recent job you have had first. Educational achievements are also listed
in reverse order, so that your most recent degree is again listed first.
A functional resume, on the other hand, clumps jobs and other work
experiences according to the different functional areas they represent.
If, for example, you have had jobs in both the public relations and sales
fields, in a functional resume you might use these functional areas as
“Public Relations Experience”and “Sales Experience”headings and list
your work experience according to the appropriate category.
A functional resume has the advantage of quickly communicating
to the reader a person’s general areas of expertise. People who have been
out of the workforce for long periods of time might use a functional for-
mat to direct attention away from these gaps in their employment his-
tory. And people seeking to make substantial shifts in their career often
use functional resumes to highlight the basic skills they have that could
be readily applied to their new field, even though these skills were de-
veloped in an unrelated field. A chronological format, on the other hand,
enables people who have steadily worked their way up in a particular
field to underscore the continuity and progress of their work career.
It is beyond the scope of this book to explore the many other con-
siderations that might go into deciding whether to use a chronological
or functional format for your own resume. If you are struggling with
this decision, consult one of the many how-to books on creating resumes
that will tell you all you need to know to decide whether you should use
a chronological or functional format.
Develop major headings that are good descriptions of content areas.
The nature of the material that you have decided to include in your tar-
geted resume and the overall plan that you have chosen (chronological,
functional, or a hybrid of the two) can be used to determine the major
headings for the content areas of your resume. If you are having trou-
ble coming up with headings you like, reviewing the headings used in
the examples of targeted resumes included in Part 2 should give you
some inspiration.Step 6: Using P.E.A.K.S. Subheadings for Items You Want to Feature
P.E.A.K.S. subheadings enable you to highlight the elements that are
likely to impress the recipients of your resume. As noted above,
P.E.A.K.S. subheadings can be used within either a chronological or
functional resume.
Here are some guidelines you can follow.Use P.E.A.K.S. subheadings throughout your resume.Earlier in
this chapter we explained how to create effective P.E.A.K.S. subhead-
ings for your work experience. You can and should also use P.E.A.K.S.
subheadings under all of the major headings of your resume. The tar-
geted resumes in Part 2 give nice examples of how this can be done.
Refine the P.E.A.K.S. headings from your master resume. If you
have created a master resume that already has P.E.A.K.S. subhead-
ings, these subheadings provide a good firstdraft for the headings you
might use in your targeted resume. But once you are able to learn more
about which P.E.A.K.S. are considered most important for the particu-74 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio