You know the drill: a great resume should detail your “marketable” skills, work experience, and accomplishments. That’s not new information.  What many people don’t know is that they can choose how that information is presented. Yes! You have the power to format your resume in a way that paints you in the best light. And for some applicants, going for a functional resume may be a better option. 

What is a Functional Resume? 

A functional resume (also known as a skills-based resume) emphasizes your core competencies and skills, instead of how you’ve acquired these. Instead of presenting your jobs in the order of recency, you make a list of different categories of relevant skills, followed by an abbreviated work history that ties directly to your skillset, and a summary of your Education and professional training. 

The above may sound ‘controversial’, since chronological resumes are the go-to for most applicants. But traditional recruitment is progressively giving way to skills-based hiring, driven by candidates’ proven competencies. 

About three-quarters of companies are already using skills-based hiring practices, meaning they pre-screen candidates based on possessed hard and soft skills, rather than ‘years of experience’, ‘past titles’, or ‘held degree(s)’.  A functional resume can give you an edge in this case. 

Functional vs Chronological Resume: Key Differences 

A chronological resume lays out your job history in reverse order from the most recent position to the latest. In other words—it tells the story of your competency levels through the pane of held job titles. 

A functional resume, on the other hand, puts relevant skills and abilities in focus. Think of it as having an extended resume summary section that occupies roughly half of the page. 

Here’s how the two compare: 

Criteria	Functional resume	Chronological resume
Focus	Skills, abilities, and competencies	Held job titles, years of  experience, and employment stability
Structure	Sections organized by skills or expertise areas	Sections organized by job titles and employment dates
Emphasis	Core competencies and soft skills	Tenure and career progression
Pros	Highlights a broader range of skills and expertise Shift the emphasis to abilities and achievements over timelines  Helps conceal gaps in employment	Familiar, preferred format by many recruiters Clearly showcases professional growth  Provides a clear timeline of experience
Cons	May not land well with all recruiters Can be confusing unless well-written	Less effective at showcasing a broad skillset  Doesn’t work for people with non-linear careers
Ideal For	Consultants, freelancers, career changers, recent graduates,  and people with portfolio careers	Traditional blue and white-collar roles or industries that value tenure

Why Might You Choose to Create a Functional Resume?

The functional resume is a less popular resume format, compared to a “standard” reverse chronological resume. But it can be a better choice when: 

• You are going through a career change. A chronological resume may not be the best option when you are eyeing a new career path. This format will emphasize your lack of experience. A functional resume, on the contrary, lets you place the transferable skills and core competencies in the limelight. 

• Your work history raises red flags. Hiring managers tend to get concerned when they see job hoppers aka people who held multiple jobs in a short time. The same is true if you’ve taken on a variety of roles or simply don’t have much experience at all. A functional resume helps conceal gaps in your employment and highlight your portfolio of skills, rather than linear career growth. It works well for temp workers, freelancers, and consultants. 

• Your top skills don’t come from your work experience. What if your most marketable skills come from a long-term hobby, volunteer work, internships, or academic research? Again, a functional resume could help you tell a better story. 

Functional Resume Examples

So, what does a functional resume look like IRL? Here’s a sample functional resume for a former actor who decided to become a UX designer. 

Need more functional resume examples? Check out: 

• A functional nanny resume example with extra writing tips. 
• A resume that has been written for an inexperienced fresher in search of their first job. 
• This example of a resume for a first-time job seeker shows to substitute the lack of experience with volunteer and internship entries.

How to Make a Functional Resume

If you’ve never written a functional resume before, you’ll need to set aside some of your perceptions about how a resume should be formatted. These tips will help you center your resume around your capabilities instead of your work history.

Organize Your Skill Set Into Logical Sections

First, prepare your list of skills. To make the thought process easier, organize them by groups such as:

• Technical skills 
• Leadership skills 
• Interpersonal skills 
• Analytical skills
• Management skills 
• Critical thinking skills 
• Administrative skills 
• Business acumen skills 

Try to come up with a well-balanced ratio of hard and soft skills — 70% vs 30% is a good combo for most roles. Next, think how you can best present these for a job you’re after. 

Sell Your Talents With a Professional Summary

Focus on creating an impactful resume summary. A good resume summary should introduce your core competencies and highlight your most marketable skills. Which ones? Get back to the original job post and read the “Candidate Requirements” section once again. See if you have a “match” in your skills list and bring that up in your summary. 

Next, expand your summary section with a featured Skills profile. Let’s say, you’re after a job at a radio station. Here is an example of the skills groupings you might create:

• Announcing and broadcasting: Interviewing, News Reading, On-air commentary, Play by Play, and Presentation.
• Sales and marketing: Advertiser outreach, Social media marketing, Account management, Street team.
• Technical: Audio production, board operation, remotes, AVAIR.

Make Your Employment History Work For You

It’s okay to use a functional resume if you don’t have an extensive employment history. However, you can’t skip the “employment section” altogether. What you can do though is tweak this section to your advantage. 

First, group related short-term jobs together. For example: ‘Freelance Web Designer; Multiple Clients — January 2022 to present’. This way, you can provide a broad-stroke overview of your work without going into too much specificity, like in the sample resume above. Your front, skills section must do most of the talking. 

Alternatively, you can highlight some of your most recent jobs. Include 2-3 bullet points to describe your duties and accomplishments, illustrating the skills you have listed earlier. If your work experience section looks thin, add in relevant academic research, volunteer work, and internships.

Bonus tip: Use a Functional Resume Template

Not sure how to best organize different functional resume sections? Don’t make things too hard for yourself and grab one of our expertly-designed templates. 

Here are our top-recommended, free functional resume templates: 

Ready for the World has an impactful pop of color in the header section, designed to naturally draw in the hiring managers’ gaze towards the featured information on your skillset.	Fresty is a professional functional resume template with a two-column layout. An excellent choice for candidates who want to present both their skills and work experience history.	Crafty and Casual provides ample header space to include a professional summary and list key skills. It’s a simple, airy design, that will be a match for many jobs.

Conclusion

If your work history isn’t extensive, or simply doesn’t exist, a functional resume may give you a better shot at landing the dream job. By drawing attention to your capabilities, you show employers that you have “the chops” to deliver great value to the company!

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