Best Resume Formats You Should Use in 2023 (with Examples)

Let me break some disturbing news to you—

Recruiters don’t read resumes.

They merely skim them for most relevant information. Only the very best resumes will get more attention.

Which ones exactly?

Those that use an elegant, professional resume format and proper resume formatting.

Let me show you an easy way to make a resume like that in no time.

In this guide you’ll learn:

• How to format a resume so that it lands you the interview.
• Easy-to-use tips and tricks for the best resume format.
• Which of the three resume formats to choose: reverse-chronological, functional, or combination (hybrid).
• Resume format templates and samples better than 9 out of 10 others.

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To begin with, here’s a sample resume format. Read on for a breakdown of what makes it so great!

Expert Hint: When should you use a resume, and when is it better to use a curriculum vitae? It depends. CV and resume actually have a different meaning across languages. Read about the difference between a resume and a CV here.

1. Resume Formatting Rules

Good resume format serves two purposes: it quickly leads recruiters’ eyes to where you want them to and it highlights your top strengths and achievements.

Here’s how to format a resume step by step:

1. Set one-inch margins on all sides.

2. Divide your resume into sections.

In the following order: contact information, resume summary or resume objective, work experience, education, skills for a resume, and additional sections (e.g. references, courses, certifications, publications, conference attendance).

3. Choose a clear, legible, and elegant resume font.

Stick to it throughout your resume. Go for 11 or 12 pt. Use 14 to 16 pt for your name at the top and bold for section headings.

4. Put a single blank line before and after your section headings.

5. In the experience and education sections, use reverse-chronological order.

Start with your most recent job or school, follow it with the one before it, and so on.

6. Make strategic use of bullet points.

They save space and help you get your message across concisely.

7. Try to make a one-page resume, but don’t obsess over it.

It’s better to have a two-pager than to omit important information. It’s even worse if you jam-pack the contents of your resume using tiny fonts and too little white space. How far back should a resume go? 10 to 15 years will more than suffice in most cases. 

8. Save your resume in the PDF format.

Unless the job ad states otherwise, submit your resume in PDF. Word files can go south in transit.

These are the basics. But there’s more to resume format than this.

But guess what? You don’t have to waste your time fiddling around in your text editor to get that perfect resume layout. We’ve done the work for you—just pick one of our best resume format templates and dive straight into building your resume.

2. The Best Ready-to-Use Resume Formats

1. Cubic

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Cubic is a modern resume format designed for confident professionals who aren’t afraid to showcase their achievements. It’s neat, organized, and can hold a ton of information without looking crowded or overwhelming.

2. Modern

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Modern uses subtle color accents to guide the reader’s eye straight to the key sections. Its clean look makes it perfect for corporate professionals and creative minds alike. No wonder this professional resume format is so popular among our users!

3. Nanica

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You just can’t go wrong with Nanica! This simple resume format is like a Zen garden: it creates a minimalist, lightweight look with lots of white space. This is one of the best resume formats for professionals who prefer sleek, distraction-free resumes.

4. Squares

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If you want a simple resume format that oozes confidence and authority, try Squares. It’s the ideal resume format for business jobs because it gives your resume a calm yet assertive look. As a nice bonus, you also get a personal logo with your initials.

5. Vintage

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Some things never go out of style. The Vintage resume template is one of them—this professional resume format is as timeless as a power suit. It relies on subtle accents to create structure and highlight what’s important.

In the next section, you will see how to choose the best resume format for your job application.

3. The Three Best Resume Formats: Examples

To make the best resume that appeals to recruiters, you need to follow the best resume format rules.

First off, here are the three most common resume formats that recruiters expect to see.:

• Reverse-chronological resume format
• Functional resume format
• Combination (hybrid) resume format

Choosing the proper resume style is all about dividing your resume into specific sections and putting them in the correct order.

Below, we break down how each one of these resume formats works and give our recommendations on who should pick which.

Reverse-Chronological Resume Format

The reverse-chronological resume format consists of:

1. Personal Information

2. Resume Summary or Resume Objective

3. Work Experience

4. Education

5. Skills

6. Additional sections (Courses, Conferences, Publications, Awards, or Hobbies and Interests)

Let’s check how the rev-chron resume format works in practise:

Sample Reverse-Chronological Resume Format

What is the main focus of the reverse-chronological resume format?

