Build a resume with only one real job?

Question

So I graduated college and immediately got a dev job. I progressed through the ranks from Engineer I, Engineer II, to Senior Engineer. I am now looking for a new job. So listing my employment history on my resume, what is the best way to do this? My tasks didn't change dramatically, but I did get more and more responsibility with a few intense side projects along the way.

Before my "career" I had done network/workstation support for the college campus housing group, nothing too taxing, and a few internships that are pretty dull. I think I'd rather leave all this information off, right?

So do I just list one big job with lots of descriptions, or break it out by job title sub-heading?

Answer 1

You didn't mention much about your job, technologies, etc.

A lot of companies that do C++ want developers with Unix and networking experience, so your network/workstation support may be beneficial, do list pre-college or during-college work.

As for your position, I think it's legitimate to add a paragraph or so of what you did, or alternatively, have a section about "completed projects". Mention what technologies you used but add a "specific technologies" section. A lot of recruiters (you probably should work through a recruiter) look for specific buzzwords.

Many developers do not have a long and varied history, and that's often actually a good sign. It's more important that you come up with a good line for why you're leaving and not to burn any bridges.

Answer 2

List each title you had as a distinct job. Create additional bullet points oulining your additional duties but don't repeat the earlier ones. At each level list the intense projects you had at that level. I try and keep a resume down to a single page so at most you can fit 4 jobs that you have had onto it. If you have had three titles at your current job select the other job of your choice as the final one to list. Put the job you feel the most comfortable talking about and the one that you feel most proud of. Using this strategy demonstrates that you were a valuable employee and worthy of promotion. Another strategy is to list your all your posiitons (Intern, Programmer, Programmer Analyst, Systems Analyst) all on the line describing that one experience. I do not like this approach.

Answer 3

If you are going to go with just the one job make sure you put dates so it is obvious and list your graduation date. Also the key here is probably a good cover letter to explain what you are doing if your resume is not in a standard format it is better to explain what your did. I would also list any relevant tech jobs even if they where while you were in school.

Answer 4

I'd suggest listing the separate positions in your current place, along with their responsibilities. As an interviewer, a single job would shout "little experience", but for someone with successive positions at the same company I'd see someone who worked their way up. I might be a bit wary but I'd be inclined to take them more seriously.

I've bounced around a fair amount of different companies over time, and my feeling is that it's nearly impossible to game your resume to what you think people want to see, because there's such a huge range of things that people look for (I'm not speaking of things like "X-years of programming language Y" but more interpretive kinds of things) e.g. maybe some people don't like someone who's worked in one place because they haven't been exposed to too many different ways of working, or maybe they don't like someone who's moved around alot because they're unstable.

Another issue is that lots of technical resumes are evaluated first for buzzword compliance. If you've got JME and J2EE on there and seem to have reasonable experience, they want to talk to you, and once they're talking to you it becomes much more about you than about the resume.

Good luck.

Answer 5

It's always good to show advancement at your jobs on your resume. Make sure you break out each position. That way, it is clear to the reader that you got two promotions at your previous job. Be prepared to answer questions about each level and how your responsiblity increased at each step. For example, it's very good to hilight that as a "Senior Engineer", you had 2 Engineer I's reporting to you.

Answer 6

Make sure to include (and even highlight) the "intense" projects you've worked on in your history. When I've prepped for job candidates, distinctive tasks lead to the interview's real conversation. I want to know both the tasks performed and what you enjoyed doing or were particularly good at. Provide a coarse level of detail that you could expand on face-to-face.

If past internships bored you to tears, leave those off, unless you want a position that includes those skills or duties. The resume should point to future growth as much (or more) than it describes past responsibility.

Answer 7

I was in a similar position as you when I was looking to leave my first job after college. What I did was break my time at my first job down by the projects I worked. I had worked on two or three mission critical applications, so I listed my job responsibilities and accomplishments for each.

Answer 8

Add a major non-commercial project you did in college as a "job".