I have the experience, but not the title. How do I get the job?

June 2, 2019 7:12 PM

About a year ago, this was me, pregnant and stuck on a PIP at work, unable to search for a new job due to life circumstances. Now I'm done with maternity leave and ready to stick it to my horrible company. I've let a lot of skills I had lapse, but I picked up a bunch of new ones during my three years here, and now my job title doesn't match my job duties. What now?

I'm a "front-end designer" in an extremely disorganized and poorly run toxic e-commerce office where the amount of design and development I do is limited to uploading images to a dinosaur of a content management system and overriding its outdated styling with light inline HTML. I took classes in JavaScript, etc., right before this job, but any knowledge I ever had is gone, so leaving this position for a design or development position is impossible. In reality, what I do each day is wrestle with our undisciplined team to make our projects happen. Since I upload our content to the web, I'm the one who has an eye on every project and promotion and knows that our managers have scheduled the promotion to launch on the wrong day, forgot to request legal copy, forgot to have the legal copy translated into other languages, requested incorrect creative, etc. I spend most of my day coordinating with the team, chasing down creative, rescheduling in Asana, rerouting things that bypassed the copy manager, creating tickets in JIRA, etc. I write all the requirements for the new features we want from our back-end devs, follow those features through each sprint, lead QA on them, etc. I'm pretty sure I'm just a project manager with the wrong title? I didn't mean for this to happen, but if I hadn't picked up all of these responsibilities, no one would do them at all, and I can't work that way! I paid to attend a project management workshop a couple of weekends ago to assess what sort of skills I'd need to pick up in order to transition into project management with a new company, and the instructor was like, "But . . . you already do project management."

I've been ready to move on from this crazy place for a while, but I wanted to wait until I was no longer pregnant, finished with maternity leave, etc. (For those wondering about the PIP, I was phased off immediately after I returned from maternity leave, the same way I was put on a PIP the moment I announced I was pregnant.) Now I'm ready to leave! But . . . my resume says "Front-End Designer." My job duties clearly explain that I actually do a ton of project management, and I've bolded "project management" everywhere it appears in my resume, but I wouldn't give me a job I haven't technically held, so I don't know why a potential employer would.

Allison at Ask a Manager says not to ever apply with a job title that won't be verified by your HR department, and honestly, I'd never dream of it. All suggestions my friends give me to fudge the truth so I can say I have three years experience in a project management role give me anxiety. But if development is off the table and I'm actually great at what I really do every day, how do I get a chance at a junior project management role so I can actually do my job with the proper support and infrastructure someplace I don't hate?

Any suggestions on language, cover letters, job titles, certifications, SCRUM training, whatever, are very welcome! So are insults about my company. Those really helped last time. Thanks!

posted by Yoko Ono's Advice Column to Work & Money (6 answers total)

If you end up with an in-person interview at a small company, you can put yourself in a position where you can explain where you're at, and make it make sense. "I wasn't given a change of title, but my work for the past __ years has been project management. I'd like to do that in a more formal capacity, at an exciting company like yours."

OK, maybe I laid it on thick at the end there, but you get the idea. Start by matching yourself up with as many listed requirements as you can, get to a point that you're speaking to a hiring manager, and make your pitch.

Also, try not to badmouth the old company to a company that you're applying to. Make it about how you feel like you've learned all that you can there, and you're ready for a new challenge.

Good luck!
posted by Citrus at 7:35 PM on June 2, 2019

Response by poster: Also, try not to badmouth the old company to a company that you're applying to.

Hi, just so the discussion doesn't derail on something like this instead, I am interested not in job interview tips but application tips (but please do assume I adhere to normal professional standards, like the above, in job interviews; I feel I can say I dislike my company on MeFi but if that is something that will distract people from the question, I can remove the question and repost). Thank you!
posted by Yoko Ono's Advice Column at 7:43 PM on June 2, 2019

I would do what Citrus said, but in the cover letter. Sounds like you covered it in the resume.
posted by lazuli at 7:46 PM on June 2, 2019

I'm curious to see what others will say here. I think this is a special case where you might style the title like this:

Front-End Designer / Project Manager
or
Front-End Designer (Project Manager)
or
Front-End Design (Project Management)

And in your cover letter, you might say something like "Originally hired as a front-end developer at XYZ corp, I quickly found my stride both supporting and leading project management for multiple projects throughout my time there, handing X, Y, Z, etc."

Somewhat similarly, I was at a job for four years where my official HR corporate job title was "QA/Project Lead." As it turned out, I never formally did QA. I was a project manager for a year, then a relationship manager with a side order of project management for contract additions and change requests (both titles that did not exist in a corporate system that hadn't been updated since the 1960s), and so my resume says Project Manager / Relationship Manager and then has a subsection detailing each. My case is a little different from yours in that those were the actual titles on my business card as directed by our region's GM, but similar in that my HR title really isn't exactly correct.

I've only had one occasion where a hiring company checked for my actual title for an new contract with a major consulting group. I was asked about it in the interview, and I explained that that was the hiring title, but my role had immediately evolved as the company grew to better meet the needs of our team and our customers and that was the role I was known for both internally and externally. It wasn't ever brought up again and I got the contract for the work.

Don't forget that your resume is a marketing document, not a historical record. Be honest, but also put your best foot forward and focus on your strengths. My last job (proposal writing) weirdly ended up being a full-time festival of Excel work on behalf of a new executive who didn't have strengths in that particular area. Next time I'm on the hunt, I'm leaving all that Excel stuff off my resume because I really don't want to be an Excel jockey full time. It's OK to emphasize the project management over the design part.

And don't forget that people are falling over themselves to hire good project managers because they are worth their weight in gold. I know the PMP certification has mixed reviews, but I might look into it. If you are working toward it, it's something you could add as in-progress in your certifications.
posted by mochapickle at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't give me a job I haven't technically held, so I don't know why a potential employer would.

Then you're not really understanding how hiring works. People generally make moves up, not laterally, when changing jobs. Yes, you're probably not going to get a role designated as "senior" or manager/director, but you are perfectly aligned to move into a PM role if that's what you've actually been doing, and that's just a matter of clearly communicating that's what you've been doing.

If you hire someone with extensive PM history into a non-senior PM role, they get restless and leave. Also, without upward moves we'd all be doing our original entry-level jobs still, wouldn't we? Everyone eventually has to do a job they haven't technically held.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:05 PM on June 2, 2019

I've hired several project managers in my time, and I tell the recruiters "Hey, look for project managers, but keep an eye out for any devs who want to transition to that." You're a unicorn, a talented software developer who figured out project management not just because it was the only thing you could do, but because you saw its value and tried to help your team.

So yeah, I'd say make your LinkedIn title "Front End Dev/Project Manager" and you'll be fine.
posted by Pacrand at 8:11 PM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]