Page 137 - Complete Idiot's Guide to The Perfect Resume

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Chapter 8 ➤ Step Three: Been There, Done That

Imagine that you have been promoted three times within a
company called Harrison Productions. Notice what kind of
impression you might make if you used this format:
1998–present President, Harrison Productions,
Chicago, IL
1997–1998 Vice President, Harrison
Career Casualty
Productions, Chicago, IL
If you’ve owned a business, don’t
1994–1997 Producer, Harrison Productions, say so on your resume. In the
Chicago, IL hiring world, it’s often thought
that once people have worked
At first glance, the employer is likely to think you are a job-hopper for themselves, they’ll never
who had three jobs in four years. (Ouch!) Only upon closer exami- make a good employee again,
nation might she understand that your three jobs were at the same because self-employed people
company. But what if the employer doesn’t take the time to figure like being the boss and are
that out? You will have made a negative impression when you had driven by the profit motive. A
an excellent opportunity to make a positive one. way around revealing your self-
employment is to give yourself a
I suggest organizing the same information in this way:
job title in your business, choos-
1994–present HARRISON PRODUCTIONS, ing a title that supports your cur-
Chicago, IL rent job objective, if possible.
President, 1998–present
Vice President, 1997–1998

Producer, 1994–1997

Notice how the second version makes it immediately clear that you
were a loyal employee who had multiple promotions. The good
news is that this concept applies to both the chronological and
functional formats, as demonstrated by the following three Job-Hunt Hint
resumes.
When lining up text in a column,
always use tabs instead of the
Zipping Along space bar. Then your words will
align perfectly every time.
When Shane Mathews wrote his resume in 1999, he wanted to
show off his promotions at his last two companies. By grouping his
job titles as subsets under each company heading he achieved two
things:
➤ He made it easy for employers to see that he’d been promoted.
➤ He avoided having to go into detail about each job title.

The employer surely appreciated this smart move.

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