

To do that you just need to identify the type of position that you are interested in.įor example, your resume will highlight very different skills and results if you are targeting a medical writing position versus a user experience position. However, you can start writing your resume before you have a specific job posting in mind. If you have been submitting stock resumes, it’s not surprising that you haven’t been getting called in for interviews. Identify your target position.īefore writing your resume it’s essential that you narrow down the types of positions that you will be targeting.Įvery resume that you write will be tailored to the exact position. Here are 5 steps you should follow to create a functional resume that will support your transition from academia to industry… 1. This can be done with the traditional chronological resume, but the functional style resume makes this translation even better.Ī functional resume allows you to highlight your skills and accomplishments without using academic language that most people in industry don’t understand. As a PhD making the transition from academia to industry you need to translate your academic experience into industry relevant results.
#Functional resume template how to#
The 5-Step Process For Writing An Excellent Functional ResumeĮveryone knows you need a resume when searching for a job.īut not everyone knows how to write a good resume.
#Functional resume template software#
So, to get past these filters your resume needs to be highlighting your skills in a way that the software understands.Ī functional resume makes this easy. These ATS systems are set up by hiring teams to scan resumes for the skills they want in job candidates. Jobscan reported that 98% of Fortune 500 companies use ATS, so if your resume isn’t written with ATS in mind it will probably be rejected before a human even looks at it. The important part is your skill – and that’s why a functional resume is a great option for PhDs transitioning out of academia.Īdditionally, the functional resume is great for getting past Applicant Tracking Software (ATS). It doesn’t matter if you gained that skill as a postdoc or as a graduate student, that is not the important part. These in demand skills are what hiring managers will be looking for on your resume. The purpose of your resume is to convince the hiring manager to hire you.Īnd those hiring managers are looking for specific skills, not for you to have a specific past experience.Īccording to LinkedIn there are 25 hard and 5 soft skills that employers are really looking for in candidates this year. The purpose of your resume is to show an employer that you would make a great employee. Is the purpose to outline every detail of your past experience? Why do you even need to have a resume in your job search? What’s the purpose? Why Functional Resumes Benefit Your PhD-Level Job Search It was a much, much better way to represent the varied roles I played as a graduate student and show potential employers the value that I would being to their organization. I knew that this type of resume represented me and my skillset much more fully than the traditionally chronological resume.Īnd it was this style resume that helped me land a job. Overtime and for each new position I applied to those headers changed. Since I was targeting science writing positions I choose, Written Communication, Project Management, and Scientist as my headers. Instead of one lonely experience I split my PhD studies into 3 sections, each of them highlighting a key skill I gained as a PhD student. Immediately I switched my resume to this ‘functional’ style.

There was this thing called a functional resume where I could highlight the skills I learned as a graduate student rather than highlighting the fact that my only experience was as a graduate student. I submitted this resume to a few places, but I never heard anything back. I had about 10 bullet points all underneath the heading ‘Graduate Student’. I was lost and felt like this resume did not do justice to the years I had just spent getting my PhD. I wondered if I should include the time I worked at Starbucks or when I was server during highschool… Most of the people I knew in academia went on to do a postdoc after their PhD, so as a newly minted PhD I felt unqualified for just about everything.Īs I started to write my resume I only had one ‘experience’ my PhD studies. First of all, I felt like I had accomplished very little.
