Best Examples of Combination Resume Examples Highlighting Achievements

Real-World Examples of Combination Resume Examples Highlighting Achievements

Let’s start with what you actually came for: real, concrete examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements that you can model your own resume on. A combination resume usually opens with a summary and a skills/achievements section, then moves into a reverse-chronological work history.

Think of it this way: the top half of the page is your highlight reel; the bottom half is the full game stats.

Here’s how that looks across different careers.

Example of a Marketing Manager Combination Resume Highlighting Achievements

A mid-level marketing manager wants to move into a senior role. A basic job-history resume would bury their best wins. A smarter approach is to open with a summary, then a “Key Achievements” section.

Professional Summary
Data-driven Marketing Manager with 8+ years of experience leading multichannel campaigns for B2B and B2C brands. Known for turning underperforming campaigns into revenue drivers and building collaborative, high-performing teams.

Selected Achievements & Skills
Campaign Strategy & Performance

• Increased qualified leads by 42% in 9 months by redesigning the email nurture sequence and A/B testing subject lines.
• Grew organic website traffic by 63% year-over-year through SEO content strategy and technical optimization in partnership with the web team.

Team Leadership & Collaboration

• Managed a team of 5 marketers; introduced weekly standups that cut project delays by 30% and improved cross-team communication.
• Led vendor selection and onboarding for a new marketing automation tool, reducing manual reporting time by 10 hours per week.

Then, under Work Experience, each role still appears in reverse-chronological order, but each job has 3–5 bullets that echo the achievements and skills already highlighted above. This is one of the best examples of how a combination resume ties your top achievements to your actual timeline.

Example of a Career Changer Combination Resume (Teacher → Learning & Development)

Career changers are some of the best examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements because they need to prove transferable skills fast.

Professional Summary
Former K–12 Teacher transitioning into Learning & Development. 7+ years designing engaging curricula, facilitating workshops, and measuring learning outcomes. Brings strong communication, stakeholder management, and instructional design skills.

Relevant Skills & Achievements
Instructional Design & Facilitation

• Designed and delivered over 50 lesson plans and workshops per year, consistently rated 4.7/5 or higher in student feedback surveys.
• Created differentiated learning materials that improved test scores for underperforming students by 18% in one semester.

Stakeholder Communication

• Collaborated with parents, administrators, and support staff to create individualized learning plans for 25+ students annually.
• Led quarterly parent workshops on at-home learning strategies, improving parent engagement rates by 35%.

Under Work Experience, the job titles still say “Teacher,” but the bullets are written in language that matches Learning & Development or corporate training roles. This is a strong example of how to use a combination format to bridge industries.

Example of a Recent Graduate Combination Resume Highlighting Projects

If you’re early in your career, you may not have a long job history. That’s where examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements through projects, internships, and campus leadership really shine.

Professional Summary
Recent Computer Science graduate with hands-on experience in Python, SQL, and cloud-based applications. Passionate about building scalable tools that solve real user problems.

Technical Skills & Academic Achievements
Programming & Data

• Built a web app using Python (Flask) and PostgreSQL that handled 10,000+ records, improving query performance by 35% over the baseline.
• Completed a capstone project using machine learning to predict housing prices with 92% accuracy.

Teamwork & Leadership

• Led a 4-person team in a semester-long software engineering project; delivered on time and received a grade of 98%.
• Served as Treasurer for the Coding Club, managing a $5,000 annual budget and organizing three hackathons.

Work Experience still appears, but it might include internships, part-time retail jobs, and campus roles. The combination format lets the graduate put their most relevant, achievement-heavy content at the top instead of relying solely on job titles.

Example of an IT Professional Combination Resume with Measurable Impact

Technical roles are perfect for examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements because the impact is often measurable.

Professional Summary
Systems Administrator with 6+ years of experience managing hybrid cloud environments, improving uptime, and strengthening security posture for mid-sized organizations.

Core Skills & Key Achievements
Infrastructure & Reliability

• Improved system uptime from 97.5% to 99.9% within 12 months by redesigning backup and failover procedures.
• Reduced average incident resolution time by 28% by implementing standardized runbooks and on-call rotations.

Security & Compliance

• Led patch management initiative covering 300+ endpoints, reducing critical vulnerabilities by 80% in 6 months.
• Collaborated with external auditors to support SOC 2 compliance, resulting in zero major findings.

Again, the work history provides context, but the achievements section at the top makes it obvious why this candidate is worth interviewing.

Example of a Sales Professional Combination Resume Focused on Revenue

Sales roles offer some of the clearest examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements because numbers tell the story.

Professional Summary
Top-performing Account Executive with 5+ years of B2B SaaS sales experience. Consistently exceeds quota while building long-term client relationships.

Top Sales Achievements & Skills
Revenue Growth

• Exceeded annual quota by an average of 132% over the last 3 years.
• Closed the company’s largest deal to date ($850K ARR) by leading a cross-functional pitch with Product and Customer Success.

Pipeline Management & Customer Relationships

• Maintained a qualified pipeline 3x quota by building referral loops and nurturing long-term prospects.
• Achieved a 94% renewal rate across a portfolio of 40+ accounts.

These bullets are short, specific, and packed with results—exactly what hiring managers want to see in 2024 and 2025.

Example of a Project Manager Combination Resume Showing Cross-Functional Wins

Project managers often work across teams and systems, which can be hard to explain in a plain job-history resume. A combination format helps connect the dots.

Professional Summary
Project Manager with 9+ years leading cross-functional teams to deliver software and process improvement projects on time and under budget.

