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Written and reviewed by the Resumarc team · Last reviewed 28 July 2026How we write our guidance
At a glance
Combination
The strongest choice when your title undersells you
This format has become the sensible middle ground. Hiring has moved steadily toward screening on demonstrated skills, and a combination resume speaks to that directly while keeping the dated history that keeps you parseable. If you are tempted by a functional resume, this is almost always the better version of that idea.
Best for
- Changing career or industry
- Technical and specialist roles
- Senior work spanning many roles
- Skills stronger than job titles
Avoid if
- You have very little experience yet
- Your history is straightforward and on-track
- You cannot keep it to two pages
What is a combination resume?
A combination resume puts a substantial skills section directly beneath your summary, then follows it with the same reverse-chronological work history a traditional resume would use. Both halves are real sections carrying real weight, which is what separates it from a chronological resume that happens to have a skills list.
The skills section is organised into themes rather than listed flat. Under each theme sit two or three lines of evidence, ideally with numbers. That structure is what makes the format persuasive. It lets you argue that you can do the job before the reader reaches job titles that might not obviously say so.
Because the dated history is still there in full, this format keeps the properties that make chronological resumes safe. Software can still extract your roles, employers, and dates, and a recruiter can still see how your career has moved. You are adding an argument rather than removing evidence.
The discipline this format demands is avoiding repetition. If your skills section restates the bullets that appear below it, you have spent the most valuable space on the page saying something twice. Each theme should surface something the history alone would not tell the reader.
The combination stack
Top of page to bottomSelect a block to see why that section sits where it does.
Grouped into two to four themes, each with evidence underneath. This is the format's engine and the reason to choose it.
See it rendered
A real Resumarc template, arranged in this format by the same engine the builder uses. Nothing here is a mock-up.
What to look for. Skills move above the work history, but the history keeps every role, date, and achievement. Both sections are carrying weight.
Templates that suit this format
Every Resumarc template can be arranged in any of these formats. You drag a section to move it, so switching format later never means starting again.
When to use it
- You are changing industry and your transferable skills matter more than your last job title.
- You work in a technical or specialist field where specific tools and certifications are the first screen.
- You are senior enough that your strongest evidence is spread across several roles rather than concentrated in the current one.
- Your job titles are vague, internal, or misleading about what you actually did.
- You are returning to the workforce and want capability to lead, without dropping the timeline.
- You are applying somewhere that screens on skills first, which is increasingly common.
Pros and cons
What works
- Your most relevant qualifications appear before anything that might not fit, which is decisive in a fast first read.
- It keeps the dated work history, so it parses close to as well as a chronological resume.
- It suits career changers without inviting the suspicion a skills-only resume attracts.
- Evidence sits next to each claim, which is more convincing than a flat list of skill names.
- It handles a broad or non-linear career better than a strict timeline can.
What to watch
- It runs long. Two substantial sections make one page difficult and two pages likely.
- Repetition is a constant risk. A skills section that echoes your work bullets wastes the best space on the page.
- It takes real editing to do well. A rushed version reads as cluttered rather than considered.
- Candidates with little experience struggle to fill both halves convincingly.
- Some traditional reviewers still prefer the simplicity of a straight chronological layout.
How to write it, step by step
- 1
Write a standard header
Nothing changes here. Name, the job title you are targeting, email, phone, and your city and region. Add a portfolio or profile link when the work is relevant and current.
Header
Tomás Ferreira
Data Analyst
tomas.ferreira@email.com · +351 912 000 118 · Lisbon, Portugal
linkedin.com/in/tomasferreira · github.com/tferreira
- 2
Use the summary to name the move
In a career change, do not make the reader guess. State what you are moving from, what you are moving to, and what makes the move credible. Two to four sentences is enough.
Professional summary
Operations analyst moving into data analytics after four years turning logistics reporting into decisions.
Strongest in SQL, Python, and building dashboards people actually open.
Rebuilt a regional reporting pipeline that cut manual reporting time by 11 hours a week.
Completed the Google Data Analytics certificate alongside full-time work in 2025.
