Land Your Dream Role This Year With a Functional CV

A functional CV, sometimes called a skills-based CV, focuses on your transferable skills and talents rather than your job history. The main bulk of a functional CV is made up of bullet points detailing your skills and abilities. These skills are often sub-categorized into specific areas, explaining how you obtained each skill and how they can be utilised in the role you’re applying for. You might reference your work history as part of this, but the focus is on the skills themselves. You can include a breakdown of your previous job roles, but this usually comes after the skills section and doesn’t go into as much detail as a chronological CV, which focuses on your professional experience and your previous job roles. 

A functional CV is most appropriate when you feel that you’ll be able to make the best impression by focusing on your key skills over your previous work experience. Here are a few examples of when that might be the case:

You have employment gaps

If you’ve taken an extended break from working, for whatever reason, you’ll want to highlight your skills so that potential employers focus on those rather than on the fact that you took a break from work. It’s not about concealing that you’ve taken a break, but you don’t want your unique talents to be overshadowed by an untraditional working trajectory! This is where the functional CV works best.

When you’re a graduate without enough experience 

As a recent graduate, you’re likely to have bags of enthusiasm, knowledge, and skills, but not necessarily the employment history to back it up

That’s fine because, with a functional CV, you can tell potential employers about all the relevant information you’ve learned during your studies or through extracurricular activities. For example, you might have acquired excellent leadership skills by running a university society or club. You can highlight these types of skills and activities on a skills-based CV.

When you’re making a career change

If you’re taking your career in a new direction, you might worry that employers will look at your CV and think your experience isn’t relevant. Of course, many skills we acquire in the world of work are transferable to many different fields. A functional CV allows job seekers to highlight their transferrable skills and explain how they’d be relevant to their new job role.

Writing a functional CV sometimes requires a little more thought in advance than a traditional CV. We’ve laid out what you need to think about and how to get writing.

Study the job description

Tailor your functional CV to each job description to focus on including the skills they’re looking for. Sit down with the job description and pick out the particular soft skills and technical skills they’re looking for. Look for adjectives and other keywords. You could use a highlighter, make notes, copy and paste the description into a word processor, and format the words in bold to help you out.

Write out your skills relevant to the job

Next, write down which of these skills you have, when and where you learned the skill, or an example of you using it in a real-life situation.

Start with contact information

Now you have your list of relevant skills. You’re ready to start writing your functional CV. Start with your contact details at the top of the page, including your name, address, email, phone number, and LinkedIn profile.

Add a CV objective

If you’re new to the job market or industry, it can be good to add a CV objective stating your career goals and summarising your current situation. CVHelp has tips for writing a CV objective if you need help.

Write your profile

At the top, underneath the CV objective, if you’re using one, write a brief personal profile that mentions your key strengths and offers an insight into your personality and what you bring to the workplace.

Summarise your skills

Now, write out the skills you gathered earlier that are relevant to the job description. Use bullet points for readability and stick to one skill per bullet.

Split up your skills into different categories with sub-headings, such as “leadership” and “communication”. You also need to back up what you write with some context, including how and when you gained the skill. So instead of simply writing, “good leadership abilities,” you could write “adept at leading a team of 5+ employees to meet project deadlines.”

Include work history in your experience section

If you do have any professional experience you’d like to add to your CV, do so here underneath the skills section. Write the employer, role, and the time you worked there with your employment dates. Any limited experience is worth including as long as you can link it to the advertised role.

Finish with your education section

Finally, add a section with your educational qualifications, such as GSCEs, A levels, or degrees, as well as any professional certifications you have.

If you’d like more help writing your functional CV, then download our functional CV template. It’s a great way to help you stick with the correct layout and format and offers helpful prompts on what to write in each section.

We have a huge range of other helpful resources available to support you with your job applications, such as other styles of CV templates and writing guides for CVs and cover letters. Rely on us to help you land that dream job!