Building a resume that stands out and is unique, you will have to spend some time to think about all the things that you want on your resume. Yes, it should have all your educational background, your work experiences, your thesis and everything. But remember my words, the more time you spend on it, the better it will become. So you have to spend appropriate time to build a resume that stands out. And while doing so you will have to use your creativity skills, your composition skills, and then finally, your marketing skills. Having said that, now let's talk about the three basic formats of resumes that are currently prevailing these days.

The first format, known as the chronological format, is the most commonly used format in today's world. This format portrays your vertical career progression, and is ideally recommended for those individuals who would like to pursue job opportunities within their specific field or the same industry that they have been working in in the past. The second format known as the functional resume is a resume that basically portrays your core skills and your experiences that you have gained over for a certain period of time, this format is ideally suited for experienced professionals with let's say eight to 10 years of experience, and they are planning to switch roles to a new industry by promoting a specific skill set that they have acquired over the past. And then finally, we have the third one which is known as the combination format. And as the name suggests, it is the combination of both the functional and the chronological format.

Now, the first format, the chronological format, is a format that I would recommend to all three grade levels, the entry mid and even the senior career levels. And why I say this is because if you are a fresh graduate, you can use this format and include all your internships, your work experiences, if you have any, and also your academic background and you can present all this information on one page. The second or the functional format, as I mentioned earlier is ideally recommended for mostly senior level positions. Because this way they can confine all their core skills on one piece of paper and try to target one particular job. This is the reason why it is also known as a targeted resume. And finally, the combination style resume, which is the combination of both styles is something that is recommended for mid and senior level professionals.

Over here you can include your initial functional format style at the very beginning by highlighting your main skills at the very top. And at the bottom half of the page, you can highlight some of the work experiences that you've had over the past and also your career progressions as well. This lecture also contains sample resources or templates of all these three formats that I shared with you. But irrespective of whichever format that you choose, it is how you build your resume is what will portray you as a potential candidate. Hence in the next lecture, I will share with you 15 valuable tips that will help you craft a winning resume for yourself.