Chronological vs Skill-Based Resumes

This post originally appeared in my MBA/LLM/grad school admissions blog, that is focused on providing advice for people applying to schools.

Choosing between a chronological and a skill-based layout is necessary when designing the layout of your resume. Both have merits, although a chronologically organized resume will clearly be superior for most. This post defines each resume style, and then lists reasons why the chronological resume is preferable.

1) The Difference Between Chronological and Skill-Based Resumes

Chronological Resumes:

A chronological resume will list contents within the academic and professional experiences sections in the order they occurred. Most resumes are reverse chronological, i.e. the most recent position (or degree) is on the top of the section.  Like this:

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Company A, Barcelona Spain

Senior Strategic Consultant 4/2011 - present

Company B, New York, USA

Marketing Project Manager 4/2009 - 9/2010

Business Consultant 4/2006 - 3/2009

Company C, New York, USA

Business Consultant 4/2004 - 3/2006

Marketing Manager 4/2002 - 3/2004

Administration Manager 4/2001 - 3/2002

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

University XYZ, Masters 3/2001

University XYZ, Bachelors 3/1999

All jobs are listed, right back until the university career was completed. One concern with a chronological resume is that gaps in experience become readily noticeable, like the one above from 10/2010 to 3/2011.  This is not necessarily a problem as long as the additional section of the resume explains what they were doing during that time.

ADDITIONAL

Gained intermediate-level certification in Spanish language from ABC school in Barcelona (10/2010 to 1/2011)

Any additional question marks (why learn Spanish?) would be covered by the nature of the responsibilities or accomplishments in the Senior Marketing Consultant position that started in 4/2011, or if not then in a statement included as part of the job/school application. In this rough simulation above, the gap makes sense, as it appears this person chose to study Spanish prior to starting their current position, where it would presumably be useful.

Skill-Based Resumes:

A skill-based resume groups working experience by the nature of the work, rather than in a chronological way. Here is the same example as above, but reorganized into a skill-based format (with the academic and additional sections deleted for the purpose of the example).

Strategic Consulting Experience:

Company A, Barcelona Spain

Senior Strategic Consultant 4/2011 - present

Company B, New York, USA

Business Consultant 4/2006 - 3/2009

Company C, New York, USA

Business Consultant 4/2004 - 3/2006

Marketing Experience:

Company B, New York, USA

Marketing Project Manager 4/2009 - 9/2010

Company C, New York, USA

Marketing Manager 4/2002 - 3/2004

Other Experience:

Company C, New York, USA

Administration Manager 4/2001 - 3/2002

In this case, the line items are unchanged, but their order is changed.  The idea here is to highlight a certain strain of working experience that is particularly useful for the position being applied for.  In this case, one might assume the person is aiming for a role related to Strategic Consulting. The gap in experience is de-emphasized, as are any switches between functions, because the jobs are not listed in a chronological order. In a skill-based resume, the person may or may not choose to list the dates next to each position. Instead, the focus is on the experience gained within each area.  

2) Why is a Chronological Resume Preferable?

A) It's clear and complete.

Reader often scan the dates to see if gaps exist. I think it's a natural reaction to a resume, I have certainly done this for the hundreds (thousands?) of resumes I have scanned in my career. The first test of a resume is that it is complete, and documents your background and progress. It does not need to include everything - but at the least you should aim to account for all of your time. There is no problem with having a gap between jobs, or between experiences - as long as it is explained somewhere in the resume.  Note as well that if Job A finished on May 11, 2006, and Job B began on June 27, 2006, I would not consider this a gap at all:

Job B 6/2006 - x/200x

Job A x/200x - 5/2006

There is no gap here that the resume needs to address.

A skill-based resume is often chosen when there is a break in the working experience, or a period of time that is difficult to explain or wholly irrelevant to the position you are applying for.  The problem here is that the reader of the resume is most likely aware of this strategy. So, in essence, it backfires, as the skill-based resume may cause the reader to attempt to find a problem, solely because of the choice of the format in which it was written. If a recruiter, employer, or school admissions officer is only going to give your resume 1-3 minutes anyways, it would be advisable that this time is spent admiring accomplishments, not hunting for disasters. This is the case whether your resume ultimately has chronological gaps or not. 

B) It better shows career progress.

The younger you are, the more important this is.  In any case, most people's career arcs upward in responsibility and accomplishment, and you should use a chronological resume to highlight your own arc as best as possible. By breaking up your experience in other ways, the overall impact of the growth of your responsibility is harder to see. If your resume is chronological, but you worry that the progression of your career is hard to see, than you may not be emphasizing the right responsibilities or accomplishments in your career descriptions and bullet points.

C) The skills can be summarized effectively elsewhere.

Rarely is a resume meant to speak for itself. Rather it is an introduction, and comes along with an essay (school application) or cover letter (job application). The essay or cover letter is a better place to note that you have "over 8 years of experience in strategic consulting". Such headlines are rarely effective on a resume. So, instead of making a skill-based resume, consider a chronological one and be sure to include a cover letter or description in the essay as to what choices you have made, what skills you have gained, and how they are important to the job you are applying for, or the program you want to enter and future goals you aim to achieve.

Have you thought about the contents of your resume today?

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

Should a resume be 2 pages or 1?

This post originally appeared in my MBA/LLM/grad school admissions blog, that is focused on providing advice for people applying to schools.

Your resume is one of the most important documents you have, and requires constant attention and updating, even if you are not looking for a job or applying to grad school.  How long should this document be? Look around on the internet and you'll see people advocating for a 2 page resume, especially if you have a lot of working experience or a lot of academic accomplishments like written publications. Others swear that the only good resume is a 1 page version, where you limit and focus the content on just that which is most relevant to its audience.  Which is right?

