Job Title Brainstorm

[livingdeb]

The best hint I got from the resume workshop is that my last jobs are confusing. I had listed the consulting jobs with the colleges together, but that doesn't make sense until you see the next latest job, so I'm going to combine them all for all future resumes.

Another thing is that no one knew what a Degree Audit Specialist was. Some places I apply to will know that, but most won't. I've decided I need a more generic title. I specialized in one piece of software. I did data entry to keep it working accurately for everyone. Then I helped people use it for their own needs. I wrote documentation and did training. I had to access data from other systems to keep everything working smoothly.

I want the title to imply that I work with complex data, not that I'm a computer guru. But I can't figure out how to do that. After some brainstorming, I think I'm going with Software Support Specialist. It seems better than:
* Software Specialist - implies programming
* Software Administrator - could be like a Database Administrator only for some other kind of software, only it doesn't mean anything
* Software Engineer - implies programming or engineering
* Information Specialist - implies librarian
* Computer Information Specialist - implies managing computer systems
* Help Desk Support Technician/Tech Support - has sweatshop connotations that aren't appropriate
* Computer Support Specialist - implies high-level help desk work; close
* Technical Liaison - apparently means nothing
* Coding Specialist - apparently applies only to medical records

Quote of the Day - "We're getting older and older; our memories are getting more and more amusing." - me

Link of the Day - Kyle Pomerleau's What's Up with Insurance Premiums under Obamacare? - answers the question of whether insurance rates will go up or down for the new policies. "Due to the nature of current state insurance regulations and their interactions with Obamacare, some states will see higher average premiums and others will see average lower premiums. In other words, what happens to your insurance premiums depends on where you live and what insurance regulations existed in your state before Obamacare." The author describes the three most important regulations and how they would affect rates. The writing is wonderfully clear.

The author also links to a map showing before-and-after average rates for each state (well, there are "before" rates for all the states and "after" rates for the states that are ready). Of course my state isn't ready because the national government should not tell states what to do. For the states that are ready, it looks like Vermont is the wackiest.

Comments

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Can you throw the word Analyst in there, or does that imply too much number crunching? I hate resumes in general. I have a complicated mess for a couple of my jobs — at one company I held three distinct positions, and at my most recent prior gig I performed two roles and was never given a title until the new company bought us. How do you capture that stuff accurately? who knows. Ugh!

Software Support Specialist is pleasingly alliterative, although I might throw in a "Senior", also. Since hey, you did that job for years, right?

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I like the "Senior." Yes, 12 years. "Analyst" might be good for LinkedIn, but at the place I'm applying to, it means programmer.

I saw something you might like on someone's resume last week: they split up the different roles:

Name of Company, City, State, Dates
Position #1
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
Position #2
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
Position #3
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

Listing each position separately also lets you list more accomplishments while still letting people rest their eyes and not have to plow through a list of twelve accomplishments without any break.

(I had the opposite: three titles, but only very slowly changing roles--they mostly just added stuff.)

For your last job, make up a title for the first role. If it's a good summary of what you did, then it's accurate. I often think official job titles are misleading. In response to the same qualms you have, I actually put the official job title and a more helpful job title, like this:

Helpful Title, Employer
Specific office/camp/city, Official Title(s), dates
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Those solutions are both exactly what I did. I also added dates to the Position 1, Position 2, etc. part, but put the whole date range at the employer level.

And I totally made up my title at the most recent ex-job. And then got promoted to where I had a decent title and had a pang about it, changed that on LinkedIn, but left my made-up title on my resume (which was out to my now-current employer). Eh, all confusing. Hopefully I only have to fret about it occasionally!

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Cool.