The Functional Resume... Dead on Arrival?

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 job seekers 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 job seekers than it helps, and is probably not worth the high-priced resume stock paper it is written on.

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Grant Cooper, founder and President of Strategic Resumes http://www.strategicresumes.com, is New Orleans’ only Certified Resume Writer (CRW awarded by the Professional Resume Writing & Research Association), and has recently been appointed as Regional Representative for PRWRA. He has had articles published in professional journals, is used as a consultant by recruiters, media reporters, and corporations, and has been featured in TV / radio interviews and numerous newspaper articles. Mr. Cooper can be reached at his e-mail, mailto:yww@gs.net , or by phone at his office at 1-800-700-9748.