Question:
I'm updating my resume, and was hoping some folks would be willing to share
their resumes with me; I'm particularly interested in people who have
experience similar to mine:
* I'm incorporated.
* I do C & Java; mostly server-side design & development.
* I've worked as a full-time (40+ hrs/week) consultant (sub-contractor) at a
single Fortune 100 customer for the last 5 years. The longevity, I believe,
is important.
* In addition to the full-time client, I've done some other things "on the
side" during this time.
* My consulting goes back an additional 1.5 years prior to my current
client.
* Then "regular work" before that.
This client has been great, but I'm looking to relocate. Not having worked
on my resume in 5 years, I'm struggling with how to format things.
For example, should I specify only the client, or the sub-contractual path
to the client? I'm subbing through IBM Global Services, which might be
important in some situations.
My previous resume listed bullet points for each assignment/employer. With
the considerable contributions I've made at this client in the last 5 years,
I'm leaning more toward a narrative style. Actually, my current "prototype"
resume consists of a single page Objective, Summary, and Experience that
stands on its own. Subsequent pages provide an employment history; again,
I'm leaning toward a narrative approach.
Anyway, I would welcome any suggestions
Answer:
Sounds like you're an independent consultant.
Important to whom, and for what? Independent consultants don't normally
work full time for one client over a long period of time, so any client
who cares about the longevity of a relationship will, in general, be
looking for an employee, not a consultant. So if the longevity of the
relationship is important to you, you may need to consider looking for
employment, not consulting work.
You can do consulting work on the side, even if you become an employee.
How you should format a resume depends on whether you are looking for
work as an employee or as a consultant. In your case, you have been
calling yourself a consultant, but have been acting pretty much like an
employee, so you need to decide which image you are trying to project.
I've never listed third parties through whom my services were marketed.
Employees may list an "Objective", but consultants normally don't. If
you are an independent consultant, you are running a business, not
looking for a job.
The function of a consultant resume is very different from the function
of an employee resume.
In an employee resume, e.g., it is very important to provide a
chronological log of where you worked and what you did on each job.
Employers want this, in part, so that they can look for gaps in your
employment history, since gaps are likely to be a sign of trouble.
(Were you fired? Or laid off? Or were you employed someplace where you
did something so awful that you don't ever want anybody to contact
them?) They also want to know how often you change jobs, and may want
to get a feel for what you actually did at each of your previous jobs.
In a consultant resume, a chronological history is much less
appropriate. The client is going to be retaining your company to
perform one or more services, not hiring you for a long term
relationship. The contract, if it is properly written, will prohibit
either of you from arbitrarily backing out before it is finished, so
they don't have to worry that you will quit in the middle of the
assignment, leaving them holding the bag. Also, since it is normal for
consultants to service more than one client at a time, there is often no
good way to list assignments in chronological order.
Personally, I list my consulting work as a single item on my resume
(with my own company as my employer), with bullets underneath listing
the various kinds of services I have been retained to provide. The
services are not listed in chronological order, nor are they organized
by client. And I feel free to resequence them as I see fit. (Two years
ago, e.g., any Y2K work I had done was at the top of the list. Now it
is at the bottom.)
