Which resume format to use
For most job seekers in the US, a reverse-chronological format is the right choice: your most recent job first, each with a title, an employer, dates and a few results. It's what recruiters scan for, and it's the structure applicant tracking systems are built to read.
That matters because the software usually reads your resume before a person does. Jobscan's 2026 check of Fortune 500 career sites detected an applicant tracking system at 487 of the 500 companies (97.4%).Source 1 When a person does look, the first pass is short: in Ladders' 2018 eye-tracking study, recruiters spent an average of 7.4 seconds on an initial screen.Source 2 A familiar layout lets both find what they need.
Use a hybrid format when your skills matter more than your last job title — a career change, or a technical role where tools are the first filter. Avoid the functional format: hiding dates makes recruiters wonder why.
QUICK RULES
Reverse-chronological, one column, standard headings, a text-based PDF.
- Reverse-chronological order: most recent job first
- One column; no tables, text boxes or icons in place of words
- Standard headings: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills
- One page early in your career, two once you have the experience to fill them
- A text-based PDF, unless the posting asks for Word
Chronological, hybrid and functional
Chronological (reverse-chronological)
Contact details, a two- or three-line summary, then Experience with your current or latest job first. Under each job: title, employer, location, start and end dates, and three to six bullets that show results. Education and skills follow. Choose it whenever your recent jobs are relevant to the one you want.
Hybrid (combination)
The same structure with a short Skills or Core skills block near the top, so a reader sees your strongest qualifications first. Your experience is still listed in reverse-chronological order with dates. It suits career changers, people returning after a break, and roles like engineering or data where a recruiter first checks for specific tools.
Functional (skills-based)
Experience is grouped by skill theme ("Project management", "Client relations") and jobs appear as a bare list, or not at all. It's meant to hide gaps, and readers know it. ATS parsers also expect each accomplishment to sit under a job with dates; without that, your history can come out empty. If you're tempted by a functional resume, a hybrid usually does the job better.
| Format | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Chronological | A steady work history in the field you're applying to — most job seekers. | Gaps and short stints are easy to spot; explain them briefly instead of hiding them. |
| Hybrid (combination) | Career changers, returning workers and technical roles where tools are the first filter. | Keep the skills block short. If it pushes your experience to page two, it's too long. |
| Functional | Very rare cases, such as a portfolio-driven career with little conventional employment. | Without dates under each job, recruiters assume you're hiding something and parsers can't build your history. |
Section order
Put the sections in the order a recruiter reads them, and name them the way the software expects:
- Contact details — name, city and state, phone, email, and a LinkedIn or portfolio link if you have one.
- Summary — two or three lines on who you are and what you're best at. Optional, but useful for a career change.
- Experience — most recent first. This is the section that gets read.
- Education — degree, school and year. Move it above Experience only if you graduated in the last year or two and have little work history.
- Certifications and awards — licenses, certifications or awards that matter for the job. Skip the section if you have none.
- Skills — one line or a short list of tools and languages. In a hybrid resume, a short version moves near the top.
Plain headings matter more than clever ones. "Experience" and "Work experience" are recognized everywhere; "Where I've made an impact" may not be.
Kevin O'Brien
Project Manager, PMP
kevin.obrien@email.com · Minneapolis, MN
linkedin.com/in/kevinobrien
Summary
Project manager with 8 years delivering IT and operations projects in logistics and healthcare. I keep scope, budget and stakeholders aligned so projects land on time.
Experience
Senior Project Manager — Tailspin Logistics
Mar 2021 – Present
• Manage a portfolio of 6 projects worth $4.8M; 5 delivered on or ahead of schedule
• Led a warehouse management system rollout across 9 sites, finishing 3 weeks early and 4% under budget
• Introduced a weekly RAID log and status report that cut late escalations by half
• Coordinate 30+ stakeholders across IT, operations, finance and two vendors
Project Coordinator — Lakeshore Health Partners
Aug 2017 – Feb 2021
• Supported an EHR upgrade for 14 clinics, tracking 400+ tasks in Smartsheet
• Ran sprint ceremonies for a 7-person Agile team after earning the CSM certification
Education
University of Minnesota
B.S. Business Administration · 2016
Certifications
PMP
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
Skills
Project planning, Scope management, Budget management, Risk management, Stakeholder communication, Agile / Scrum, Waterfall, MS Project, Jira, Smartsheet
Length: one page or two?
Aim for one page if you're a student, a recent graduate or have only a few years of experience. Go to two pages when you have enough relevant experience to fill them — a common rule of thumb is around ten years or a senior role. Three pages or more are for academic CVs and some federal applications, not a standard US resume.
