by David Clemen

Created on: February 22, 2010

Two thing employers look for when they first look at a resume are if you have the skills and experience needed to be successful in the position they are filling and how long you have stayed at your previous positions. Now what do you do if you have little or no work experience? What if you have a large gap of time between jobs? Better yet what if your last two positions only lasted for short periods of time? All of these things are red flags to potential employers. You need to send out your resume but do not want to take yourself out of contention. The resume format you should be using is called a

Functional resume.

A Functional resume is great for people who don’t have experience in the field that they want to pursue or have noticeable gaps in their work history. This form of resume puts the emphasis on your skills and education and not your work history and experience. The Functional resume has six core components; contact information, objective, qualifications, professional skills, employment history and education.

The very first component and also important part of any resume is the contact information. You want to very clearly list your full name (first, last). You can use your middle name but it is not absolutely necessary. Do not use any nicknames. I have seen that on resumes and it hurts you. I will not be calling you "Sparky" during the interview. You also want to list your contact phone number. Your voicemail message should be professional. No kids or songs on your voicemail message. List your current mailing address and finally your email. With your email have one that is professional and not personal. What would be a good email is john-smith1876@ whatever your email service is. Not sugarbunnyOU812@.

Using objectives or career statements on your resume is debatable. Many recruiters and employers have different opinions on if they are helpful or hurtful on your resume. I am normally not a fan of objectives or career statements in a resume but make an exception with functional resumes. Objectives on resumes are meant to serve as a brief message of a couple of sentences to the potential employer on what you bring to the company. Basically they are an elevator pitch. The reason that an objective in my opinion is important to a functional resume is because you really don’t have the experience that will be blatantly relevant to the potential employer on why you are right for the job. That is why you are using a functional resume to begin

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>