Functional vs. Chronological resumes - is one preferred over the other?

I have a Functional resume because my jobs tend to overlap in skills and duties, so on a chronological resume I sometimes have to repeat myself. However, I do see information, like the one post here in this forum, that chronological is preferred. I'm seeking a new job now and want to put the "best face forward" and give myself the best chance of a response - any thoughts or suggestions out there would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks - AZBlue

I was a first level applicant screener at the time, and now I am an HR recruiter for support staff positions. My coworker who I office with shares my hatred for functional resumes.

Now, I can see where they are sometimes beneficial, and some are very well done, but the problem comes in when they make it too difficult for us to tell exactly how much experience you have at each of the types of skills you have chosen to highlight. So my advice is that if you really prefer to have a functional resume, consider appending it with a very brief chronology that will help us quantify your experience. Or alternatively, quantify it within the section, "5 years experience in logistics including blah blah bla."

If you are applying to a particular position, pretend you are the HR person. Look at the details that the job posting has outlined, and then look at your resume. Can YOU tell how much experience you have at the points outlined in the posting? If you can't tell, chances are no one else can either.

And that makes perfect sense - thank you!

So, if I may ask one more question: it's ok then to have some repetition of job duties? I can differentiate somewhat by degree of responsibility, audience, etc, but still the fact remains that, for example, I've created and managed events at each of the jobs on my resume. I would think I wouldn't want to leave it off any particular job and assume that anyone reading the resume would know that I'd done it, because there you run into the problem of them not clearly knowing how many years of experience I have in that field.

I'd gone to a functional resume because I thought maybe people didn't want to see the same duties repeated - but I guess really that's not a bad thing. (and I use the phrase "...increasing responsibility in the field of..." in my cover letter so it's clear that each job has been a step up)

in different ways so that it doesn't sound totally repetetive. If you repeat some, that is fine too, just don't repeat them all. I'm not joking... I have seen resumes in which someone copied and pasted the entire job description 3 times for the three similar jobs they'd held!LOL

Here's an example:

2 of the duties from friend's previous job #1:
§ Managed a staff of 11 employees, including scheduling and employee relations.
§ Interviewed, trained, hired, and fired staff to meet daily needs of the facility.

same 2 duties from previous job #2:
§ Managed personnel for three stores in the Houston area.
§ Handled hiring/firing, employee relations, and scheduling for 15 employees.

It says the same thing, but doesn't sound repetetive.

Again though, if you have a functional resume and can include enough info that it will NOT give me the same complaints I have had about most others, it is probably fine. The problem is that most people's functional resumes don't give the complete picture. Either way, feel free to ask me any other questions. If I don't pop back in here often enough, you can PM me if you like.

... because they don't want to reveal their age. And I don't blame them.

How does a person include chronology without leaving themselves wide open to age discrimination? You left one possible way above, "experience in logistics bla bla bla", but I just hope even that is not too revealing.

I originally did chronological resumes because that's what the traditional image of a resume was - but over time, and in part because I ran a consultancy - it became hard to express myself in terms of a chronological resume. Because of the consultancy I gained all kinds of background that just doesn't have a natural place on a resume. Therefore, my resume is a bit different.

Some like it, some don't - I can't say if it's better or not, except that I feel it's a better expression of my experience, so I'm going with it for now.

As a former employer, I would say that I favor chronological resumes for the more traditional "work your way up" candidates, but for the non-traditionals, sometimes the functional ones give me a better picture. It really depends on the candidate, I guess is the best way to put it.

My one concern, and this is a recent evolution, is that a number of the larger companies now scan and parse resumes for keywords, and file accordingly, and these parsers are modeled after traditional resumes "you went to school here, you worked there... etc". Functional resumes don't lend themselves to that. I don't care for those programs myself, but honestly, what's a big company to do? Nobody's going to re-read thousands of resumes every time there's a job opening, so you need a way to sort and categorize them. That's my only real problem with a functional resume, but maybe you should have a chronological one in your back pocket just for those situations.

I have read hundreds/thousands of resumes and always grind to a halt when someone puts it in functional format. My impressions are usually that either they are trying to hide something or they are inexperienced. In my field (academics) it makes more sense to use chronological ones. Resumes should be brief, no more than 2 pages anyway. Rather than repeating your job skills and duties for each job, just list years and job titles, and make a separate section called Skills, where you can list them all at once, such as: Skills and experience: database management, squirrel-catching, C++ programming, speaking before large groups, taught 25 college courses....

The biggest advantage to a chron. resume, to an employer, is that they can more easily visualize your career path and who you are, where you are going. If you list the job titles, chances are that alone will tell them what they need to know about your jobs. Unless you had a very unusual job, foreign to what this employer does, you really don't need to elaborate on what the job does on chronological part.

ps.... part of my job requries that I fill out forms for each applicant, including where their degrees came from, when, where they worked and when. And it's a pita to pull it out of 95% of all functional resumes.