Functional Resumes Emphasize Your Skills
Do you want to change careers or get back in the job market? A functional resume can help you get there. Use a functional resume if you:
- Want to make a career change
- Are going back into the job market after a time away
- Are entering the job market for the first time
- Have large gaps in your work history
- Have largely done volunteer work
A functional resume highlights your skills or areas of expertise. It enables you to tailor information about yourself to a desired job.
It also lets you drop the aspects of your work experience or education that do not directly apply to your job goal. Compared to a chronological resume, there is less emphasis on work history and more emphasis on your skills - wherever you have used them.
Group your experience and accomplishments according to areas of expertise, also called functional areas. In this way, a functional resume shows your transferable skills, those skills you could use in multiple settings. These can be skills you've gained through paid employment, as well as homemaking, volunteer work, and hobbies.
If you have a long work history, and want a job in the same field, it's better to not use a functional resume. Employers will want to know more details about where you've worked and what positions you've held.
Sample Functional Areas
Take a look at these areas of expertise. Choose 3-5 when you write a functional resume.
| Administration | Marketing |
| Analysis | Media Relations |
| Auditing | Mediation |
| Bookkeeping | Merchandising |
| Communications | Negotiation |
| Community Organizing | Nursing |
| Computer Use | Office Support |
| Consulting | Operations Analysis |
| Contract Administration | Organizational Development Planning |
| Coordination | Problem Solving |
| Counseling | Product Presentation/Demonstration |
| Curriculum Development | Production |
| Customer and Client Relations/Service | Program Development/Analysis |
| Data Analysis | Promotion |
| Data Collection/Entry | Public Relations |
| Design | Public Speaking |
| Editing | Purchasing |
| Engineering | Quality Control/Assurance |
| Evaluation | Record Keeping |
| Facilitating | Reporting |
| Financial Research/Planning/Analysis | Research |
| Forecasting | Sales |
| Fund Raising | Special Events Planning |
| Human Resources Management | Staff Development |
| Information Systems | Supervision |
| Interpreting | Systems Analysis/Design |
| Interviewing | Team Building |
| Inventory Control | Training |
| Management | Writing |
Skills and Accomplishments
List your accomplishments and skills under each functional area. Choose what is most relevant to the job you're applying for. Say what you did, briefly and clearly, by using action verbs. Show the results or the impact of your achievements. Use numbers when possible.
Describe the situation, the action you took, and the results. This will help show employers how your skills can help them.
For example, if you are seeking an outreach job with your local elder care agency, you may choose "Community Organizing" as one of your functional areas. Here would be a good place to describe how you started a neighborhood watch program and how it helped your community.
- Organized a first-ever neighborhood watch covering a seven-block area. Recruited over 50 volunteers, scheduled shifts, and publicized the effort to the local paper. Crime dropped over 20 percent in the first six months.
For a job to hand paint pottery in a manufacturing plant, you may choose "Production" as a functional area. Highlight how you can help the employer, even though you may never have held a paid job in this field.
- Designed, threw, and painted original pottery pieces for craft fairs, school fund-raisers, and family use. Filled large-volume orders, with high design fidelity and extremely low break rates. Taught others how to replicate designs while maintaining high quality.
Sample Functional Resumes
(Adobe Acrobat Required)
Additional Resource
The Job Hunter's
Bible
A supplement to the popular job-hunting book, "What Color is
Your Parachute?" Many useful tips and examples for
describing what you can do.
