Rob’s resume contained a fairly common scenario – he had worked at multiple positions at the same company. So when he sent me his resume, it separated title and the years he worked under that title, as well as listing his functions within each title.
And that’s confusing for anyone reading the resume.
If you’ve held multiple positions in the same company, is makes no difference whatsoever what hat you were wearing when you did what you did. What’s important is that you were promoted to different positions that increased the scope of your responsibilities.
If you’ve worked at multiple positions at the same company, who cares about your junior responsibilities?
No one.
But people get so hung up on this; they treat their resume as if it was their autobiography.
Consider this: do you want to get hired for a job where you’d return to performing those junior functions? Of course not. So why would you go into detail about them?
How to handle multiple positions on your resume
Let’s say that you worked at Company A from 2004 – 2012. First you were a Marketing Assistant. In 2006, clever person that you are, you were promoted to Marketing Manager and after 4 years, they made you Director of Marketing! Do I really need to see a list of everything you did as an assistant? Can I assume that your responsibilities were fairly junior?
Instead, write this:
Company A 2004 – 2012
Director of Marketing
(promoted twice from Marketing Assistant)
then talk about responsibilities (only the non-obvious ones) and projects that differentiate you
See what you accomplished by doing it this way?
- you made it clear that you worked at Company A for 8 years
- your two promotions are highlighted, not buried
- you eliminated the boring junior stuff that no one is going to ask you to do anymore in the more senior roles you’re targeting for the future
Clients have expressed concern that this strategy may raise questions for the recruiter. GOOD. The questions that may be raised aren’t of the “red flag” variety. They will be more along the lines of “I’m intrigued; tell me more,” which means that you will likely be called in for an interview to expand on what you mentioned.
The interviewer is much more likely to ask about the reasons for your promotions, or changes in roles, which is good because it gives you an opportunity to expand on your value proposition.
So long as your resume truthfully showcases your talents and experience, what matters is not what hat you wore when you did something; it’s what you did that makes you an attractive candidate.
Need help with your resume when you have multiple positions at the same company? Click here to read about my pricing and process.