower risk than a full two-column grid, though even that can be read out of sequence. For any upload to a large employer's careers system, a single column is the safer build. Some people keep two versions — a single-column file for portals and a designed version for direct email, recruiter conversations and their own website. If you do that, make sure the content matches; two versions that disagree on dates or titles create a problem later.
Do I need to change format for every application?
No. Pick one format and keep it. What should change between applications is the content: the summary at the top, the order and wording of the skills, and which bullets you keep for older roles. Mirror the advert's vocabulary where it is true of you, and cut bullets that have nothing to do with the job in front of you. Save each tailored version with the role in the file name so you can see what you sent. Rebuilding the layout every time wastes hours and introduces errors in dates and spacing — the two things a careful reader will notice first.