Highlighted Skills & Achievements
Project Delivery & Efficiency

• Delivered 12+ major projects with an average of 8% under budget and 95% on-time completion.
• Implemented Agile ceremonies across 3 teams, increasing sprint completion rates from 70% to 92%.

Stakeholder Management

• Coordinated with Engineering, Marketing, and Operations to roll out a new customer portal used by 20,000+ clients.
• Improved stakeholder satisfaction scores from 3.6 to 4.4 out of 5 within one year.

This is one of the best examples of a combination resume that clearly ties skills (Agile, stakeholder management) to real results.

How to Turn Your Experience into Achievements for a Combination Resume

Looking at examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements is helpful, but you also need a repeatable way to write your own bullets.

A simple formula: Action verb + what you did + how you did it + result.

Instead of:
“Responsible for managing social media accounts.”

Try:
“Managed 4 brand social media accounts, increasing average engagement rate from 1.8% to 3.4% in 6 months through targeted content and A/B testing.”

To find results you can quantify, think about:

• Time saved (hours per week, days per project)
• Money saved or earned (revenue, cost reductions, budget efficiency)
• Volume (number of customers served, tickets resolved, campaigns launched)
• Quality (error reduction, satisfaction scores, ratings, performance improvements)

For guidance on workplace skills employers value in 2024, you can browse resources from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on occupations and skills: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/

2024–2025 Trends That Affect Combination Resumes

If you’re writing a resume today, you’re writing for two audiences: humans and applicant tracking systems (ATS). Strong examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements now have to work for both.

Here’s what’s shaping resumes in 2024–2025:

ATS-Friendly, But Still Human

Many employers in the U.S. and internationally use ATS software to scan resumes for keywords and structure. A combination resume can work very well with ATS if you:

• Use standard headings like Summary, Skills, Professional Experience, Education.
• Match language from the job description (for example, “Project Management” instead of inventing a fancy label).
• Avoid putting important text only in graphics or sidebars.

For a deeper look at how hiring and screening tools are changing, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has guidance on algorithmic decision-making: https://www.eeoc.gov

Skills-Based Hiring Is Growing

Many organizations are shifting toward skills-based hiring, which makes combination resumes especially powerful. Instead of assuming that a certain degree or title is the only path, employers look at what you can actually do.

Good examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements make skills obvious at the top: technical skills, soft skills, and proof that you’ve used them.

You can explore skills-focused career advice from universities like Harvard: https://ocs.fas.harvard.edu/resumes

Remote and Hybrid Work Experience Matters

If you’ve led remote teams, used collaboration tools, or delivered results across time zones, that’s worth highlighting. For example:

• “Coordinated a fully remote team across 4 time zones using Slack, Zoom, and Asana; delivered project milestones 2 weeks ahead of schedule.”
• “Onboarded 15 new remote hires using virtual training sessions and digital documentation, reducing time-to-productivity by 25%.”

These are modern, relevant examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements that speak directly to how work is done today.

Structuring Your Own Combination Resume Around Achievements

You don’t need to copy any single template word-for-word, but you can borrow the structure from the best examples.

A typical layout:

Header
Name, city/state, phone, email, LinkedIn URL.

Professional Summary
2–4 lines that position you for the role you want. Mention years of experience, industry, and 1–2 standout strengths or achievements.

Skills & Achievements Section
Grouped by themes, like:

• Technical Skills & Tools
• Leadership & Management
• Communication & Collaboration
• Industry-Specific Skills (for example, “Clinical Research” or “Supply Chain")

Under each theme, include bullets that combine skills with results, just like in the earlier examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements.

Professional Experience
Reverse-chronological list of roles with 3–6 bullets each, again focused on outcomes.

Education & Certifications
Degrees, certifications, and relevant training.

You can also add sections like Projects, Publications, or Volunteer Experience if they help tell your story.

Common Mistakes That Weaken a Combination Resume

Even with good examples, there are a few traps to avoid:

• Turning the top section into a keyword dump with no results or context.
• Repeating the exact same bullets in the skills section and the work history.
• Using vague language like “helped with,” “involved in,” or “responsible for” without explaining impact.
• Stuffing in every tool you’ve ever touched instead of focusing on what you can confidently use today.

When in doubt, ask: Could someone else with the same job title say this? If yes, make it more specific.

FAQ: Examples and Tips for Combination Resumes

Q: Can you give another example of a strong achievement bullet for a combination resume?
Yes. Instead of “Handled customer complaints,” try:
“Resolved an average of 35 customer support tickets per day with a 4.8/5 satisfaction rating, contributing to a 15% drop in churn over 12 months.”

Q: Are combination resumes good for people with employment gaps?
Often, yes. Many examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements come from people who want to draw attention away from gaps and toward skills and results. By leading with achievements, you make the case for your value before anyone focuses on the timeline.

Q: Do I need different versions of my combination resume for different jobs?
You don’t need to start from scratch each time, but the best examples include light tailoring. Adjust your summary, reorder your skills, and swap in achievements that match the job description.

Q: How long should a combination resume be?
In the U.S., most professionals do well with one page early in their career and up to two pages for 8–10+ years of experience. The key is that every line earns its place by showing a skill or result.

Q: Where can I see more real examples of resumes and achievements?
University career centers and government career sites often share samples. For instance, Harvard’s Office of Career Services offers resume examples and advice: https://ocs.fas.harvard.edu/resumes, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has detailed occupation profiles that can inspire achievement ideas: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/

If you use these examples of combination resume examples highlighting achievements as a guide—and keep your focus on results, not just responsibilities—you’ll end up with a resume that sounds like you, reads clearly, and gives hiring managers exactly what they’re looking for.