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Your resume, no matter what type or format you use, is nothing more than your personal marketing piece to use for your job search. Its entire purpose is to provide just enough information so that hiring managers will be enticed sufficiently to want to learn more.
However, there are some situations that are not best explained or highlighted with the use of a standard resume which outlines each job and its duties. If your professional experience (each job laid out in sequential order so to be speak) makes it appear that you might be no more than a professional job hopper, the functional resume format is the perfect solution.
Some of the best reasons to consider a functional resume are:
Rather lengthy and/or difficult to explain gaps in employment
Very little paid employment experience (stay at home mums or professional volunteers fall beautifully into this category)
Many career changes have occurred (i.e., nursing to retail to hospitality to accounting) – not just job changes
This type of resume is actually preferred by many individuals no matter what their professional experience has been. Why? Because it immediately provides the reader with a detailed outline of your capabilities, skills and overall accomplishments. This offers quite a different view from a more traditional resume where your skills and accomplishments are actually downplayed by the details of your exact job descriptions and tenure of each.
I'm frequently asked, "Do I really need to put my job information on there? Couldn't I just outline my skills?" Of course not. That would be all too easy, wouldn't it? Employers are equally interested in not only what you've done, but where you've done it. Therefore, each job does need to be added. The difference, however, is what you add.
On a standard resume, a past employer for you might be listed like this:
3 June 2005 – 19 October 2008 Smith Company, Ltd. Westfordshire
Accounting Manager
However, let's say your last position wasn't quite that lengthy and even though it wasn't your fault, the fact that you were there for perhaps six weeks only isn't something you necessarily want to be so graphically illustrated immediately.
If that's the case, then perhaps your standard resume would look more like this:
3 June 2008 – 19 July 2008 Jones Company, Ltd. Worcester
Accounting Manager
Obviously, this short tenure would raise a red flag when a hiring manager glances through it. Now, compound this problem with other such issues and, bingo!, your resume will probably be dumped into the recycle bin.
Let's say your "real" life would look like this on a standard resume:
3 June 2008 – 19 July 2008 Jones Company, Ltd. Worcester
Accounting Manager
15 Sept 2007 – 1 Nov 2007 Fishburn Enterprises Aubreyville
Accounting Supervisor
25 Jan 2005 – 7 Apr 2006 Blacksmith Co. London
A/R Team Leader
See the huge gaps in employment? They almost jump right off the page. This is absolutely counter-productive to any sort of job hunting and, most assuredly, won't get much – if any – positive response.
A very viable alternative, and one which will reduce the obvious by enhancing details other than the length of time at each position, would be the use of a functional resume. The same professional experience would be presented thusly:
2008 Jones Company, Ltd. Worcester
Accounting Manager
2007 Fishburn Enterprises Aubreyville
Accounting Supervisor
2005 – 2006 Blacksmith Co. London
A/R Team Leader
Now, before "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing" over what could supposedly be misconstrued as a lie, let me point out yet one more time that the resume is simply your marketing piece. It is merely a compilation of data that properly reflects your experience and abilities. Obviously, should a hiring manager contact you for more information or even to schedule an interview subsequent to being impressed by the above resume, you would then need to provide the exact details of each position.
Now, add your skills and accomplishments at the top of the resume, and you could have a winning combination that provides you with some very good response and hopefully some very positive personal interviews.
As an example, here is a possible functional resume for a mum trying to return to the workforce now that the children are in school full time:
Contact info
Objective statement: To obtain a full or part time position at the executive level, preferably in a sales environment.
Skills / Qualifications:
· Typing 80 wpm
· Expert user, MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Outlook
· Able to produce PP presentations using Flash and automation
· Familiar with HTML coding
· Expert in internet research
· Calendar management, appointment setting
· Fluent in English
· Can read and write French and Spanish
Employment: (notice on this particular resume that dates have been completely left off)
Simmons Co., Part time, Administrative Assistant to the President
Fullbrite Agency, Part time, Executive Assistant to Sales Manager
Northbrook School District, Day Care teacher
Education: (high school or university; you don't need both)
The purpose here is to give the hiring managers an excellent overview of this mother's qualifications – which are top notch. THEN, once their appetites have been whetted, it continues with a brief history of her previous jobs. In reality, she held these positions in the late 1980s to mid 1990s when she then left the work force to stay home with her children.
This resume provides just enough detail to get her some phone calls at which point it is up to her to continue selling herself. Of course, she'll need to be very honest in her explanation of when she worked but that won't normally be seen as a negative unless she didn't keep up with technology. The key in this particular situation is that even though she's been out of the work force for about ten years, she didn't sit back and let the world pass her by. She still used a computer and kept up with the latest software and updates.
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