Resumes and Job Titles

Many aspiring professionals boast impressive resumes, showcasing valuable education, credentials, project lists, and work experience. However, the job titles listed under each organization in their work history are often obscure and misaligned with the roles they are currently pursuing.

In this article, we’ll cover one simple change you can make to your resume that will dramatically increase your chances of landing an interview; and, subsequently, a job offer. The examples covered here target software engineering roles, but can easily be applied to any other profession, as well.

The Importance of Matching Job Titles

When applying for a software engineering role, you’ll often come across titles like Software Engineer, Software Developer, or Software Development Engineer. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), recruiters, and hiring managers look for these specific titles on resumes and might overlook candidates whose job titles don’t match. As a result, qualified candidates can be missed simply because their previous job titles don’t clearly reflect their software engineering experience.

Many software engineers, both new and experienced, find their resumes ignored despite having relevant experience. This often happens because their job titles don’t align with the common software engineering titles that recruiters and hiring managers seek. Titles like Computer Programmer, Application Developer, IT Specialist, and Database Admin don’t immediately indicate software engineering expertise, even if the job responsibilities are similar.

Unfortunately, recruiters and hiring managers often prioritize job titles over actual experience as they rapidly scan through resumes. If your resume doesn’t feature a title that meets their expectations, it’s likely to quickly meet the recycling bin.

Matching Titles to Responsibilities

A key strategy to overcome this hurdle is to align your job titles with your responsibilities. For instance, if you worked in a role where you primarily developed software, your title should reflect that. Instead of titles like Computer Programmer or IT Specialist, use the much more common title of Software Development Engineer if your primary duties involved software development.

Example: From Overlooked to In Demand

Consider an example where someone (spoiler: the “someone” is me) worked in a university lab with the title Undergraduate Researcher. Some of their key responsibilities involved developing software using Python and the Tkinter framework. Despite the software engineering work, the title didn’t convey this, leading to their resume being overlooked for software engineering roles.

By changing the title to Software Development Engineer and focusing on the software development aspects of the role, the candidate's resume started getting more attention. They highlighted their software engineering responsibilities, such as turning technical requirements into usable business functionality through code, conducting code reviews, and following best practices in software testing, which were previously buried under unrelated tasks for the broader Undergraduate Research title.

This change in title immediately led to landing multiple interviews, as hiring managers and recruiters saw the alignment between the title and the responsibilities, making it clear the candidate had relevant experience.

Ensuring Honesty in Your Resume

It’s important to ensure that any changes to job titles are honest and accurately reflect your responsibilities. Do not lie or exaggerate your experience. For instance, if you worked as a cashier with no software engineering duties, it would be dishonest to change that title.

It is usually the case the employers apply titles to jobs that no longer truly reflect the responsibilities of the role, but they continue to use the outdated titles for administrative convenience. If you want to be sure it’s safe to change a job title on your resume, it is absolutely acceptable to reach out to a former employers and ask them what type of title you should use to match up with experience you gained through their business.

On the other hand, being disingenuous about your skills or responsibilities will likely be uncovered by colleagues or supervisors, leading to severe professional repercussions, such as termination of employment or damage to your professional reputation.

What If You Have No Job Experience?

If you lack formal job experience in software engineering, there are other ways to build your resume:

1. Projects Section: Include personal projects on your resume. These demonstrate your skills and can be a significant talking point during interviews.

2. Local Business Projects: Offer to create applications for small businesses. This provides real-world experience and can sometimes lead to paid work. A significant number of non-tech small businesses are unable to develop their own software to complete tasks like tracking employee hours, managing mailing lists, or creating a webpage. You don’t need to make a robust suite of accounting software, but a single desktop app for entering employee names and vacation time might help a small business save a ton of money on expensive HR software.

3. Open Source Contributions: Contributing to open source projects is another way to gain experience and showcase your abilities. It also connects you with professional who are established in the industry.

Similarly, if you’re looking for other types of professional positions, consider the kinds of projects you can get involved in that align with the type of role you wish to pursue. Consider reaching out to a nearby university, school, local business, or non-profit organization you feel you can assist through your education and skills.

Wrapping up

In most instances, job titles are flexible. Craft your job title for each of your past employer’s around the key responsibilities and skills required of you in the role. Hiring managers and recruiters gravitate towards applicants who list job titles that match very closely with the title their organization has listed on the job ad.

Don’t lie about your experience in order to justify a title change. When lacking professional experience is an issue, look broadly for opportunities in your community, both local and online, where you can contribute. Personal projects are also a great way to gain some experience you can list on your resume.

If you have other thoughts on job titles, examples from your own experience, or would like to discuss any related topics, we’d be happy to hear from you in the comments section!

If you or anyone you know wants to share their experience applying for jobs in the current job market, inside or outside software engineering, we encourage you to respond in an email to this newsletter! You may be featured in our next article.

Thank you for reading and we will see you in our next article as we continue our voyage.

Code on,
Matt, Editor and Software Engineer