Resume format refers to how your information is organised and presented. The three main formats are chronological, functional, and hybrid (also called combination). Each has different strengths — and ATS systems treat them very differently.

Chronological Resume Format

The chronological format lists your work experience in reverse chronological order — your most recent job first, oldest last. Each role has a job title, company, dates, and bullet points describing what you achieved. This is the standard, most recognised format in the world.

✓Best for: Candidates with a consistent work history and relevant experience progression
✓Preferred by: ATS systems, 95% of recruiters, and most hiring teams
✓Worst for: Career changers, those with significant employment gaps, or new graduates with limited relevant experience

The chronological format is the safest choice for almost all candidates. When in doubt, use it.

Functional Resume Format

The functional format leads with a skills section, groups experience by skill category rather than chronology, and de-emphasises job titles and dates. The idea is to shift focus from when you did things to what you can do.

✓Best for: Career changers trying to emphasise transferable skills over irrelevant history
✓Worst for: ATS screening — most ATS systems cannot parse functional resumes correctly, leading to a catastrophically low score
✓Recruiter perception: Often seen as an attempt to hide gaps or irrelevant experience

Avoid the functional format unless you have a very specific reason. It actively hurts your ATS score because the system cannot extract the standard job history fields it is looking for.

Hybrid (Combination) Resume Format

The hybrid format starts with a summary and a strong skills section, then transitions into a reverse chronological work history. It combines the keyword-richness of a functional format with the parseable structure of a chronological one.

✓Best for: Senior professionals with deep expertise, career changers with relevant transferable skills, or candidates with impressive achievements to highlight before the work history
✓ATS compatibility: Good, as long as the work history section still uses standard reverse-chronological structure
✓Worst for: Early-career candidates who do not yet have enough content to fill both sections meaningfully

What ATS Systems Prefer

All major ATS platforms — Workday, Greenhouse, Taleo, iCIMS, and Lever — are optimised to parse reverse chronological work history. They expect to find: job title, employer name, start date, end date, and bullets. When the format deviates from this expectation, parsing fails partially or completely.

Pro Tip

Use a single-column layout regardless of which format you choose. Multi-column resumes — even chronological ones — frequently fail ATS parsing because the system reads columns left-to-right in a single pass, mixing the content from column 1 and column 2 together.

Section Order That Works Best for ATS

1.Contact information (name, email, phone, LinkedIn, portfolio)
2.Summary (2-4 sentences)
3.Skills (categorised list)
4.Work Experience (reverse chronological)
5.Education
6.Certifications (if applicable)
7.Projects (if applicable)

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Best Resume Format in 2025: Chronological vs. Functional vs. Hybrid