My short answer is that the 1 page resume is the only document which should be used in your job or school application (except for those positions that very explicitly ask for a detailed and complete curriculum vitae, usually involving lengthy detail on academic accomplishments).  But that doesn't mean there is no use for a longer version.

I recommend regularly maintaining and adding to a 2-4 page resume, that is inclusive, and documents all of your positions and accomplishments. When you decide to apply for a job, or grad school, or anything else that requires a resume for that matter, then you can take this long resume and cut it down to a final 1 page version that is highly presentable because it shows a focused and strategic version of you.  For the purposes of this article, let's call the long list of accomplishments the "master" resume, and the 1 page version the "finished" resume. There are several benefits to be had from such a system.

Benefit #1: You can keep everything, without having to show everything.

For many, it is hard to cut their 6th consecutive M&A deal from a resume, especially when they all seem to be so interesting!  But the reality is that this level of duplicity is rarely necessary in a finished resume.  So, keep the master resume as a comprehensive list, while the finished resume can be a more focused version that contains just those contents that are most relevant for the job or application.  This is a great way to fulfill both urges people feel when they make a resume: 1) they want it to reflect absolutely everything, and 2) they want to feel that it is focused to the individual reader. It is hard to accomplish both with just one document, so don't even try.

Benefit #2: Content which is cut from the final version doesn't disappear.

I used to keep just a 1-page resume, and so when I decided to add something, invariably something else had to be cut.  This is fine of course, but what if one of those cut accomplishments may have some level of value in a different, future situation? If all you are doing is continually refining and juggling the content in your 1-page resume, then once you cut something you may forget about it - and it may be useful later.

Benefit #3: The master resume can be easily adapted into a finished resume that is targeted for specific situations. 

I've mentioned here that the finished resume needs to focus the reader's attention on the details of your background that are most relevant for them. Given this, a finished resume for your application to the MIT Sloan MBA program (where, by the way, they require a resume that is not "more than one page in length (up to 50 lines)",  is not necessarily going to be the same resume you would submit for a job as a domestic sales manager at a fashion retailer. Your finished resume should instead be catered to fit each individual need to which it may be applied. 

Note that as you finalize resumes for different purposes, you are not only cutting the volume of material so that it fits 1 page, but you may also be tweaking the word choice within bullet points to highlight different skills that you may aim to highlight for different purposes.

But why is it so necessary to make all of these painful cuts in order to arrive at my finished 1 page resume? Wouldn't a 2 page version just be easier to make? Why do I have to carefully go over all of my accomplishments in order to find just those key ones that are most representative of my skill-set, and that are most relevant to the reader? In asking these questions, you are giving yourself the answers: you need to make all of these decisions and evaluations of your resume content, so that your reader doesn't have to.  Your 1-page resume is the movie trailer of (the relevant parts of) your life - it is short, to the point, and gets the viewer interested in wanting to learn more.  Can a two-page resume do this? In most cases it can, but a one-page resume does it better, because it foes it more succinctly. There is a reason why movie trailers are only 2 minutes on average. It is not because there is anything wrong with a 10-minute trailer. The reason is because 2 minutes is all that it takes to make you understand, and get you interested in the story being told.

Here's a quick summary of the benefits of having a 1 page resume:

1) A 1 page resume offers the strongest initial impact, and makes it easy for the reader to quickly scan your background and be impressed.

2) A 1 page resume has only the most highly relevant and impressive content, because you have taken the time to select which bullet points to include.

3) A 1 page resume doesn't require the reader to go back and forth between pages or have to hunt for what they are looking for. Everything is laid out clearly.


John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

Different Job, Different Resume

Is it true that a smart job applicant will adjust their resume for every position to which they apply?  Absolutely yes. Your experiences may not change, but the elements you stress in your resume will certainly change from one job application to the next.

If Company A is looking for a self-starter who is comfortable initiating and designing projects, then your experience setting up a cross-departmental team to tackle the problem of how to reduce electricity consumption by 25% last summer is more relevant.

If Company B is looking for someone with a strong academic background, you'd probably add a bit more detail to the extra-curricular activities you were involved in at university to ensure that 3.7 GPA looks as good as it possibly can.

If Company C wants someone with international experience, then you'd be better off cutting 1-2 domestic M&A deals and highlighting the international ones instead.

One size does not fit all when it comes to showing how your background might suit a particular job.  So don't be afraid to tailor your resume to fit every single job you apply for.

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

Constantly Build your Resume

As I neared graduation from the University of Toronto, I remember talking with a good friend of mine who had just started work at a new job that week, a job he had spent a good deal of time getting. As far as I was concerned, being in such a position would be an ideal time to be satisfied with your career, as you work hard to master that new job. But my friend was looking in the classifieds.  

I asked him why he was looking for work, when he had just started this new position.  He looked up and told me that you should always be looking for something better.

He was right. Since that time, this experience has stayed with me. It is always important to focus on what you are doing right now, while having an eye firmly focused on the next opportunity.  In my friend's case, even though he had just started a great job, it was no time to stop looking for a better one.  

It is because of the inspiration I have gained from this attitude that I have started this blog.  There is no ideal - there is only better and worse, and as you progress through your career it is important that you continually take stock, reflect on what you have accomplished, and where this may lead you in the future.  I think the best way for you to do this is through reworking and constantly building your resume.  

I am to contribute to this blog tips, hints and snapshots of what separates great resumes from weak ones.  I hope you the reader uses them to craft your own resume into something that will help you take that next step towards something better. 

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com