Combination Resumes Are a Choice for Older Workers
By: Source: AARP.org Date Posted: 2004-07-02 15:24:00-04:00
Are you a mid-life or older worker with a lot of work experience? And with special skills you want to emphasize? Try a combination resume for the best of both worlds.
A combination resume combines elements of the chronological and functional resumes. This resume style lets you highlight your skills and accomplishments, while providing a brief list of your work experience. It focuses on what you can do and how you can do it, rather than on when you did it and for whom.
The combination resume also enables you to select and focus on those skills, interests, and experiences that relate to the job that interests you and drop or minimize those items that don't.
If you are a mid-life and older worker with lots of work experience, this resume type may be the most flexible for your needs. Even if you are planning to stay in the same field, a combination resume may be the best way to present yourself to a new employer.
Sample Functional Areas
When writing your combination resume, you will group your experience and accomplishments into areas of expertise, also called functional areas. In this way, your resume will highlight your "transferable" skills, those skills you could use in a variety of settings. These can be skills you've gained through paid employment, homemaking, volunteer work, and hobbies.
This list of sample functional areas will help you in writing a combination resume. Choose 3-5 areas.
| 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
Under each functional area, choose your most important and relevant skills and accomplishments. State what you did, briefly and clearly, by using action verbs. Show the results or the impact of your achievements. Use numbers when possible.
Especially if you are switching jobs or job fields, write statements that show how your skills from one field apply to another.
For example, if you are a teacher and now want to get hired as a professional storyteller, you may choose "Facilitating," "Public Speaking," or "Special Events Planning" as a functional area:
- Adapt and perform traditional stories and folk tales for all grade levels, K through 12. Work with teachers, librarians, and other group leaders to interview children to create and co-perform original stories based on their lives. Organize and facilitate storytelling sessions for small groups to large assemblies
Say you have been out of the workforce for a few years. You've held several offices on the operating team of a local religious group. Now you want to return to work, but not in your previous job field. You see an ad for a contract administrator. You could choose "Negotiation" as one of your functional areas. Then, you would describe how you successfully negotiated a contract between your church or temple and a printing firm that published the weekly bulletins.
- Successfully negotiated a first-time, two-year contract with a printer. Contract saved over $30,000 and led to the organization's willingness to sign several other money-saving contracts.
Work History
Your work history, or related work experience, will take much less space on your resume than your accomplishments. Simply name your previous employers and your job titles. List the years you worked for each employer, or say, for example, "eight years."
Put your work-history list at the start or near the end of your combination resume.
Sample Combination Resumes
(Adobe Acrobat Required)
Additional Resource
Help With Your Resume and CV
The Riley Guide tells you about resume resources to use and tips to follow. Find resume samples, plus where to send your resume for proof-reading and a critique.
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