This week’s top question came from “Jon” who asked:

“You always say that in a resume the last job should have the most information and to progressively decrease the amount of info for each job back in time. I understand why you would do that, but what do you do if your “show stopper” career moment is the middle of your career history? I don’t want to ignore this major project as it was really important to me in terms of size, scope and leadership. How can I make that “middle” job shorter when it really was my most important job?”

Great question Jon! Many people writing their resumes will have experienced this situation where the last couple of jobs may have been okay, but not world beaters and they like to hang their reputations on a project or job that really provided a showcase for what they can do (and haven’t had a chance to do since).

Now the drawback of devoting more resume “real estate” to a job that goes back perhaps three to five years or maybe even more, is that the strategy may backfire on you. Instead of you drawing attention to a once-in-a-lifetime project or job as you think the extra focus will achieve, what it may be doing instead is highlighting that you haven’t really done anything high profile, large or exciting for years. As you can imagine this is not exactly the point you’re trying to make! The last thing you want to do is draw the decision-maker’s attention to the fact that your recent jobs have failed to draw upon your skills (which by inference could mean that in that time, they could have become rusty).

On the other hand you don’t want to tuck this wonderful experience away and minimise its importance. So how to best showcase that one job or project without drawing negative attention or unbalancing the resume’s Career History section?

I’ll give you the answer, but before we go forward take a moment to consider:

• Have you used the same skills since that time? If so, then perhaps there’s no need to give this project or job so much emphasis after all. Consider instead the possibility of highlighting these talents in more recent jobs to show up-to-the-minute experience.
• Is the project or job extending back ten years or more? If so, you are probably walking a thin line as far as credibility is concerned. A job or project more than 10 years ago has the possibility of meaning more to you then the person reading your resume. Think about this critically. Is it important to you because you have a special personal investment or fondness for that time? Perhaps it’s time to let go. Raise it with job search consultants or hiring managers in your personal network to see how critical they believe it is.

If you have seriously looked at the pros and cons and still feel that the project is a crucial part of your past to be featured in your resume, then the solution is this: Don’t beat around the bush, don’t be half-hearted by hiding it in your career history.

Make a splash with it!

Force decision makers to see it and get excited by the possibilities of hiring you by featuring it on page ONE of your resume. (Yes that’s right, I said page one).

People who read my articles or have seen my writing know my philosophy when it comes to resumes (I’ll place my drawing below). Page one should “Make a splash”. Page one is where you answer the questions, brand yourself, create a compelling case for your hire. Page one should contain 70% of the most important information about you. The rest of the pages prove and cement your claims.

If we are making a splash on page one of your resume, then we’re going to showcase that project that means so much to you. Create a heading called “Project Highlights” or “Career Milestones” or “Career Highlights” and then place three, four or even five bullet points that sell your expertise in that particular project or job. You can even categorise those bullets by choosing examples that showcase the different areas of your expertise. For instance, like this:

• Budget Management: Presided over $10M operational budget for international project–rolling out SAP to 14,000 desktops.
• Change Management: Won buy-in from an initially hostile staff reluctant to accept system changes and fearing job losses. Drove a process of transparent communications that….
• Technical Troubleshooting: Resolved long-term issue with potential to stop project in its tracks by….

See what I mean? By removing information that is unbalanced in the career history and creating a splash with it on the first page, you are taking away the problem of dates and lengths of time since you put those talents to use.

You can now reduce the information in the Careers History/Professional Experience section to describe the role in more appropriately condensed form, safe in the knowledge that you are not raising red flags and that you have made your point about your skills and the depths of your experience early in the document.

The Resume Plan (C) Gayle Howard

 Link to this page

 Link to this page