Dear Cindy – Focusing My Résumé

My job of eight years will be terminated on November 30, 2006. I am currently taking a medical billing course online through Allied Business Schools, and will be done on September 30, 2006.

I was a medical assistant from 1987 to 1992 and somehow ended up in retail.

I would love to get back into the medical field (hence the medical billing), but I am not sure how to build my résumé. I would like the focus to be on my MA accomplishments and the medical billing schooling. Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Sincerely,

JD

Your best bet would be to use a combination style résumé, because it allows you to stress your healthcare experience and skills, including your new certificate in medical billing, while minimizing the job outside of the healthcare field.

A combination résumé uses features of the chronological style résumé (which puts information in order from most recent to most distant, illustrating your educational and career growth and illustrates job continuity, professional development, and achievements) and of the functional style résumé (which focuses on credentials, skills, and accomplishments), by including a listing of skills, as well as of education and employment in reverse order from most recent to oldest.

In such résumés, you can put at the forefront any healthcare-specific skills you have, as well as any transferable skills you bring from retail (e.g., customer service, dealing with difficult clients, able to handle complex accounts with multiple vendors/suppliers, tracking and follow-up of supplier invoicing, etc.), while also stressing that you have current training in the field to which you are applying. And you can list your retail jobs simply as: "Date to Date – Worked outside of healthcare setting," or "Date to Date – Worked outside of healthcare setting in retail," or "Date to Date – Worked outside of healthcare setting in retail, gaining strong experience in efficiently handling complex accounts from multiple vendors," etc.

Good luck!