Instead of giving stress on emphasizing work history as like Reverse-Chronological resume format; Functional resume focus on emphasizing “skills relevant to the job you are applying for, achievements, accomplishments, transferable skills, and experiences” at the top of the resume.
All the information in a functional resume is well categorized and organized that make easier for prospective hiring managers to quickly find what they are looking for. Due to various reasons, a Functional resume gives more stress on highlighting “skills, achievements, accomplishments and experiences” at the top of the resume and many job seekers consider this format as an ideal one for their resume. Look at the given below functional resume checklist to get an better idea.
Functional Resume Checklist
Less suitable for job seekers
Having job relevant work experiences without major gaps – If an applicant can strongly display his work experiences in his resume relevant to the job he is applying for, go for a reverse-chronological resume format instead of a functional resume format.
An entry level job seeker with lack of work experience & transferable skills– The format is less helpful for entry level job seeker with lack of work experience/zero work experience & transferable skills.
Advantages of a functional resume
- It is a quick way to highlight the skills, ability, knowledge and expertise relevant to the job you are applying for; make hiring managers to easily recognize you with your ability for the vacant job position.
- As the format facilitates you to include the work experiences without mentioning the employment dates - you can exclusively list only those work experiences that are relevant to the job you are applying for without the employment date & year.
Disadvantages of a functional resume
- If you have been regularly moving ahead in your jobs - using this format you may not be able to show-off this.
- The format may not be suitable for an employee who is working/had been working in a company for a long period of time.
- As the format facilitates you to show-off exclusively only those experiences that are relevant to the job you are applying for - enforce the hiring managers to think, maybe you are hiding something from them.
- As the functional resume allows you to list the experiences without the employment dates; may not clearly display “how your career has been progressed”.
Using many techniques you can wrap up the employment history gaps - To know the techniques of a functional resume in this consideration, carefully view the order and structure of this template,
Order & Structure of the Functional Resume Template
Contact Information (Mandatory)
Essential Information:
- Name (First Name + Middle Name + Last Name): Make it the largest one among all fonts in your resume.
- Address: Permanent address
- E-mail: Professional Email, not the school/collage/childish (like; cute&This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) email
- Phone number: Land Line/Mobile
Optional Information:
- Personal website link: If helpful in professional career development
- LinkedIn profile: Make it relevant to the job you are applying for
- Social Media Links: If helpful in the career development
- Remove all hyperlinks that automatically generate with your emails and URLs.
Job Objective (Optional)
It is 10 – 15 words of a sentence, more applicable - when you are a fresher, want to change your career path, and to show directly to the employer that which position you want to acquire & which responsibilities you want to take.
Qualifications Summary (Optional)
- The Qualifications Summary facilitates job seekers to emphasize skills, achievements and experiences in relation to the “employment history, education history, and the job you are applying for” right at the top of the resume in place of career objective and profile.
- While listing your most impressive skills and achievements relevant to the job you are applying for - try not to go beyond 5-6 bullet points and use relevant keywords that can easily pass through your resume to the application tracking system.
Transferable skills
- As, the functional resume format uses maximum by job seekers who have weak/spotty employment history or want to change their career path – apart from qualification summary, the format also gives more stress on highlighting transferable skills that can be helpful for job seeker to handle the challenging jobs.
- It is good if you can explain those highlighted skills to pull the attention of hiring manager right towards the main skills relevant to the job you are applying for.
- List your transferable skills and try to make it over in 3-4 bullet points.
Professional Experience (Mandatory)
- As the main aim of a functional resume is to screen-out the job seeker for an interview, if the job seeker has gaps in the employment history, either,
- He/she can explain about those gaps with authentic explanation, or
- List the detail of experiences without including dates
In both of the above solutions, the main of the job seeker is to convince and make the hiring managers think - you are the correct one for the job opening. These are the authentic explanation you can give to fulfill the period of unemployment,
- Involved in full-time studies
- Involved in preparing for entrance exam
- Health Issue
- Downturn
- Taken responsibility of full-time parenting
- Doing full-time family administration
- Personal Issue
Education Section (Mandatory)
- List your degrees in reverse chronological order
- Avoid listing abbreviation of your degrees; list the degrees with its full name. For example; Instead of listing “MBA” in your degree, list “Master of Business Administration”
- If the reason of gaps in between your jobs is your higher studies – list the education section at the top of the resume before the professional experience section. And, this is not the reason of gap – list the education detail at the bottom of the resume after the professional experience section.
IT Skills (Optional)
IT Skills: List the IT skills if you are applying to the IT industry.
- Include software and hardware you are familiar and friendly with
- Include the programming languages you know
- Include all other IT skills that are might be relevant to the job you are applying for
Additional Sections (Optional)
Additionally, you can include these all optional sections, if you feel these sections can strengthen your resume,
- Publication
- Language
- Presentations
- Research
- Honors/Awards
- Certifications/Licenses
- Extracurricular Activities
- Volunteer Work Experiences
- Collage Projects
- References
Functional Resume Templates
Thus, a functional resume is for people having gaps in the employment history and want to change their career path/industries. Using this resume template, you can hide/bring down the effect of unnecessary things by highlight the skills, achievements, accomplishments, experiences, and specialization at the top of the resume.
Here, you will see various functional resume templates that facilitate you to develop your resume with an ease by putting relevant details in the relevant sections of your resume.