The research is mixed, which is why the answer depends on your experience. In a 2018 simulated hiring study by the resume service ResumeGo, 482 hiring professionals chose two-page resumes 2.3 times as often as one-page versions of the same candidates, with the gap widest for mid-level and management roles.Source 3 Yet in the same company's 2024 survey, 92% of 418 hiring professionals said to stick to one page.Source 4 Read together: a tight one-page resume is the safe default, and a second page is fine when real, relevant experience fills it — never as padding.
What to cut first: jobs older than 10–15 years that aren't relevant, duties that every person in the role does, and a separate "References available upon request" line.
Layout, fonts and margins
- One column. Text flows top to bottom; nothing sits side by side.
- Fonts: a common sans-serif (Arial, Helvetica, Calibri) or serif (Georgia, Times New Roman), 10–12 pt for body text and 14–20 pt for your name. Stick to one or two fonts.
- Margins: about 0.5 to 1 inch on every side. Below half an inch, the page looks cramped when printed.
- Paper size: US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) is the US standard if you print. For online applications, the ATS reads the text, not the page size.
- Bullets for achievements, short paragraphs only for your summary. Bold your job titles so they stand out in a quick scan.
- White space between sections. It's what lets someone find your last job title in a few seconds.
For reference, LaunchCV's templates are one column with plain-text headings; in the US layout, body text is 10 pt, your name 18 pt and the margins half an inch, in a sans-serif or serif font that's metric-compatible with Helvetica or Times.
Dates and contact details
Dates: use one format for every job and stick to it — "Apr 2021 – Present" or "04/2021 – Present", not a mix. Put the dates on the same line as each job or right below it. Month and year are enough; years alone can look like you're hiding a gap.
Contact details: your name, city and state, phone number and a professional email address, as plain text at the top of the page — not in the document's header or footer area, which some parsers skip. A full street address isn't needed. Add a LinkedIn URL or portfolio if it helps your case.
Leave off a photo, date of birth, marital status and Social Security number. None of them is expected on a US resume.
What ATS parsers struggle with
An applicant tracking system converts your file to plain text and tries to sort it into fields: name, job titles, employers, dates, skills. These layouts are the usual reasons it gets that wrong:
- Multiple columns. Parsers often read straight across the page, mixing your sidebar into your job history. Ladders' study also found multi-column layouts performed worse with human readers.Source 2
- Tables. Cells can be read out of order or dropped.
- Text boxes and shapes. Text inside them is often skipped entirely.
- Headers and footers. Contact details placed there may never reach your profile.
- Images, icons and logos. A phone icon instead of the word "Phone", or skill-rating bars, can't be read as text.
- Unusual headings. Creative section names can stop the parser from recognizing your experience.
- Scanned or image-only PDFs. If you can't select the text in your PDF, neither can the software.
You can see exactly how your file reads with LaunchCV's free ATS check: it flags columns, tables, missing contact details and inconsistent dates, and needs no account. For the words themselves, see the resume keywords lists by role.
File type: PDF or Word
Follow the posting first. If it asks for a Word document, send a .docx; if it asks for a PDF, send that.
When it doesn't say, a text-based PDF is a sensible default: it keeps your layout identical on every screen, and applicant tracking systems can read it as long as the text is real text — exported from a builder or word processor, not scanned or saved as an image. Some parsers still handle Word files more reliably, so a .docx is the safer pick for older portals or when a recruiter wants to edit the file.
Name the file plainly — Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf — and never send a .pages, image or zipped file. LaunchCV exports PDF; it also imports PDF and Word (.docx) files, so you can bring an existing resume in and keep it in one place.
Templates and examples in this format
Every LaunchCV template is a one-column, reverse-chronological layout with plain headings, and all four are free with an account, including the PDF export. The previews below are the real templates rendered with sample resumes from our resume examples.
- Classic template →Shown with the software engineer example
- Modern template →Shown with the product manager example
- Minimal template →Shown with the marketing manager example
- Executive template →Shown with the financial analyst example
Pick one on the resume templates page, or start from a written example for your role and edit it with your own experience.
Sources
Every number on this page comes from one of these. Links checked .
- 01Jobscan's 2026 check of Fortune 500 career sites detected an applicant tracking system at 97.4% of the companies (487 of 500); its 2025 edition found 97.8%.Jobscan — 2026 Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Usage Report (opens in a new tab)
- 02Ladders' 2018 eye-tracking study: an average initial resume screen of 7.4 seconds; cluttered layouts, multiple columns and long sentences performed worse.HR Dive — Eye-tracking study shows recruiters look at resumes for 7 seconds (Ladders, 2018) (opens in a new tab)
- 03Simulated hiring study by a resume-writing company: 482 hiring professionals picked two-page resumes 2.3 times as often as one-page versions, with the gap widest for mid-level and management roles.ResumeGo — Settling the debate: one or two page resumes (2018) (opens in a new tab)
- 04Survey by the same company: 92% of 418 hiring professionals advised keeping a resume to one page.ResumeGo — Survey: How long should a resume be? (2024) (opens in a new tab)