What is a Functional Resume?
Are you struggling to get noticed by employers who place ads with long lists of job requirements? Sure, you might lack the relevant industry experience requested but you may have all the skills and attitude that would make you a great candidate. Not only do you not get the job you know you would be great at, but you don’t even have a chance to interview! This can be extremely frustrating and demoralizing.
You know that, given the opportunity, you would excel but you keep getting overlooked because employers do not understand your previous experiences and cannot see how the skills you have acquired will transfer over to this new position. Let’s look at how adjusting your resume format can increase your chances of getting that interview opportunity. In our next post, we will look at when to use the functional resume.
Let’s look at it from the employer’s perspective. Every hire that they make is a gamble and the hiring process is typically equally stressful for both candidate and employer. At every stage, the employer is looking to solve an internal requirement and also mitigate risk. Hiring employees is an expensive and time-consuming process and hiring managers are tasked with filling gaps that are typically long overdue with limited training available – particularly in the current labour market. Pressure is heightened to make the right decision. They are looking to progress as a company and taking unwarranted risks on candidates will not only hurt the company but could land the hiring manager in some legal hot water.
From the employer’s perspective then, weeding out resumes of candidates who, on paper, do not align with their needs is the easiest way to mitigate risk and save time.
Now, let’s look at it from your perspective as the candidate. It’s the classic conundrum of “how do I get experience when every company requires experience?” Instead of focusing on experience, focus instead on your skills and thus, what value you can bring to the company. This is where the functional resume can help.
A functional resume focuses more on your skills than specific job-related experience. The jobs listed in chronological order with a synopsis on a traditional resume are instead replaced with specific skills as headers and then dive into examples that prove you have that skill. This is typically followed by a listing of your jobs and then your educational background.
There are many examples of the structure and format of the functional resume online. You can even download a template from Microsoft to build one yourself in Word. Here is the general framework:
Your Name
Your Contact Info
Summary
This is a short paragraph that is a quick synopsis of you. This is your chance to capture the readers’ attention with a quick elevator pitch. Note that this is an optional section in this type of format but does allow you to add further details on yourself that you feel might be neglected in the rest of this resume.
Professional Skills
List 3-5 skills as subheaders with 2-5 bullet points each that show proof that you possess these skills. It is important to include those that are ideally sought after in the type of roles you are ideally seeking, wherever possible.
Pro tip: Create a document with as many skills as you can think of that you have. Use this as a database that you can pull from to customize your resume to each job posting quickly and easily.
Work Experience
Company Name, Job Title, Location and Dates worked there. No additional details are included within this section in this type of resume.
Education
School Name, Degree/Diploma Acquired, Location and Dates you attended and ideally completed each program.
And that is it! This is the basic structure of this type of format. Of course, you can play around with the format a little bit and add other relevant headings if you wish but this is the meat of this resume format. Always remember, your resume is generally your first impression for the hiring manager. Treat it like you are an advertising agency and are looking for a way to promote a product (you) to a very specific consumer (the employer). In this case, the consumer has provided you with exactly what they are looking for in a new product, through the job posting, and now all you have to do is meet their needs.