Functional Resumes Should Be Renamed Dysfunctional Resumes

Recently, someone showed me a resume and asked for a critique. The resume had absolutely no chronology; no company names, position titles, or dates of employment. It simply grouped work experience into categories with no reference to where this experience occurred. When I asked her why this information was omitted, she replied by saying, "I don't need to include that information; it's a functional resume."

Many years ago, someone came up with the idea of the functional resume -- a resume that merely focused on functional skills and eliminated all references to employment experience. The logic was that this would better display a candidate's transferable functional skills and eliminate the need to explain away problems in the person's chronology such as employment gaps or experience that wasn't related to the job target.