Functional resume emphasizes strengths

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Dear Joan:
I am currently at home, taking care of my two young children. I will have been out of work two years this coming April. I am thinking about re-entering the career market in the fall on a part-time basis. I realize I will have to update my skills prior to that time.

In one of your articles, you mentioned a functional resume. I worked twelve years as an RN (I have a four year degree) but never held any one of my jobs longer than three years. The average was about thirteen months. I realized it was the profession and not the job and went and got an associate degree in Interior Design. Again, my employment history in terms of length of employment is not great due to husband job transfers and electively stepping out to care for my children.

How can I de-emphasize my shortcomings and strengthen my advantages? Also, are grade points important to mention? (I had a 3.0 in Nursing and a 4.0 in Design.)

Answer:
A functional resume format is a good choice for you because of your frequent job changes and your two-year absence from a job. Before you begin your resume, however, you need to decide which field you want to re-enter because it affects your resume strategy.

Nursing is an area of opportunity for you because there is such a shortage. Many hospitals and clinics are offering very attractive incentives such as part-time and flexible scheduling. While some fields aren't as accommodating for working mothers, nursing is perfect if you want your job to fit into your lifestyle.

Interior Design may offer flexible scheduling as well, but the salary isn't likely to be as competitive.

Let's say you decide to re-enter nursing. On your resume list your technical nursing skills on the left-hand side of the page. Opposite each skill category, write the results you had in that category. In other words, you take results from all your past nursing jobs and cluster them under categories instead of going job by job, chronologically.

The way you write your results is very important. Most people think that listing duties and responsibilities is all you have to put on a resume. What a wasted opportunity! Their resumes look like everyone else's and the employer has no way of telling how well they performed.

Instead, analyze each responsibility and ask yourself:

·        What was important about what I did?

·        What results did I have?

·        Which results will the employer care about?

·        Did it save time or money or reduce costs?

·        Did it make money?

·        Did it improve quality or service?

·        What did patients, doctors and other staff say about my work?

(Third party comments are a great way to show results in fields where results are "softer" and are hard to measure. Put the quotes right on your resume.)

Another mistake people make on their resumes is they think they have to list every task on every job. This clutters up the page and obscures the important results that the employer wants to see. On a functional resume, if you want to list your interior design work, that's fine but if you don't that's fine, too. In an interview you can describe the rest of your job experiences, if it's relevant or if it will help explain an employment gap.

At the end of the "Work Experience" section on your resume, list the employers you've had, titles you've held and dates you worked there. In your case, eighteen months to three years may not be too much cause for concern. In fact, in your cover letter, emphasize your exposure to a wide variety of environments and tout it as an advantage. If you find that you're not getting interviews, try taking the dates off and see if that helps.

On your question about grade point, the rule of thumb is if the grade point is pretty good, include it (3.0 and above). Generally, the older the degree the less relevance the grade point is because job results take on more importance.