- 3
Group your skills into themes, with evidence
Pick two to four themes that match what the job advert is asking for. Under each, write two or three lines of proof. Every line should carry something concrete: a tool, a scale, a result, or a credential. This is the section that earns the format, so give it the most care.
Skills and qualifications
Data analysis and SQL
Wrote the queries behind a 40-table reporting warehouse used by three regional teams.
Cut a weekly stock reconciliation from four hours to twenty minutes using window functions.
Visualisation and reporting
Built 15 Power BI dashboards; the demand view is now the weekly planning meeting's default screen.
Trained 20 colleagues on self-service reporting, halving ad-hoc report requests.
Python and automation
Automated three recurring reports with pandas, removing roughly 11 hours of manual work each week.
Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate, 2025.
Test each line by asking whether it appears in your work history below. If it does, either cut it here or make it more specific there.
- 4
Keep the work history full and dated
This is what separates a combination resume from a functional one, so do not trim it to a list. Every role keeps its title, employer, location, dates, and achievements. Where a role backs up a theme above, let the bullets show the same work from the angle of what the job required.
Work history entry
Operations Analyst · Nordreach Logistics · Lisbon, Portugal
March 2022 to present
Report on service performance across 14 distribution sites for the operations director.
Rebuilt the regional reporting pipeline in SQL and Python, removing 11 hours of manual work weekly.
Introduced a demand dashboard now used to set weekly staffing across all sites.
- 5
Place education and credentials deliberately
Education usually sits below both main sections. The exception is a career change, where a recent qualification in your new field is among your strongest evidence. In that case name it in the relevant skills theme as well, so it is not stranded at the bottom of the page.
Education and certifications
Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate · Google · 2025
BSc Business Administration · ISCTE Lisbon · 2021
- 6
Cut it back until every line is pulling weight
This format's failure mode is length, so budget the space. Older roles compress to a line or two. Anything restated between the two halves gets cut once. If you are past two pages, the skills section is usually where the fat is.
Read the skills section and the history back to back. Anything you feel you have already read is a cut.
How applicant tracking systems read it
Most applications pass through software before a person sees them. These are the details that decide whether your experience lands in the right fields.
- Keeping the dated work history is what makes this format safe. The moment you reduce it to a list of employers, you inherit the parsing problems of a functional resume.
- Head the skills block with a plain heading such as "Skills" or "Core Competencies". Inventive names for it are the most common cause of the whole section being ignored.
- Use a single column. The temptation to put grouped skills in a sidebar is exactly the layout that parsers read across and scramble.
- Write your theme headings as text, not as images or styled graphics, so the words underneath stay associated with them.
- Include both the acronym and the full term at least once, for example "SQL" alongside "Structured Query Language", since employers search for either.
Compare the three formats
Same sections, different order and different emphasis. This is the whole difference between them.
| Chronological | Combination | Functional | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leads with | Your work history, newest first | Grouped skills, each backed by evidence | Grouped skills, with the timeline pushed down |
| Best for | A steady history in the field you are applying to | Career changers and skills-led or technical roles | A genuine pivot with no adjacent experience |
| ATS reliability | Highest. Built exactly the way parsers expect | High. Keeps the dated history parsers need | Lowest. Little dated history to extract |
| Recruiter familiarity | Universal. Needs no decoding | Well understood and increasingly common | Often read as hiding something |
| Main risk | Gaps and career changes are plain to see | Repeating your work bullets in the skills block | Being screened out before anyone reads the skills |
| Typical length | One page, two if you are senior | Runs long. Both sections need discipline | One page. There is less to say |
Frequently asked questions
Key takeaways
- Lead with grouped skills, then prove them with a complete dated work history.
- Keeping the timeline is what makes this format safe with hiring software. Never trade it away.
- Every skills theme needs evidence underneath, with numbers wherever they honestly exist.
- Repetition between the two sections is the failure mode. Each should answer a different question.
- This is usually the right answer for anyone who was considering a functional resume.
Build it without fighting the layout
Every Resumarc template supports all three formats. Drag a section to reorder it, and your resume stays readable for both people and software.
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