Functional Resume Templates

What is a functional resume template?

A functional resume template is a fantastic option for anyone who’s starting their career or switching to a different field. The focus is on your professional skills rather than your work history.

Functional resume templates are a format that groups your experience under skill categories instead of job titles. They emphasize transferable skills by listing examples of your abilities from both work and personal experiences.

Functional resumes are perfect for highlighting your experience and are easy to write with our already-made template structure.

When to use a functional resume template

With their specific structure, functional resumes put your skills and achievements front and center and before the work experience. After your contact information, you go straight into your most relevant abilities and accomplishments, and then you can give brief details about your job history.

That’s why this format is preferable to people with employment gaps, military experience, or are entry-level.

Functional resumes are also perfect for job seekers who are switching industries or want to take a new direction in their career path. The main purpose of this resume template is to put to light your skillset, especially if you apply to a different industry. In this case, emphasizing your transferable skills can help you land a new job.

Unfortunately, a functional resume, as attractive as it can be to some job seekers, can cause suspicion in recruiters, because of the presented information, which can be taken out of context. That’s why some recruiters prefer a combination of functional and reverse-chronological resumes.

But still, there are so many good reasons to use this formatting if you do it right. Check our guide on how to write a resume.

Tips for building the best functional resume

A functional resume or skill-based structure can be used with the modern design template or the classical one. It'll depend only on your personality, experience, and the type of industry you're applying to. Let’s begin creating the best functional resume, so you can get the job of your dreams:

Design

Take the best of both worlds. You can use some features from the modern design and the traditional one. Keep your resume clean of unnecessary graphics. Use icons only to brighten up your skills and achievement sections. Each section on your resume is arranged in blocks to emphasize the important information—your accomplishments and abilities. Get inspired by some of our best resume designs.

Font

Your resume should be easily readable. That’s why you should choose your font carefully. The best fonts are those that have enough white space to read well on both screens and print, it'll make your resume easier to scan/read. Enhancv’s functional resume template uses Lato for all headings, subheadings, and body text. And while the body of the text is consistent throughout, the resume headings are large enough to catch the readers' eye.

Colors

Using black, white, and a third color like blue or green is a safe resume color scheme. That’s why we're using a splash of blue to help draw attention without being distracting. The general rule is to make one color dominant, one secondary, and the third to place emphasis. Use white for the background, black for the text, and the third color to highlight important parts like headers for the different sections.

Select the best layout

A functional resume follows a skill-based structure to emphasize your strengths and achievements, which are one of the first things listed. The resume features several sections: heading, summary, strengths, achievements, experience, and education.

Of course, you start your resume with the header, where you list your name and contact information. Your name is the biggest thing on the resume to ensure you stand out. It’s always better to add something more about yourself, such as links to your profile in professional networks or if you have a portfolio website that's appropriate to share. Headshots aren't required, but if the recruiter specifically mention it in the job application, add it to the header near your name and contact information.

The summary in the functional resume looks a little bit different. The focus here is to highlight your skills and achievements, allowing you to describe your qualifications in more detail using strong action verbs. If you have gaps in your employment history or other possible issues, this is the place to explain them. Use the summary to illustrate to recruiters why you're qualified for the position.

The next step is to craft the key sections on your functional resume. Strengths and achievements are featured first to show recruiters what sets you apart from other candidates. In the first section, list and give examples of your transferable skills like time management, problem-solving, interpersonal skills, organization, leadership, and so on. Highlight these strengths by giving examples of what you did using your skills in your past jobs, personal situations, or school life in the achievement section.

A functional resume is focused on your experience and skills. In the education section you can list the basic facts regarding your degree, including institution name, location, degree, and major. If you don’t have any previous work experience, you should spend more time on this and provide more details on your relevant courses. You can check our guide for resumes without work experience as well.

Another section that you can add to your functional resume is information about your certifications. Especially in the cases in which you decided to change careers and took professional retraining courses connected to the job you're applying for. It’s essential to mention this certification on top of your resume in the summary section, or you risk the recruiter missing this information.

If you need to add more sections and information, you can include: special awards or praise, testimonials from clients, volunteer work, projects, publications, or special courses. List them by importance and significance in separate sections. Name each of your sections, then add a short description below it.

Number of pages

Keep your resume between one to two full pages. Your application’s length should be determined by the position you’re applying for and the amount of relevant experience you have. If you're an entry-level candidate or a fresh graduate, you can easily fill up at least one page. It’s your choice how to arrange all the sections—in one or two columns. Functional resumes are very flexible and can give you a lot of freedom to creatively shape your resume within one or two pages.

Functional resume templates pros and cons