Work experience.

And that’s exactly why it’s so popular amongst job seekers and valued by recruiters.

It can be explained by science.

A fascinating eye-tracking study by The Ladders found that recruiters spend up to 80% of their resume review time on the following parts:

• Name and job title
• Current position, company, start and end dates
• Previous position, company, start and end dates
• Education

The reverse-chronological resume format makes all that information easily available.

And it gives you an additional edge: it’s sure to pass an Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) scan.

Just like recruiters, the ATS bots are familiar with this resume format so they’ll extract your data without any glitches.

(And yes, it’s very important. This report has shown that almost 98% of Fortune 500 companies use ATS in recruitment.) Use an ATS-friendly resume template to make it past the bots.

Expert Hint: No wonder the good ‘ol rev-chron resume is the most popular US resume format. It’s elegant, clear, and useful to everyone. This format will be your safest bet! If you're still deciding, check out this guide on Functional vs Chronological resume format. 

Now, on to the most controversial of the three resume formats.

The invention of the nineties:

Functional Resume Format

The key ingredients of the functional resume format are:

1. Contact Information

2. Resume Objective

3. Skills Summary

4. Additional Skills

5. Work Experience

6. Education

See the example to get the idea:

Sample Functional Resume Format

Looks fine at first glance. But let’s take a closer look—

Something seems wrong, doesn’t it?

Glassdoor survey amongst top talent acquisition pros revealed what recruiters really want to see on a well-formatted resume.

The key thing?

“Resume is easy to follow—we don’t have a lot of time to decipher qualifications. The easier a resume is to read and follow, the better,” says Karen Whyte, Senior Recruiter at Big Fish Games.

Functional resume format forces recruiters to do just that—decipher qualifications and read between the lines.

Sure, skills and qualifications are important.

But—

You can’t just randomly put them at the top of the resume in whatever order you see fit while not giving any tangible proof.

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Nail it all with a splash of color, choose a clean font, and highlight your skills in just a few clicks. You’re the perfect candidate, and we’ll prove it. Use our resume builder now.

Expert Hint: Unless you’re in a creative field (where a portfolio matters more than your resume) or you’re a military transitioner (whose detailed military job descriptions would be too hard to follow), drop the idea of a functional resume format. It’s just confusing. Plus, it might make recruiters feel like you’re trying to hide something.

So you’re bound to stick to the standard reverse-chronological resume format, right?

Wrong.

There is an alternative:

Combination (Hybrid) Resume Format

The combination resume format is made up of:

1. Personal Information

2. Summary of Qualifications

3. Additional Skills

4. Experience

5. Education

Bringing theory to practice:

Sample Combination (Hybrid) Resume Format

I know what you’re thinking:

Well, this resume format is almost identical to the functional format!

And you’re perfectly right. But there is a clear difference. I’m sure you can spot it.

The top part of the resume, your most valuable real estate, is also focused on skills. But—

Every single skill listed is backed up with verifiable, quantified proof.

Plus, have a look at the experience section:

It’s not as elaborate as in the reverse-chronological resume format, but still detailed enough to give a clear view of your career progression.

Already in love with the hybrid resume format?

Hold up a sec—

Expert Hint: The combination resume format can only be used by very experienced job seekers. Usually, either people targeting higher-management positions or career changers with extensive work history. If you’re not that experienced yet, stick to the tried-and-tested reverse-chronological resume format.

Time for a quick recap then:

4. How to Choose the Best Resume Format

Here’s a handy table comparing the three standard resume formats.

So, as you can see the best resume format is the one that works for you.

More times that will mean the classic, respected reverse-chronological resume format.

Expert Hint: Not all Free Resume Builders are ATS friendly. To make sure your creative resume reaches a human reader, send it directly to the recruiter's inbox.

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Key Points

Here are the key ingredients of the best resume format:

• There are three standard resume formats: reverse-chronological, functional, and combination (hybrid).
• The reverse-chronological format is the best resume format and will work for all candidates. We highly recommend it. 
• A functional resume format is good for creative roles, as it's focusing on skills.
• A combination resume format suits very experienced jobseekers.
• Whichever resume format you'll choose, remember to: divide your resume into sections and use clean formatting. 

Frequently Asked Questions about Resume Formats

What are the 3 resume formats for a job?

