How to Create a Functional Resume that Gets Results

In an increasingly fast and complex world, time is at a premium. You save your prospective employers time by emphasizing skill sets and professional capabilities related and specific to the position sought. Your organized and considerate approach will make you more memorable if you have what they're looking for (or close enough).

Where the job is located, and the type of job is important when creating a resume. The location and type of job determine whether you use the Resume format or the Curriculum Vitae (CV) format. They are quite different.

• In North America
  • A CV is used when applying for academic, educational, scientific-research positions, fellowships and grants. It includes a summary of your education, academic background, teaching and research experience, publications, presentations, awards, honours, affiliations and other significant details.
  • A resume is used for professional positions outside of academia and research. While information on education is required, it only needs to be the name of the educational institute and the degree obtained, the most advanced degree first. Work experience and accomplishments are more important because they imply you have the skill set they need.
• Outside of North America
  • CVs are used for both academic and professional positions, and the resume format is seldom used.

Purpose of Resume

A resume will not get you a job. You use it to get to the next step in the hiring process. That could be a telephone interview, a screening interview, a series of interviews with different managers, and so on. In the era of technology and new, emerging forms of work, a general resume for all positions will be ineffective; you must customize it to the position sought.

Keep in mind that functional resumes do not include dates. It emphasizes your relevant accomplishments, experience, and background.

Depending on how many people apply, scanning software may be used to focus on certain keywords and phrases, skill sets and experience. You may wish to add keywords associated with the position or industry to increase your chances.

Things to keep in mind:

• Write the same way that you speak so that if you meet your potential employer, they will recognize that you are the same person who wrote the resume. If others to write your resume, make sure they use language that reflects your vocabulary and grammar.
• Be clear and concise
• Avoid run-on sentences and those longer than 20-25 words
• As a rule, use the active voice (the cat ate the mouse) and avoid using the passive voice (the mouse was eaten by the cat) as it is longer and less forceful
• Apply appropriate (business) action phrases & verbs but don't be excessive
• Use bullet points to list things or numbered points for sequences
• Spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors are killers. Use grammar and spelling checkers
• Sans-serif fonts, such as Arial, Tahoma, and Verdana, are most often used for on-screen reading and shorter subjects, while Times New Roman is the business font more for paper-based communications
• Uses a vocabulary suited to the position, industry, and company
• Formatting matters. So does the feel of the paper when mailing in a resume. At first glance, your resume can impress or depress the employer, so use good quality paper when mailing resumes and CVs
• Contact info - Be instantly accessible: provide your cell phone, primary and secondary email addresses, and physical address
• For emailed resumes, use sans-serif fonts (Arial, Tahoma, Verdana) in font sizes of 10-12 points, as they are most often used for on-screen reading.
• If you remain unsure of what format to use, check out what fonts the employer uses online
• Space your sentences and indent your paragraphs so that information is easy to skim and read
• If you are multi-lingual, be sure to list all those languages in which you are fluent.
• Social Media
  • Blogs - list yours or others to which you have contributed, especially if the blog and blog posts demonstrate a relevant skill set, an interest in, or a discussion of a subject related to the position sought. In all cases, your reasoning and communication abilities are on display; more so, if your posts have provoked comments
  • List your Twitter (X) Id if you feel your tweets add value to your resume presentation
  • Try to ensure that nothing embarrassing is posted about you online.

LinkedIn

Today, LinkedIn is essential to finding a job in a professional field. It is the first step that recruiters and HR look at when hiring personnel. As such, you will need a LinkedIn profile that separates you from your competition. When creating one, keep the following in mind:

•  Most people have a single profile that they write to appeal to a wide audience. It is understandable since you don't know who is looking for your skills and background. This means a profile must appeal to different audiences, positions, and skill sets.
  •  The problem with this approach is that it appeals to everyone and to no one. This does not allow you to distinguish yourself from others looking for similar jobs.
  • Most profiles include keywords and key phrases. Almost everyone looking for the job that you want uses many of the same keywords. At best, keywords help put you on a shorter shortlist. Again, it does not distinguish you from the competition.
• Distinguishing yourself
  • The most important thing you can do is list your relevant accomplishments. It will distinguish you from others. List things such as:
    • Have you increased revenues?
    • Have you solved a relevant problem?
    • Have you written books, articles, or papers important to your chosen audience?
    • Have you spoken at conferences on these topics?
  • Simplify the organization of your profile. Here is an example:
    • Let's say your current profile is grouped into:
      • Experience in industries A, B, and C and
      • Skill sets that include expertise in X, Y, and Z
    • In a revised profile you would group the profile into:
      • Industry A using skill set X;
      • Industry B using skill sets Y and Z; and
      • Industry C using skill sets X and Z.
    • That new organization makes your profile more relevant to the hiring managers in each industry. It also makes their jobs easier when hiring someone relevant to their needs.
  • Include a Call To Action. For example, "Call me if anything I have done is relevant to your needs".
  • Create your own short list of where you wish to work.
  • • Research these places by finding their needs and who will need your skills in the organization. Try to discover something about the organization's culture.
    • If anyone calls you from one of these organizations, you can ask them intelligent questions about their important issues. This gives you the ability to ask more in-depth questions, which illustrates your experience and background.
  • Another way to distinguish yourself is with a well-written cover letter that is "personalized" to those you are trying to reach. The research you have done above will show that you care about what they do and give you the ability to tailor your cover letter to their needs.

Assessment Criteria

The following are the current assessment criteria used to judge professional resumes:

• Clear and well formatted
• Impact on audience
• Clearly state the objective of the resume, if needed
• Highlights relevant skills and experience
• Appropriate vocabulary
• Accomplishments listed and described
• Concise and to the point
• All major sections covered
• Use of active verbs
• Spelling and grammar
• Effective use of social networking (score 5 if not applicable and add comment)
• Scannable

Scannable

Large, well-known companies may get hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes a month. They use resume-scanning software to go through all these submissions. There are two main things to keep in mind about making your resume scannable:

• The format of a resume should be simple, clear and somewhat standardized. Avoid things such as fancy fonts, italics, underlining, embedded graphics, and most things that are not textual in nature.
• Scanning software looks for keywords in your resume. These keywords take 2 forms:
  • General category keywords such as chemist/chemistry, programmer/programming, sales/account executive, video/movie producer, etc.
  • Specific keywords such as bioluminescence , C++/Java, medical devices, documentary, etc.

These keywords should be used in context so the resume reads as a coherent document. Typically, there should be one or more specific keywords for each general keyword. Use of general and specific keywords back each other up and make you more real.

Historically, there used to be a section called "Keywords". It is no longer needed and only clutters up your resume. This section is often ignored since it is too easy to "pack" irrelevant words into this section.

Legal issues

In North America, the resume should not mention age, race, gender, disabilities, family status, or anything irrelevant to fulfilling the employer's needs. For example, your date of birth, or the date of your graduation need not be given. For this reason, you may also choose not to include a photo or video. In some cases, you may need to mention one of these attributes. For example, applying for the government's small business loans to minorities may require that you mention your race to qualify.