By J.M. Auron, ACRW — IT Resume Writer & Career Coach
This is an important question—and, unfortunately, the answers can be confusing—particularly so for IT job seekers, given the very specific requirements of an IT resume.
So I'd like to give some insight into this—based on my more than 15 years as an IT resume writer, and my previous experience as a headhunter.
There are, broadly, three main resume formats: the reverse chronological, the functional, and the combination. I believe the reverse chronological format to be the best choice for the vast majority of IT careers—but I'm going to discuss functional resumes and combination resumes first, because that discussion will clarify the benefits of reverse chronological.
The Functional Resume: What It Is—and Why It's Almost Never the Right Choice for IT Professionals
A functional resume focuses on a candidate's skills and competencies, presented outside a direct chronological framework. Rather than organizing experience by employer and date, a functional resume groups accomplishments and capabilities by skill category—typically right after the contact information, headline, and summary, before any chronological work history appears.
The theory is that leading with skills rather than timeline helps candidates who have something to hide—a gap, a career pivot, experience that's dated—by putting their strongest foot forward before a recruiter reaches the potentially problematic chronology.
There are situations where this logic holds. A candidate making a dramatic career pivot, for example, or someone returning to the workforce after a significant gap, might reasonably consider a functional format if their most relevant experience is sufficiently distant in the past.
But for IT professionals specifically, the drawbacks are severe enough that I'd recommend a functional resume only as a last resort—and even then, reluctantly.
The first problem is that hiring managers and recruiters in tech are deeply familiar with why candidates use functional resumes. The format signals, almost universally, that there's something in the chronology the candidate doesn't want you to find quickly. That suspicion is often enough to move a resume to the bottom of the pile—or out of it entirely.
The second problem is ATS compatibility. Applicant tracking systems are built around chronological data—employer, title, dates, responsibilities. A functional resume that buries or minimizes that structure can confuse parsing algorithms, resulting in a mangled profile on the recruiter's end—regardless of how strong the underlying experience is.
The third problem, specific to IT, is that your chronological progression matters. In technology, the arc of your career—what you did at each company, how your responsibilities evolved, what scale and complexity you've worked at and when—tells a story that a skills list simply can't. A recruiter filling a senior cloud architect role doesn't just want to know that you have AWS experience; they want to know where you got it, at what scale, and how recently.
My suggestion: use a functional resume if—and only if—a reverse chronological format genuinely cannot support your goals. In most IT careers, it can.
The Combination Resume Format
Ok. I'll start by stating my honest opinion (I know, regular readers will be shocked, shocked, that I'm stating an opinion).
I hate combination resumes. I really hate 'em. While a functional resume—with all its drawbacks—does have a legitimate role in a very specific job search, the combination resume format is never a good idea.
A combination resume—like many things that attempt to be the best of both worlds—ends up having the drawbacks of both formats and the benefits of neither.
A combination resume has the same general approach to skills as a functional resume, and then follows that with a scaled-down reverse chronological description of the candidate's career.
This has a couple of problems.
First, it's the very devil to read. A hiring authority will generally skip the skills section, go directly to the chronological section, not find the information that's required, skip back up to the skills section, try to figure out which skills go where—and this isn't exaggeration. I've read enough of these to know the process, and know that it's too time-consuming and frustrating for a recruiter to navigate unless the job requirement is incredibly obscure, specialized, and attracting a low volume of applicants.
The further problem with a combination format resume is redundancy. Given the nature of the approach, it's almost impossible not to repeat similar skills and accomplishments in both sections. That takes up valuable space, and it's tedious to read.
The Reverse Chronological Resume
This is the standard resume format, and the best choice for the vast majority of IT job searches.
There are several reasons for that.
The first is clarity. Reverse chronology gives the reader a clear picture of what you've done during each phase of your career. This enables the reader to see what you've done recently—which is of primary value to a recruiter—versus what you accomplished, foundationally, early in your career.
A reverse chronological resume also provides critical context for your accomplishments—something I've discussed in previous articles.
Finally, and most importantly, a reverse chronological resume is the expected format. Recruiters and hiring managers are used to seeing them and reading them—so scanning for relevant information is quicker and easier. Don't underestimate the value of meeting expectations in a document that a recruiter may spend thirty seconds with before deciding whether to read further.
A Reverse Chronological Resume Has to Be Done Well
The format is only half the battle—and probably a good deal less than half. A reverse chronological resume that lists duties rather than accomplishments, that buries its strongest material, or that reads like a job description rather than a career story, will underperform regardless of how well it's structured.
That means leveraging a number of strategies I've discussed in previous articles—including the importance of separating duties from accomplishments, and reserving bullet points for results rather than responsibilities.
The Highlighted Accomplishments Resume—A Subcategory of Reverse Chronological
This is a format I don't use often—but there are times when it can be the best choice and solve some real problems.
This format is, fundamentally, the same as the reverse chronological—but with one key difference. In a highlighted accomplishments resume, the major wins are pulled out of the resume body and presented separately, right below the summary, before the chronological work history begins.
This approach works well for candidates who may have done great things earlier in their career but haven't been in a position to accomplish as much in their current role.
The downside is similar to the downside of the functional resume—recruiters are hip to why it's used. So if your current role is strong, don't use it: the highlighted accomplishments section will dilute rather than strengthen the impact of your most recent work. But if your current job simply hasn't given you room to shine, and your strongest material is a few roles back, a highlighted accomplishments structure may be worth considering.
The IT Skills Section
This is an issue specific to IT resumes—and one that needs to be handled strategically.
First: do you need a skills section at all? If you're a hands-on contributor or a technical leader—a solutions architect, for example—then yes, a technical skills section is necessary. But don't go overboard. A section of tools and technologies organized by category is a good approach, but there's no need to include every tool you've touched in your career. Stick to the most important, most recent, and most relevant to the opportunities you're seeking.
In terms of placement: I generally put the skills section on page two, before or after the education section. For someone early in their career, or a candidate whose value proposition is tightly tied to a specific skill set, I'll occasionally place the skills section at the top of page one, below the summary—though this is much less common than it was a decade ago.
For technical leaders, the value of a skills section diminishes the further you climb up the ladder. I'll occasionally include one in an IT manager resume—but only rarely for an IT director, and almost never above that level.
There are two reasons for this. The first is space. A well-formatted skills section shouldn't require more than four to eight lines—but at a leadership level, those lines can almost always be better used to tell a complete story of accomplishments. The second reason is perception: a skills section in a senior leadership resume can make a candidate's career look lower-level than it is, as though the candidate is more focused on tools than on the strategic and tactical leadership that solves business problems.
Final Thoughts
I hope this helps reduce some of the confusion that many IT professionals face when choosing a resume format. The reverse chronological format is almost always the right answer—not because it's conventional, but because it tells the most complete, most credible version of your career story, in the form that recruiters and hiring managers are best equipped to read quickly and evaluate fairly.
The format, though, is just the beginning. What goes inside it matters far more.
If you'd like to learn more about how I work—and how I can leverage my expertise to advance your IT career...