I review 200 resumes a week and send 100 of them to clients to help my candidates get interviews… I’m often amazed at the misguided titles that many people put on their resume… these may very well be the titles of the jobs they have but are often grossly misleading… often a Regional Vice President is an account manager…an Account Manager is a salesperson… a Customer Advocate is a customer service person…a Business Development Manager can either be a lead generation type person or a person who increases sales with already existing customers…
Most people imagine that their resume is getting read word for word and line by line… it’s not… it is getting “scanned” along with, on average, 118 other resumes…
Resumes are reviewed and scanned online… the resume reader, who often doesn’t have any real, firsthand knowledge of the job… looks for names of companies they can identify with, dates of employment and titles… if they don’t “like” what they see, or can’t recognize what they are told to look for, they move on to the next resume… if they do like what they see they’ll often save the resume in a file or print it out to be read later…
You want your resume to be read, not just scanned, so be sure that the titles you have are commensurate with the job you’ve done… never mind what your company calls you, you do not want your title to keep you from getting interviewed… so if you are a salesperson, no matter what your title, Regional Director, Account Manager, Territory Representative, etc….title your job “sales”…If your title is Controller, Assistant Controller, Finance Manager, etc. but really you are an accountant, change your title to just that, “accountant”…
If a resume reader is looking for a first line salesperson, accountant, customer service person, etc. and they see the word “manager” in the title, they will say to themselves, “I’m not looking for a manager, I’m looking for a first line employee,” pass on the resume and move onto the next..
Just be sure that your titles don’t stand in the way of your being interviewed… if your title communicates any ambiguity, change it.
