Skills-based or Functional Resumè? It is a new format
The skill-based Resumè format A skills-based Resumè (CV or Curriculum Vitae) is a lesser-known but fairly effective CV format, which aims at showing your specific know-how in a variety of functional areas or in relation to topics that are of interest to the company you’re applying to. From this point of view it is much more effective and readable than the European format or the chronological one. It may focus, for example, on your skills in the various areas of the marketing sector: trade marketing, communication, product management or expertise in business restructuring through operations of internal reorganisation or M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions).
To write a functional or skills-based CV, the first thing you have to do is identify the fields in which you have something to contribute starting from the analysis of roles and achievements. These may be functional areas, such as marketing, sales, production, administration and so on, or topics that are of particular interest to the business you’re applying to. The latter may comprise subjects such as company internationalisation, management of distribution channels, management of functional areas, management of mergers, management of change or project management.
You should also specify what kind of marketing
activity you’re particularly experienced in, for instance, whether your expertise
in project management is limited to timing or also includes costs, or whether you
can plan a project as well as managing it.
You should then include your achievements to give the recruiter an idea of how your skills have been put to use in practice.
Finally, you should insert a table at the bottom of your CV and list all the companies you’ve worked for and the roles you’ve held, so as to show where you’ve acquired your skills.
The structure of a skills-based CV, therefore, is as follows:
MAIN AREAS OF PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE:
- Description of what you can do within a certain area (but make sure it’s not too vague!)
- Description of one or more achievements in that area.
This pattern should be repeated for each of the 3, 4, or, at the most, 5 areas you’ve singled out as relevant.
COMPANIES AND ROLES
Company Role Number of Years
Company Role Number of Years
This sequence must be repeated so as to cover your whole professional record (in either a chronological or anti-chronological order).
Below you can find an effective CV template, which we have developed thanks to years of experience:
Skills- based cv template (178 kb.)
