Every so often, I see a functional resume that goes to great lengths to “hide” work chronology and the current job title of the executive using it.
Of course, it’s not producing any interviews, and the job hunter is desperately seeking a critique to find out where the resume has gone wrong.
Employers in today’s market are savvy, seasoned, and perhaps even a bit weary. They’ve probably seen it all by now, including executive resumes that don’t give up credible, easy-to-find information in a way that makes sense.
So, give them what they crave!
Your resume will make an ethical, professional case for you, but only if you “come clean.” By this, I mean showing your full work history with dates and descriptions of what you did.
If you believe this will put you at a disadvantage, pull notable accomplishments into a first-page achievements section (as shown in this CFO resume sample).
As you can see by this section (titled Capital Administration, Strategic Planning, & Executive Leadership for added personal branding), it’s possible to leverage past wins and ensure employers don’t miss this data.
However, don’t peel your work chronology off in order to do this!
The mistake I see many executives make is that they believe these are opposing pieces of information, instead of resume sections that complement each other.
Work history is of absolute importance to the reader of your resume. The harder you may try to “cover” something, the more an employer will react (in a negative way, that is).
If you can’t figure out how to pull relevant information onto the first page of an executive resume, see samples of real-life executive resumes for case studies.
