Each individual has different work experiences and objectives. You may have gaps in your work history. You may be changing careers or have had jobs progressively in same field.

You need to choose a format that is to your advantage and shows you as best candidate for job.

Here are two (2) main resume formats used. Decide which is best for you.

1. The Chronological Resume Format:

Objective Summary Experience Education References

The chronological resume format is most popular format used by persons, especially those who write their own resume. However, it’s not for everyone.

This resume format is for you if;

you have constantly moved to better and better jobs; all your jobs have been in same field (more or less); you have no significant periods of unemployment. From information above, should your resume format be a chronological one? If your answer is yes then you’re good to go. If however your answer is no then following format is for you.

2. The Functional Resume Format:

So how come so many people still seem to spend so long working on their job search these days?

Perhaps because so few of them have really thought about how to make best use of resources at their fingertips! So here are a few secrets behind effective internet job searching that should enable you to do a little work, and then simply sit back and let jobs find you!

Firstly, of course, you need to develop a totally exceptional resume! I highly recommend that you do not write it or format it yourself unless you have a great deal of expertise in this area – it is well worth investing in getting an expert to do it for you – on average cost will be less than $100 and when you think that it could boost your annual salary by $10 – 50,000, or even that it could simply bring in your next job much more quickly - meaning that you get one extra month’s salary – surely investment is well worth it!

I can highly recommend Kate Yandoh ktyandoh@excite.com to write content of your resume – it is amazing how her words can turn a pretty drab resume into one that shines at top of a pile - and there are a number of very cheap services out there on web that can format a resume for you, making it more presentable and effective.

Ensure that your resume contains a number of contact details enabling potential recruiter to contact you via a number of means – by telephone during day, by telephone at night, by email, by fax, etc. Make sure that this contact information is prominently placed at top of your resume.

Think about keywords you use within your resume. For example, objective or title of your resume must match title that recruitment agent will later be searching for so try to ensure that you use exact terminology that it is likely that recruitment agent will use when looking for you. Typing “Project Mgr” in your resume title is not going to match many searches whereas typing “Project Manager” will probably match quite a few.

If a particular skill that you have is known by more than one name, use both names repeatedly within your resume – for example, “Visual Basic” and “VB” are two different keywords that recruiters often use to look for Visual Basic programming skills – to ensure that your resume is caught in both types of searches, use both terminologies within your resume.

Just like in search engine searches, a job search engine checks number of times you mention a particular keyword within your resume, so if you have a key skill you should ensure you mention it as many times as possible within your resume – perhaps once for each job in which you used that skill, as well as once for a training course you went on where you learned skill, and again for a certification you have in that skill.

If you cannot afford to have your resume written and formatted professionally, at very least, ensure that somewhere early on in your resume, there is a list of your top skills (4 or 5 skills usually) and how many years experience you have in each of those skills (or any certification you have in that skillset).

The next secret is to ensure you have your resume in Word format, but also in plain text format. This is crucial, because so many web sites ask you to paste your resume into a text box. If resume does not look good in this format, is not easily legible, you will lose out immediately to another candidate whose resume is!

Load Word version of your exceptional resume up to a web site. If you do not already have your own web site, there are lots of web sites that offer free web space and make it very easy to load up a word document to that space (see http://www.doteasy.com or http://geocities.yahoo.com ) – so that it is available to anyone who wishes to access it at all times – and ensure that this copy at least is kept completely up to date.

At top of your resume in both formats, ensure that there is a link to copy on your web site that is always up to date, with a piece of text saying ‘To get a formatted version of this resume please go to http://www.mywebsiteurl.com/myresume.doc.’ This means that anyone who ever gets a copy of your resume can always go to your website to get most up to date version, and means that you can get job offers a long time after you sent out your resume! It also means that anyone who receives text only version of your resume can easily get hold of a nice, presentable, formatted copy.

Next go to top job web sites and post your resume to those web sites. For most of them nowadays, you can simply load up your Word or text format resume and site does much of rest of work for you, though for some you will have to type in a fair bit of additional information.