You just stayed up for six nights, sweating over your resume
for a great new opportunity you just heard about. You tweaked
each sentence, added each bullet-point, and rewrote each
accomplishment, until you could see wisps of smoke wafting out
of your laptop. Or, even better, you just paid your hard-earned
dollars to a top-notch resume writer who created a shiny new
resume from your scribbled notes and best recollections. Only one
problem, somebody put it in your head to go with a “functional”
resume, an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Functional resumes have been offered since the 1970s as a “sure
cure” for those who have changed careers a few too many times,
for older job candidates trying to hide their age, or for
jobseekers who have mysterious, inexplicable gaps in their
employment histories. Ever since then, from the 1980s until
today, functional resumes have been touted by resume book
authors, career professionals, and even some resume writers.
Let me take this opportunity to put attempt to drive a nail or
two in the coffin of the functional resume. My general distaste
for them centers on one very important truth... When an
accomplishment occurred is often just as important as that it
occurred. If a broker is attempting to sell you a mutual fund,
the fact that it performed well in 1996 is simply not going to
persuade you to buy it now. You want to see exactly when and
where it excelled. By forcing a prospective employer to piece
together exactly when, and for which job, a specific
accomplishment occurred, as a functional resume does, you are
creating a burden that fewer and fewer potential employers are
willing to take the time and energy to bear.
Imagine that you are a very busy employer... You have dozens of
resumes on your desk. In between meetings and deadlines, you
must choose a few resumes that are the most viable candidates.
As is the norm these days, you are going to take anywhere from
an initial 12 to possibly 40 seconds reviewing each resume. The
first resume (Combination Format Resume), features a summary
section near the top, documents each job (beginning with the most
recent), and clearly and concisely outlines the responsibilities,
competencies, and descriptions for each position. Also, right
there, next to each job item, significant accomplishments,
awards, and results that the candidate earned or achieved are
highlighted. The second resume (Functional Resume), also
includes a summary section near the top. But then it shows
various sections touting the candidate’s capabilities and
accomplishments, often in no discernible chronological order.
Areas of expertise, awards, and successes are highlighted, but
they do not show the job to which they apply. At some point
within the resume, there is also a chronological listing of
the candidate’s positions with little or no description.
So, which resume do you think gives you the information you need
with the least work, and which resume stands out? To me it’s a
no-brainer. You want to know what the candidates did, how well
they did it, and exactly when they achieved their
accomplishments.
Employers have an understandable preference for recent
accomplishments. By preparing and submitting a functional resume,
they are forced into the fairly arduous and time-consuming task
of trying to identify each accomplishment statement, looking at
the position listing (often on another page), and attempting to
match the two the best they can. “Oh, it looks like the bulleted
item, “Ranked #1 in District with $2.3 million in sales,” was
not during either of her previous two positions, it was 12 years
ago at Xerox.” It may be wonderful that a job candidate won a
sales award 12 years ago, and as a resume writer I will probably
include that, but I won’t make you work to find out when and
with whom it was earned.
Of course, as a resume writing professional, I have clients who
had magnificent accomplishments years ago, and sometimes, for
reasons beyond their control, they have much less to say about
their more recent achievements. That this is exactly where my
role as a resume writer comes in. Rather than trying to take the
easy road with a functional resume that simply confuses or hides
when and where their accomplishments were achieved, I try to
probe more deeply and capitalize on those aspects of the recent
job experience in a manner that can reflect positively on the
candidate. If not written properly, a resume can infer that a
candidate’s recent accomplishments are less important than her
previous experience, whether true or not. Even if true, I try
my best, within the limits of accuracy and credibility, to make
the case that her current or more recent experience is just as
weighty as positions held before.
Since there are exceptions to every rule, there are some limited
cases where I believe it could conceivably be advisable to use a
functional resume. However, I can think of only a few instances
over the past 10 years when I “went functional.” Here are a few
examples:
* A multi-millionaire applying for an honorary position with
a White House party-based fundraising committee
* A candidate with extreme gaps in employment who had been
incarcerated for the previous six years
* A banking professional who absolutely insisted on a functional
resume because he “heard it was the best way to go”
Everything is a tradeoff, and a functional resume surely takes
the focus off of a recent career downturn. But my two cents worth
is that the functional resume, with the time-consuming gymnastics
it requires of employers to try to match accomplishments with
each position, turns off far more employers than it attracts,
harms more jobseekers than it helps, and is probably not worth
the high-priced resume stock paper it is written on.
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