I am a big fan of the functional resume. Why? The functional resume is flexible. While I promise to provide you with a functional resume sample pdf, let’s take a closer look at what a functional resume is and when to use one.
What is a functional resume?
A functional resume emphasizes skills and accomplishments and deemphasizes work history. A reverse chronological resume is a traditional way of highlighting oneself to an employer. The issue with the reverse chronological resume is valuable experience, skills, and accomplishments can hide toward the bottom of a document. A functional resume could be a great option if you are changing careers, niching down within your industry, or have a disjointed work history.
Benefits of a functional resume
The benefits of a functional resume are flexibility, uniqueness, and a deemphasis on short or disjointed work history.
- Flexibility – Functional resumes are very flexible. You can choose what you want to highlight to the employer, and it can be very easily tailored from position to position.
- Uniqueness – I often choose the functional layout for clients who are niching down to a specific role within an industry. Why? Because you can make your resume very tailored and unique with a functional resume. Part of the uniqueness of a functional resume is the ability to choose very tailored resume headings. Headings are one of the first elements of resumes readers look at, and those headings either entice them to read on or cause them to move on to the next document.
- Deemphasize work history – A functional resume can deemphasize short employment or disjointed work history. If you have gaps or lack longevity, you may want to deemphasize the career timeline that a reverse chronological resume highlights. If you do choose a functional resume, I usually recommend having your full work history available. Employers will want to see it.
Drawbacks of a functional resume
If you’ve searched around, you have seen some bad press on functional resumes. Some say recruiters dislike functional resumes, many candidates find them hard to write, and functional resumes can be more difficult to review.
- Some recruiters dislike functional resumes – This can be true if you completely leave off your employment history. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I advise against this practice. Keep your work history listed, but you can deemphasize it by moving it toward the bottom of the page.
- Too much freedom – Another drawback of a functional resume can be too much freedom. Candidates often struggle to write a functional resume because there isn’t as clear of a structure for this type of resume. The flexibility perk of a functional resume could be a drawback if you don’t have experience writing this style of resume.
- Difficult to review – because there is so much flexibility with the functional resume, they can be more difficult to review. If a hiring manager has a stack of reverse chronological resumes and then one functional resume pops up, it will take them a moment to compare the candidate because the information is presented differently. On the flip side, the difference in the organization can also cause the eye to pause since it is different and unique.
Functional Resume Sample PDF
One of the benefits of a functional resume that I mentioned above is flexibility. I love that I can pull the best highlights from my career and showcase them using a functional resume. Telling my entire professional story is long and sometimes irrelevant. The functional resume sample pdf I’m sharing allowed me to highlight three of my most important, relevant, and impressive projects to the employer.
Notice that although I used the functional format, I still included my work history. My strategy was to hook the hiring team with my tailored heading. After impressing them with the relevant experience, I can draw their eyes to my work history, so they have a glimpse of my professional journey.
Utilizing elements of a functional resume and a reverse chronological resume is called a combination resume. I advocate for combination resumes because they still include the work history for employers’ review.
Tips for writing a functional resume
- Figure out your strategy – will you use a strictly functional format, or would a combination format be more appealing to your audience?
- Choose your headings – resume headings hold a lot of power. Choose heading titles that will draw your audience in and convince them to take a closer look.
- Highlight key accomplishments – notice my functional resume sample pdf includes bolded phrases. Strategically emphasizing information in bold helps draw attention.
- Provide tangible outcomes over generic skills – a functional resume is skill-based. But anyone can write that they have excellent communication or relationship-building skills. Instead of writing your skills, prove them by sharing evidence and outcomes. “Acquired and onboarded five new clients in first quarter of employment” speaks to employers far more than “excellent relationship building skills.”
- Include your work history – as I mentioned, employers still like to see your work history. Deemphasizing it and moving it down the resumes is fine, but I recommend including it.
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