Function versus Form?

This week we are focusing on resumes, with special attention to the areas that make us want to pull our hair out, eat a tub of Ben and Jerry's, and consider a new career as a balloon animal engineer. Our guest blogger for this series is Sue Campbell, 1st-Writer.com, a professional resume writer and career strategist with over 18 years experience helping job seekers of every level achieve their career goals

How do you organize a functional resume, as opposed to a chronological resume? Is that the best way to go?

A functional résumé is typically used by job candidates who:

• Have gaps in employment they want to hide.
• Wish to bring relevant, but possibly less utilized, skills to the forefront.
• Want to bypass titles which poorly reflect actual work responsibilities or accountability levels.
• Hope to change career paths and therefore want the reader to recognize transferable skills.

All of which are great reasons. The problem with using a functional format is that most hiring managers and HR directors know why candidates use functional résumés, too, and often will look for the very problems the candidate is trying so hard to hide.

A functional résumé is typically organized by skill groups or areas of expertise, with examples of these skills applied (but not where or when), followed by a brief outline of job titles, company names, locations and dates (without description). Example of order of information:

• Name
• Contact Information
• Summary of Qualifications (brief)
• Functional Headings (such as: Marketing, Management, Project Leadership, etc.) in the order of their value and relevance to the position and company being targeted – with bulleted details showing these skills applied, and including the results of the candidate’s efforts and contributions
• Employment History (in reverse chronological format, with little or no detail)
• Education
• Relevant Professional Associations (optional)
• Community Service (optional)