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Top 6 Situations to Use a Functional Resume

A functional resume is a great format to use for some job seekers. Unfortunately, many people use it in the wrong situation, and others fail to use it when they should. If you are in one of these six situations, you should consider a functional resume:

  1. Recent Graduates: If you are just graduating from school, you don’t have work experience to put in a chronological format. This makes a functional format a great choice.

  2. Individuals Changing Careers: Moving into a new field presents several challenges. One of the most significant is showing that your prior experience is transferable to the new career. A functional resume can help demonstrate this.

  3. Senior Executives: Many senior executives have extensive careers that can be difficult to summarize in two pages. Organizing information in a functional format can help in prioritizing the most important information without letting the resume get too long.

  4. Project Specialists: Some careers, such as construction and consulting, are focused on completing projects. It can be difficult to write about each project in sufficient detail to highlight important accomplishments without having the resume get too long. A functional resume can make this much easier to do.

  5. Stay at Home Mom’s Returning to the Workforce: Returning to the workforce after taking significant time off can be very challenging. A chronological resume focuses the readers attention on your career progression. With a large gap in your employment you want to focus on your skills and abilities, and a functional resume can help do this.

  6. Transitioning Military Officers: Moving from a military to a civilian career is a very big change. Civilian employers rarely understand all the details of a military career. This makes highlighting your skills and abilities very important.

The important thing to remember when you select the format for your resume is to highlight why you will be successful. For some, this is their career progression and a chronological resume will work well. For others, their skills and accomplishments are a bigger selling point and a functional resume works better.