I’ve talked a little bit about chronological vs functional resumes before, but today I wanted to go a little more in depth about grouping different experiences together on your resume. Grouping different experiences together on your resume lets you section out and highlight important aspects of your career while giving you more freedom from the basic chronological timeline of your career.
I find this tactic extremely beneficial for those who are working a job to make money while simultaneously studying for or pursuing a career which they are passionate about. Similarly, this is great for students or people with minimal work experience, who conduct class projects, volunteer work, etc., which can be put on a resume. A recent study done by LinkedIn showed that 41% of hiring managers consider volunteer experience to be equally valuable as paid work, portraying that including volunteer work is a simple and beneficial way to plump up your resume when you are just starting out in the workforce.
One of the best ways to group experience categories is to utilize buzzwords found in your desired job description. Some headlines which I typically utilize include, “Leadership Experience,” “Professional Experience,” “Clinical Experience,” “Research Experience,” and “Nonprofit Experience.”
Another great way to show that you are motivated to do what you love while still supporting yourself and/or your family is by grouping your experiences into “Professional Experience,” and “Unrelated Experience.” The “Professional Experience” category highlights all of your skills benefitting the job you’re applying for, while the “Unrelated Experience” category highlights your consistent career path and your reliability.
This tactic is also extremely beneficial for those in higher education or research based fields/those using a CV. When there is a lot of information to go through, grouping it into smaller sections makes it more reader friendly and more manageable. By creating smaller sections for the reader to focus on, it causes them to retain more of the information than if they were to simply skim over a long document with no section headings.
Do you have any sectional headings you like to use? Or do you have a question about how to utilize sectional headings? Reach out and ask me! I’d love to help!