The best resume format is the one that is easiest to scan, contains your most relevant professional experience, and puts the most important information first.

When you send a resume to an employer as part of an application, it will be read by a resume parser (software that reads a resume looking for keywords), a recruiter (a person hired to help a company find good candidates for a role), or a hiring manager (the person who this role will actually report to once a candidate is hired). Each of these is likely scanning - not reading - your resume, and the difference is important.

Scanning a resume may take a few seconds at the least, perhaps three minutes at most. When scanning, parsers and people are looking for key phrases and words from the job description to appear on the resume. To be clear: if the resume is using lots of the same words, phrases, and numbers from the job description, it is more likely to make it to the next step. The best resume formats use a single easy-to-read font and leave lots of white space around individual blocks of texts (or bullets) so that scanning is easy and fast.

The best resume format also contains just your relevant work experience. Your most relevant items are the ones that sound similar to things listed in the job description. The next most relevant information to include are things that weren’t specifically asked for in the job description, but which you feel would be valuable and relevant to the role. Do not include anything on your resume that doesn’t directly tell an employer why you would be a good fit for a role.

Once you have the relevant information and it’s easy to scan, you’ll want to order the information so that the most important items appear first. Start by putting your name, email address, and phone number at the top of the page. Next, you’ll need to make a decision. If you are qualified for this role because of past work experience that is similar to this role, list that work experience in reverse chronological order (most recent job first), then list any relevant skills, then your educational background. If, on the other hand, you are just starting your career, or your skills and education are more relevant than your previous work experience, list your education or skills first (whichever is most relevant, followed by the other), then list any work experience in reverse chronological order.

If this sounds intimidating, don’t worry! You can use Jobward for free to upload your professional information. Then we’ll do the hard work of wrangling everything into the right format.