If you’re looking at using a functional resume — also called a skills-based resume — you’re probably asking yourself what exactly you should cover. What kind of skills belong on such a resume? Which ones are employers looking for? Are there skills or awards I should leave off the resume? Before formatting your C.V. and sending it to a family, it’s best to make sure you’ve answered all your questions.
Details About the Children in Your Care
This isn’t just a factoid for your resume or a subset of your employment listings. This is a major selling point. A practical skills-based nanny resume should list the ages and genders of the children you’ve cared for, ages and genders that you specialize in and any other connective tissue that might make sense here. (For instance, if you find that you’ve wound up working with a lot of little boys, you can cite that here and talk about what you like about it and why you seem to have an aptitude for it.) A chronological resume would have to split this up, but by playing up your skills you can make a strong case for your specialized experience with kids.
Qualifications
Just about every qualification you can think of would go here. (Those that are related to childcare, anyway.) Do you know CPR? Do you have any additional certifications related to health care or emergency work? List them here so parents know that education and safety are important to you.
Qualifications don’t have to be certificates of course completion, though. If you’ve got a good driving record, that’s a great thing to tout, since it’s a good bet that you’ll have to perform at least minimal transportation of the children in your care. This is also a great location to promote your organization skills, attention to detail, and job duties you’re willing to include as part of your overall employment. Feel free to sell yourself as a go-getter who takes pride in a job well done, and mention things like cooking or cleaning that you perform along with childcare. Be specific here, though, since vague phrases like “moderate housework” can mean very different things to different people.
Highlights of Experience
This is where you can pull out tidbits from your jobs and highlight them as brief bulleted sentences. (Skills-based resumes rely heavily on scannability, so you’ll want to stick with shorter descriptions that get to the point right away.) Maybe you worked with a family or families who were raising children with special needs or learning impairments. Maybe you played an integral role in working with a family on home-based education, or stayed with a family for several years starting with a child’s birth. Maybe your nanny career has allowed you to travel across the country or around the world as you’ve developed your skills. Maybe you’ve provided childcare for people in leadership positions in the public or private sectors and you’ve been able to maintain good relationships with them even after you’ve left the post. Every one of these achievements is a highlight of your time as a nanny and something you should be eager to communicate to potential employers. Don’t assume they’ll know everything about you from your cover letter, a relevant nanny agency or any social media profiles you might have connected to your job search.
A Focused Work History
A skills-based resume is still, well, a resume. It is a personal marketing document of your career and achievements. Your breakdown of your job history won’t be as detailed as it would be with another resume format, but you still need to provide an accurate and helpful recounting of your previous jobs as a nanny. Typically, you’ll list your title, employing family, location and dates of employment for each position. You don’t have to repeat yourself, either, or worry about listing certain duties next to certain jobs. That’s the point of a skills-based resume: to put all your skills into one area instead of splintering them by job or location.
Just remember: you are your own biggest asset and greatest strength. Talk yourself up, and don’t forget to highlight all the amazing things you’ve done in your time as a nanny, no matter how long you’ve been in the field.
via nannyresume.org
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