What to Include in a Combination Resume With Examples

A combination resume is ideal for people who want to emphasize their skills over their work history. And, combination resumes can be used to show an employer your most relevant skills, qualifications, and experience, while still documenting your work history.

Furthermore, this resume format is also a good way of answering the reader’s questions about career changes, employment gaps, and other potential red flags. In this case, a combination resume will enable you to highlight what you can now do, not what you’ve done in the past.

What Is a Combination Resume?

Your employment history is listed next, in reverse chronological order (beginning with your current or most recent job and then working back through earlier positions). A combination resume lists your skills and qualifications first.

When to Use a Combination Resume

This format often offers the best of both worlds for job seekers who might prefer to present their resume in a functional format, emphasizing their skills and qualifications, but who have been instructed by the employer to include a work history.

What to Include in a Combination Resume

The combination resume is typically sectioned into two parts:

• The first part is similar to a functional resume in that it highlights skills, achievements, and qualifications.
• The second part depicts the timeline of one’s work experience.

The layout first captures the attention of the employer or recruiter by highlighting the key skills and capabilities of the applicant in a “qualifications summary,” and then supports this introductory section with an account of prior work experience.

And, it can be especially effective, in this format, to divide the descriptions of your work experience into “Related Work Experience” and “Additional Professional Experience” sections. This allows you to focus your reader’s attention on your most relevant experience while at the same time providing a complete work history.