The Resume Work Experience

To write and catalog your work experience resume, use the 5 point guide shown below, this is the basic information you’ll use:

  1. Company name
  2. City and state where you were employed, not the company’s corporate headquarters.
  3. Month and year you began employment
  4. Month and year you left the company, using the word “Present” if you are still employed.
  5. Position title

resume work experience

If you held more than one position at a company, list each title followed by the dates for each position. It isn’t necessary to include the company’s post office box, street address, ZIP code, or your supervisor’s name and phone number on the resume. The following example shows the past 15 or so years and illustrates one method for listing multiple job titles at one employer.

Basic Work Experience Resume Example

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

MAJOR MANUFACTURERS, INC., Sunnyvale, California            1997—Present
V.P., Supply Chain Management         (2002—Present)
Director, Materials Management       (2000-2002)
Director, Production Planning             (1998-2000)
Logistics Coordinator                                 (1997-1998)

LEADING OEM COMPANY, INC., San Jose, California                  1989-1997
Production Planner                                  (1992-1996)
Line Supervisor                                           (1990-1992)
Assembler                                                      (1989-1990)

The next step is deciding how to distribute the weight Among the positions, or how much you will write copy for each position. This step will save you time and help you avoid writing full descriptions for every position.

Who should use a work experience resume?

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Professional Resume Experience, or any of its synonyms, is the mainstay of a chronological format. You will need a “Professional Experience” category if you plan to use any of the following formats:

  • Accomplishments
  • Combination
  • Chronological variants
  • CV
  • International
  • Linear
  • Targeted market

Although “Work Experience” implies remuneration for your services, this category can also include non-paid internships or significant, full-time volunteer positions related to your career goal. If this is the case, title the section something like “Experience” or “Career Highlights” rather than any of the terms in the following list that begin with the word Employment.

For those retiring from a military career and whose experience best lends itself to a chronological presentation, title your service “Professional Experience” rather than “Military Experience” to make it more palatable for business and industry.

If you’ve chosen to write a functional, or skills-based, resume, you can still include a skeleton of your professional resume experience to lend credibility to your work history. This condensed listing needs to include only your position title, the employer, and dates of employment. You can omit the dates if they reflect employment gaps or instability, but be prepared to explain them in an interview. Here is an example:

Customer Service Associate—Titan Truss Co., Veoria, CA (2006–Present)
Reservations Assistant—Sequoia Tours, Tourtown, CA (2001–2006)
Customer Care Representative—Travel World, Tustin, CA (1998–2001)
Data Entry Processor—Crayton Industries, Marysville, CA (1995–1998)

If you will use a resume work experience category, you can choose a title from this menu:

  • Career Experience
  • Career Highlights
  • Career History
  • Career Record
  • Contract Assignments
  • Employment
  • Employment Background
  • Employment Experience
  • Employment Highlights
  • Employment History
  • Employment Record
  • Experience
  • Experience Highlights
  • Professional Experience
  • Professional Highlights
  • Professional History
  • Professional Record
  • Record of Experience
  • Relevant Experience
  • Work Experience
  • Work History
  • Work Record

How Long Is Too Long?

In the work experience resume writing process, you should be really concise, but give enough data to create interest and a desire to meet you. Try to keep your job descriptions to around five lines. More will begin to look too dense and you should either prune it or break it into two paragraphs.

One of the best strategies to improve readability of a too-thick paragraph is to divide and conquer. Go a step beyond simply splitting the paragraph in two. Instead, group common ideas together, and then introduce them with boldface subheadings.

This will aid the reader in identifying your skills and give you an opportunity to emphasize important resume experience keywords. Using this technique, Kevin’s After job description is notably more readable than his Before description.

Before

As accounting manager for start-up organization, designed and implemented formal accounting procedures to support revenue growth from $2 million to $13 million. Hired and supervised customer service, warehouse, and data systems managers. Organized a full complement of training programs for support, administrative, and executive staff. Developed accounting systems for capital expenditures, product costing, and labor reporting. Designed procedures to generate management information in the areas of sales analysis, fixed asset, and inventory accounting. Significantly improved communications among production, accounting, and marketing departments through TQM principles and “brown bag” luncheon series.

After

Accounting: As accounting manager for start-up organization, designed and implemented formal accounting procedures to support revenue growth from $2 million to $13 million. Developed accounting systems for capital expenditures, product costing, and labor reporting. Designed procedures to generate management information in the areas of sales analysis, fixed asset, and inventory accounting.

Human Resources: Management responsibilities were expanded to include hiring and supervision of customer service, warehouse, and data systems managers. Organized a full complement of training programs for support, administrative, and executive staff. Significantly improved communications among production, accounting, and marketing departments through TQM principles and “brown bag” luncheon series.

How to Write a too long Work Experience Resume?

Do not give each position equal treatment in terms of length. Instead, determine Where is your MOST Relevant job experience and leverage the greatest weight on That position.

Enumerate dates Only When the dates do not go back too far, with far too defined as being approximately 30 years of overall experience. How to face a jobseeker resume with many years of experience:

PRIOR EXPERIENCE

Manufacturing Analyst—ABC Company 1987–1989
Production Scheduler—Seering Unlimited 1985–1987
Inventory Analyst—Gables Manufacturing 1983–1985
Expediter—Fedco Manufacturing 1981–1983

Where to Find Material for Your Work Experience Resume?

Consider one or more of these sources to help develop copy for your job descriptions:

  • Your company’s formal job description of your position: use this as a starting point only. Most company job descriptions are lengthier than you’ll need for your resume and many are outdated.
  • Job descriptions of positions similar to your own from your targeted companies.
  • Ads for positions similar to your position and note the key qualifications required: Internet postings or detailed classified ads in newspapers, periodicals, and websites
  • If you are working with a recruiting firm or personnel agency, find job descriptions on recruiter job orders.
  • Informational interviews with industry contacts: find out from managers with hiring authority what they believe the most important functions and keywords are for jobs similar to yours.
  • Your professional association’s newsletter from which you can glean the latest in industry trends, technology, processes, and keywords.
  • Resume Writing websites like this with sample resumes from your profession.