Functional Resume

Determine if a functional resume is right for you. A functional resume is best suited for those who cannot show a steady career progression. This type of resume is designed to highlight specific skills rather than job titles. For example, a functional resume is best for people who have changed jobs frequently, or who have gaps in their work history. A mother who took time off to raise a family would likely benefit from a functional resume. A photographer who has won awards for their photographs, but who has only had one job working as a photographer would also benefit from the format of a functional resume. The focus of this type of resume is skills and experience, not job history.

1. Determine whether to list your ‘Education’ or ‘Skills, Awards, and Achievements’ first. Choose whichever best sells you as the best candidate for the job.

• If you have a bachelor or graduate degree, you likely want to put your education first.
• If you have job specific skills, or a large number of awards, you may want to list those first.
• For example, if you don’t have any paid job experience but you just graduated from college, listing your education first will highlight your most impressive accomplishment first.
• If, on the other hand, you did have not completed your undergraduate studies yet but you have worked at 2 volunteer jobs and 2 internships, listing those accomplishments first will showcase how industrious you are.

2. Provide details of your education. Regardless of whether you list your education first or second, it’s important to give recruiters details of what you studied.

• If you attended more than one college, university, or training program, list them with the most recent one first.
• For each institution, include the name, city and state, and the degree or certificate you received.
• If you had a cumulative grade point average (“GPA”) of 3.5 or better, list it as well.
• If you did not attend college or trade school, do not include your high school education; including high school information on your resume doesn’t look professional.

3. Decide how to present your skills, awards, and achievements. You may divide these into three individual sections in your functional resume, or you can consolidate the information into one section.

• Label each section something like “Special Skills,” “Awards & Achievements,” or “Major Achievements.”
• This section, or these sections, could be presented as a list of the skills you have that are related to the particular job, a bullet point list of awards, a chronological description of your achievements, or some combination of the three.

4. List your employment history. Since this isn’t the strongest part of your resume, you’ll want to list it at the end so that the recruiter reads through your more impressive accomplishments first.

• You should include sub-headings for the type of experience each job provided you with, such as “Management Experience,” “Legal Experience,” or “Financial Experience.”
• For each job, be sure to include the name of the company, the city in which the company is located, your title, your duties and responsibilities, and the dates of employment for each employer.
• Optionally, under each job description you can include a bold heading, which reads “Major Accomplishment” or “Achievements,” and list two or three achievements or a major accomplishment for that position.
• You may want to outline how you took the initiative to make the office run more efficiently by, “establishing office procedures to improve workflow and reduce paper costs.”

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 762