Writing your functional CV

When you are writing a Functional CV you have to try and list all your experience under various functional headings. You should have a look at the headings below and decide which of them may be useful to you. You can of course use other headings.

Once you have chosen the headings you will have to decide which is the most appropriate order to put them in, e.g. if you are looking for a management position put this functional heading first.

You should have between 2 and 5 bullet points under each of your headings. If you have more than 6 bullet points under a heading consider whether you could list any of the bullet points under another heading. You should probably end up with between 3 to 6 functional headings.

When you are writing the bullet points under each functional heading you must stress the responsibilities and achievements which are relevant to your next job. In a Functional CV you should include voluntary/non paid work experience which is relevant to your next position under the functional headings.

In general you should normally include a brief summary of the employer you have worked for, the job titles and dates, after the functional part of the CV. If you feel that this will stop you getting to the interview stage you may want to leave out any reference to your actual employment history. In this case it may be best to keep your CV to one page.

Example Functional Headings

Administration, Advertising, Communications, Construction, Consulting, Counselling, Designing, Editing, Education, Electronics, Engineering, Human Resources, Insurance, Journalism, Law, Management, Marketing, Medicine, Music, Nutrition, Organisation, Planning, Production, Promotion, Public Relations, Publishing, Research, Sales, Secretarial, Strategic Planning, Training, Transport, Travel, Writing

Training

Only include the most important training courses on your CV. You may not want to bother with a section on training or you may combine it with Education/Qualifications depending on how much space you have on your CV.

Education/Qualifications

Only list the most important qualifications. If you are a graduate you do not really need to list your 'O' Levels/GCSEs, just indicate the number of 'O' levels gained. You may want to put this section before the Training Section. Unless you have just completed a degree or MBA, this section should go after work experience. In the case of recently completed education, if your work experience is more likely to be of interest to an employer, you should still put work experience first. You could perhaps mention your recent qualifications in your profile or in your cover letter.

Additional Information

Include any additional information, such as whether you have a driving licence - if you have a clean driving licence, say so. Date of birth, marital status and nationality can usually be left off your CV.

Interests

Keep this part fairly short, but make sure you list any current positions of responsibility. If you do not currently have any management responsibility and you are applying for a management position you may want to include positions of responsibility that you have held over the last few years, e.g. Play football for a local team - Captain, 1993 - 1996.

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• Why are CVs rejected?
• What information will you need?
• What should you leave out?
• Selecting your CV format
• General CV writing tips
• Example performance CV
• How to write your performance CV
• Example functional CV
• How to write your functional CV
• Example targeted CV
• How to write your targeted CV
• The alternative CV
• Example student CV
• Example graduate CV
• How to write your student / graduate CV
• Word-processing and printing
• Cover letters