Creating or updating your resume is always a painful process, even harder after a layoff. The internet has made it easy to grab a sample resume so my focus will be to go through the basic framework of all resumes types and help you create what I term a “Lifetime Master Resume template” that you can use throughout your career.
Before we jump in to creating the master resume template, lets recap the 3 basic types of resumes; chronological, functional and hybrid or a combination resume.
Chronological
If you have an established career with lots of working experience and a lot of accomplishment to showcase this resume style is a great choice.
Functional
If you don’t have a lot of work history but would like to showcase your skills that relates to the position you are after,then a functional approach maybe you best bet.
Hybrid /Combination
This resumes type combines the best elements of chronological and functional resumes. This is my personal style choice because it delivers a great balance of skill and work history, while making it easier to tailor to the job you want.
Now that we are caught up on the resumes types, lets break down each type into its basic components or sections:
Chronological
· Your personal details
o Name
o Address
o Telephone (home and cell)
o Email
· Education and Training
o School Name and location (usually city/town and state/province should be enough information)
o Duration/Date
· Experience
o Position Name
o Company Name and Address
o Responsibilities and highlights
o Duration/Date
· Volunteer experience
o Position Name
o Company name and address
o Duration/Date
· Accomplishments
o Career and educational accomplishments
Functional
· Your personal details
o Name
o Address
o Telephone (home and cell)
o Email
· Skills
o Summary
o Technical skills
o Business skills
o Soft skill
· Experience
o Position Name
o Company Name and Address
o Responsibilities and highlights
o Duration/Date
· Volunteer experience
o Position Name
o Company name and address
o Duration/Date
· Education
o School Name and location (usually city/town and state/province should be enough information)
o Duration/Date
Hybrid /Combination
· Your personal details
o Name
o Address
o Telephone (home and cell)
o Email
· Education and Training
o School Name and location (usually city/town and state/province should be enough information)
o Duration/Date
· Skills
o Summary
o Technical skills
o Business skills
o Soft skill
· Experience
o Position Name
o Company Name and Address
o Responsibilities and highlights
o Duration/Date
· Volunteer experience
o Position Name
o Company name and address
o Duration/Date
· Accomplishments
o Career and educational accomplishments
At this point if you can fill in each section, then we already have a resume of each type that contains all the relevant information you will need to convey to a potential employer. However, what I would like to build is a master resume which will hold your entire work history in one place. This is very handy for a couple of reason:
- This will cover your entire career to this point and beyond (you can even add data from previous positions).
- A centralized location of information so it will be readily available on demand.
- It will be a “live document” that you update anytime something changes or needs to be added, which means you are prepared at any time (should the worse happen).
- It showcases to yourself your accomplishments and tracks your progress through life (from a career standpoint).
- You can create a resume and build the requirements needed for any job from the master resumes, without having to worry about remembering what you did last year.
In my next post of this series, we will create a master resume template using the Hybrid /Combination resume type.
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