What is a Functional Resume?

Every day, thousands of people apply to an even greater number of job positions. Some of them become overwhelmed with replies from potential employers, while others wait for weeks without a single reply. In order to investigate this unique trend one must began to look at the purpose of a resume.

The original purpose of a resume is to convey your skills and talents to a potential employer. In this day and age the theory is the same, but the practice has evolved. Many companies use computers to screen resumes for certain words before they are ever viewed by a potential employer.

Some people simply lack the career experience and talents to fill a resume to its proper levels. They may be looking for an entry level job right after college, and are therefore unable to create a lengthy list of previous employment.

The answer is easy for people in such situations, a functional resume! What exactly is a functional resume besides just some snazzy terminology, you may ask? Well a functional resume is a resume that lists skills instead of Jobs, and because most employers are more interested in what you will bring to their company instead of what you have brought to other companies, this is normally a win-win situation.

There are a number of skills or talents that could be listed on a functional resume. The next important step is to associate that skill or talent with a job, talent, or hobby that you have previously used it with.

An example of this would be as follows:

Functional Resume (good):

MS Word: When I was working at ABC company I became proficient with MS Word. I would type documents all day and implement tables, figures, and charts. Eventually I became so adept with word that they would refer people with technical questions on the program to me. Later I applied this same skillset to XYZ company with an equal degree of success

Normal Resume (normal):

ABC Company: When I was working at ABC company I became proficient with MS Word. I would type documents all day and implement tables, figures, and charts. Eventually I became so adept with word that they would refer people with technical questions on the program to me.

As you can clearly see the text to these two resume entries is almost exactly the same, but the first one clearly lists a skill that an employer could easily read if they were just skimming over your resume, and this can make all of the difference in the world when it comes to getting a call back from an employer, and scheduling an interview.