As of 2023, there are three main resume formats:

• The reverse-chronological format lists your work history and shows what you’ve achieved while working for each employer. It can also be tweaked to focus on your academic achievements if you don’t have much work experience yet. It’s the most common resume format because people and resume parsers can easily understand it.
• The functional resume format is also known as the skills-based resume format. It focuses on your resume skill set rather than your work history, so you may use it to gloss over employment gaps and employment histories that aren’t perfectly neat and linear. However, many recruiters aren’t familiar with functional resumes and might reject candidates just because they found it confusing. Also, companies use the Applicant Tracking Software to parse resumes, and functional resumes aren’t ATS-friendly.
• The combination format gives equal attention to your skills and work experience. It can be useful in certain situations but has the same drawbacks as the functional resume format.

What is the best resume format in 2023?

The reverse-chronological resume format is the standard and best resume format to use in 2023. In a reverse-chronological resume, you list your work experience and educational background, starting with your most recent jobs and ending with your earliest successes.

Here’s why it’s the golden standard:

• It offers a quick overview of your key achievements and professional growth over the years, arranged in an easy-to-read order.
• You only need a few seconds to skim a reverse-chronological resume—recruiters don’t have the time to read more complicated documents.
• Recruiters use a kind of software called the Applicant Tracking Software to help evaluate candidates, and ATS can struggle with extracting info from non-chronological resumes.

Which resume format do employers prefer?

Most employers and hiring managers prefer the reverse-chronological resume format. It’s a resume that lists your work history and education in reverse chronological order, with bullet points that show what you achieved while working for each employer.

Here’s why it’s the preferred resume format:

• Bigger companies use ATS to read and evaluate candidates’ resumes, and this software is primarily trained to read reverse-chronological resumes. If you need an ATS-friendly resume, opt for the reverse-chronological format.
• It takes less time to read than functional or combination resumes.
• Reverse-chronological resumes paint a full picture of your employment history without hiding any employment gaps. So if you use this resume format, recruiters won’t suspect that you’re trying to hide a terrible secret.

Unless you have a very good reason to opt for a functional or combination resume, stick to the reverse-chronological resume format. 

What file format should a resume be in?

Unless the job ad clearly asks for a specific resume file format, it’s best to go with a PDF file. The reason is that a PDF file looks the same on every device, so your resume will always look perfect no matter if the recruiter opens it on a PC, a Mac, or a phone.

However, keep in mind that some companies use applicant tracking software that doesn’t support PDF files. In this case, the job ad will specifically ask for resumes to be submitted as DOCX or even TXT files.

Check out our guide to different file formats for resumes to learn more.

Which resume format is the most ATS-friendly?

Applicant Tracking Systems are primarily designed for reading reverse-chronological resumes. Other resume formats might confuse the software and lead to your resume getting rejected.

Here’s how you can make sure you have an ATS-friendly resume:

• Avoid unusual resume formats.
• Choose an ATS-friendly resume template.
• Write the resume profile in a way that mentions the company and the position you’re applying for.
• Make sure your resume sections have standard headings.
• Borrow resume keywords from the job ad.
• Avoid pictures and infographics.
• Save your resume as PDF or in the file format specified in the job ad.

Is there a special resume format for students?

When writing a student resume, your safest bet is the reverse-chronological format with a slight tweak: put the education section of your resume above your work experience section and make it more detailed. Check out our resource on writing a resume with no experience for a full step-by-step guide.

Applying for an academic position or writing a grad school resume? Forget what you’ve just read and go with an academic CV rather than a job resume.

How do I format a resume in Word or Google Docs?

If you want to make a resume from scratch without relying on resume templates for Word or resume templates for Google Docs, these are the resume formatting rules to follow:

• Set the page margins to 1” on all sides.
• Pick a classic combo of resume fonts (one for headings, one for body text) or use a single font throughout your resume.
• Set the body font size to 11–12 pts, depending on the font.
• Create the following resume sections: header, profile, work experience, education, skills, and any additional sections you may find necessary (like languages or volunteering work).
• Leave lots of whitespace between the resume sections.
• Follow the best practices for resume length.

However, making a DIY resume can be difficult, so we recommend using a high-quality resume template for your favorite word processing software or a dedicated resume builder.

Got more questions about resume formatting? Need further help writing a resume? I’m here to listen and assist. Drop me a line in the comments. Let’s chat!