How detailed should your work experience be on your resume?

Describing your professional experience on your resume shouldn't be a simple list of job descriptions or professional actions. You shouldn't worry about being exhaustive or try to "sell" yourself at all costs by matching your profile to what a company is looking for, but proceed in several steps.

1. Detail
Every task you performed in your last experience, then in previous ones. Include dates, duration, the exact extent of your responsibilities, the work environment (number of people in the team, your boss's place in the organizational chart...), your level of autonomy, initiatives you took, the resources you were given to accomplish your task, the results obtained compared to these resources...

2. Group
The different missions you carried out during each experience by category. Example categories:

• Communication
• Sales
• External Relations
• Administrative Management

3. Under each category, place precise elements
Precise elements that you were able to determine during the first step. Example under the "Sales" category:

• Creating and monitoring sales proposals
• Inventory management
• Managing a reseller network
• Prospecting, developing and consolidating customer accounts

4. Add
details that seem important to you and your potential employer under these elements. These are often results (translated into a percentage increase in the sale of a product or an increase in turnover, process improvement...) but also details about the work environment (number of people to manage, or "in direct contact with senior management", or "in liaison with general services"). Example:

• Date, company name, number of employees, industry, city.
• Communication
• Organization of press trips: 500 press releases, + 30% in two years.
• Marketing

You can also indicate what the objective of a mission was, with your results in comparison (of course, to the extent that you achieved it!).

5. Create
You now have all the elements to create the professional experience section of your resume. However, don't hesitate to adapt it according to the positions you are applying for. In most cases, it is preferable that your last experience is more detailed than the others, because the recruiter will a priori dwell on it. However, you may very well decide to be more verbose on other elements, because an experience particularly suited you, and it corresponds to your professional project

6- Advice:
Be careful not to betray a bad experience on your resume. It's very common: a few lines to describe a period of several years in a company is not enough. This acts as a warning for the recruiter, who may delve into the question during the interview more than you would have liked. Give as much importance to this experience as to the others.

Dominique Perez

Pourseformer.fr

See also: Resume sections: education, experience and skills.