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Chapter 14 ➤ A Functional Hybrid That Makes Sense

under the skill headings there are subheadings that indicate where the
achievements took place. Take a peek at the following template to
get a picture of how a functional hybrid is structured.

Looking the Part

As I mentioned in Chapter 5, one of the biggest objections Terms of Employment
employers have about functional resumes is that most of them
unwittingly fail to say where each achievement took place. The The functional hybrid is a
functional hybrid identifies this information loud and clear functional resume with company
through subheadings in the body of the resume (similar to the subheadings included in the
job subheadings in the chronological format). That’s the Relevant Achievements section
advantage—the hybrid resembles the chronological resume (and to indicate where the achieve-
therefore feels familiar to the employer), yet it has the structural ments took place.
advantage of the functional resume. The functional hybrid is a
great format for job seekers who fit the criteria for the functional
format and who have several achievements from one place of
employment.
To understand this better, look at the way the achievement state-
ments are categorized in the following excerpt from the body of
a job seeker’s functional hybrid resume. See how the subheadings
make it easy to understand where the achievements took place?
That’s the beauty of this format.
Career Casualty
Don’t assume that the employer
Conservative Employer Alert! will spend a lot of time figuring
out what happened where on
Let’s imagine you’re applying to a conservative company (such as
your resume. If it’s not immedi-
insurance or banking) where you assume that the hiring man-
ately clear, the employer may
ager will expect a traditional chronological resume. But for rea-
give up and throw your resume
sons discussed in Chapter 5, you’re leaning toward using the
in the trash.
straight functional format. The problem is that your prospective
employer may think you don’t fit in if you send a functional
resume, because it’s an atypical format for the field. What should you do? Try the func-
tional hybrid. By adding subheadings that indicate where your achievements took place,
the hybrid format will look enough like the chronological resume to ease the employer into
trusting that you’re a stable worker with valuable skills.
Check out Dennis Beauregard’s resume. He wanted to use the functional format because he
was transferring his skills from the legal field to the public service arena. Because he was
applying to a conservative organization (the Chicago Police Department), he created a
functional hybrid resume. By using company names as subheadings under his skill head-
ings, his resume looked enough like a chronological resume to gain his potential
employer’s respect.

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