I recently had a conversation with Subha Chandrasekaran, Founder of Rainkaft Creative Solutions (Video at https://bit.ly/HSI-Resume_Do_n_Dont) who gave valuable tips on how women on a career comeback can structure their resumes for success. Subha also talks about Functional Resume, which is a resume format where the focus is on professional skills rather than jobs previously held.
A traditional resume is a chronological resume where one lists their work history in reverse chronological order with the most recent job listed at the top of the resume. There is a lot of inhibition about how breaks are perceived in a chronological resume as the break stands out at the top of the resume.
A functional resume can be useful if you have had a long career break or if you would like to change career streams. What makes the functional resume different is that you can highlight your top skills and list your various experiences under each of the skills.
For example, if your top skills are in the areas around Administration and Customer Service, you could list them in your resume as
Administration :
1. Research and making proposals
2. Collated content to newsletters
Customer Service :
1. Interact with clients on social media channels
2. Identify and classify clients needs
Thus the functional resume highlights skill-based professional accomplishments. It is also important to include the other parts of a resume such as your professional summary, employment history, etc.
The downside of a functional resume format is that many recruiters do not accept this format. It can be hard to understand your past career progression through a functional resume. That said, a functional resume can be helpful to highlight your achievements and strengths, make your core skills stand out, include short work stints that are different from your career stream, and show how you can transfer skills from your previous career stream to a new career stream. It also helps to give out a functional resume in-person to a hiring manager so questions, if any, can be addressed. Reach out to coach@hersecondinnings.com if you want to know if a functional resume is something that you want to consider.
About the Author
Jennifer Moses is a Career Guidance Coach at HerSecond Innings and a Counseling Psychologist based out of Bangalore. HSI community members can reach her by making at appointment at Coaching.
Her Second Innings supports women professionals on a sabbatical in their journey of getting back to work. The mission of HSI is to guide women to achieve financial independence. Support from HSI comes in the form of job interviews, reskilling programs in Automation and, free Career Guidance Counselling. Sign up with us and complete your profile to get a call from our counselors to know your job fit.
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