Functional Resume

A functional resume is one of the most used styles of resume writing. The other most common style is chronological which lists all you experience from most recent to least.

However a functional resume will list your experience in spurts because a functional resume is meant to be used by those with a lot of different experiences that do not add up to a straight career path.

Functional Resume, College Grads

Other people who will benefit from using a functional resume would be a college graduate. Usually if you are a college grad, you have some work experience that is going to have nothing to do with whatever career path you have chosen to follow. Let’s say you decided you want to work in human resources after you graduate. How many opportunities are you going to have to experience all the aspects of human resources? Chances are very little. You may get you feet wet by doing an internship but for the most part your experience will be limited. Another reason why a functional resume works well for you college students is because it allows you to show the skills you got by experience other than paid employment.

Functional Resume, Stay At Home Parent

If you were a stay a home parent who had a career and then left it to raise your family and have now decided to return to the work place, then this is the resume for you. If you use a chronological resume, it will probably draw attention to the fact that there is a big gap in your work experience. Some employers might not even bother to call you for an interview because of this gap.

If you have been at some of your jobs for short periods of time because you were still trying to figure out what you want to do career wise, a chronological resume would not benefit you. A chronological resume could you give an appearance of a job hopper and again this might give employers a bad impression of you.

Functional Resume Format

Keep in mind though that if you are using a headhunter or recruiter they may not want to see a functional resume and neither do some of the online job boards like Monster or Hot Jobs.

Another idea to keep in mind when creating your functional resume is to make your resume in a functional format but include a brief work history in reverse chronological format. This is a style of resume that is also known as a combination resume.

If you are unsure what your functional resume should look like, you can always do a search online to look at function resume examples to get a rough idea on how to format it.

Functional Resume

Sample Functional Resume

When trying to determine which resume format will best support your goal of being interviewed and hired it makes sense to look at and review a sample functional resume.

A sample functional resume will help you to determine if your employment goals are best supported and displayed by highlighting your skills and job responsibilities rather then your job titles and work industries.

With a sample functional resume you can see how other like job seekers and resume writers have used the functional resume format to highlight their strengths and disguise their weaknesses.

Let a Professional Resume Writer help you choose the correct resume format.

Example of Functional Resume