Reverse-chronological resume

Reverse-chronological means your most recent role is at the top and each earlier one follows. It is the default for a reason: a reader can answer "what are they doing now and how did they get there" in one downward scan, and parsers are built assuming this order.

The alternative usually proposed is the functional resume, which groups content by skill and hides dates. It reads as an attempt to conceal something — a gap, a short tenure, a pivot — because historically that is what it was used for, and experienced recruiters treat it that way. A hybrid, where a short skills or summary block sits above a normal chronological history, gets the same benefit without the signal.

If you're changing fields and your recent titles look wrong for the target role, the fix isn't to abandon chronology. It's a summary line that frames the pivot, and bullets under each role that emphasize the transferable half of the work.