Structuring a confusing resume

November 13, 2009 9:46 AM

Another resume question. For the past 4 years I've been going back and forth between freelance grip work and a self-started videography business. Where do I place these on my resume?

I'm a recent college grad and over the past year and a half I've had your traditional post-college-film-major jobs (kids camp video instructor, unpaid internship at a DVD distribution label, night shift mosquito sprayer around rural Illinois). These have all had firm beginning and end dates and on my resume I've listed the most recent first and go back chronologically from there. So far so good.

What I'm trying to figure out is if I should place the videography business and freelance work "jobs" above these clear cut job jobs since they presently pay the bills and also explain the month or 2 (or 4) long gaps between the more traditional work. These ongoing projects have been on and off for about 4 years and have made the move with me from Philly to Chicago so I'm worried it might look weird having a "Freelance Film and Video Production....Philadelphia, PA;Chicago IL....6/2004 - present" above a "Mosquito Job...Chicago, IL...5/2009 - 8/2009" for reasons of the massive date/location overlaps.

This is geared to a more general resume for marketing positions, administrative positions, anything, etc. I already have a production resume that lists all my projects individually that I use for freelance gigs.

So where should I put these general jobs that span years and states?

posted by MPnonot3 to Work & Money (5 answers total)

You don't need to put a location for your freelance position. Both the grip work and the videography should go at the top, IMHO.
posted by onshi at 9:53 AM on November 13, 2009

People get this wrong all the time. You're under no obligation to list all of your jobs at all, and nobody actually cares about "gaps" unless they're ridiculous 16-year pauses.

So unless you're applying to some place where working outdoors with chemicals is an asset, feel free to skip the mosquito job. And if videography has nothing to do with the position, pick ONE of the video jobs and leave the rest out, or you'll look like you made a mistake applying for the wrong position.

When applying for Job A, list only the experience/qualifications relevant to that job. When applying for Job B, use that other resume. If there's some really off-the-wall job that you're sure helps with both ("I spent two years in Ecuador building houses.") then include it in both.

I'm a hiring guy. Don't flood me with irrelevant stuff. Show me why you matter.
posted by rokusan at 9:58 AM on November 13, 2009

... seconding rokusan's advice. I answered based on the unfounded assumption that you had a good reason to include all of the experience you mentioned.

Part of the problem with our culture's resume obsession is that there are a thousand schools of conflicting schools of thought on what's "proper", and you can't possibly know which one the person reviewing your resume subscribes to.

Also, there may be some regional variation in this practice, but most of the resume advice I've received in Canada included a stern admonition to indicate in some way (e.g. with a heading "Relevant experience", "Selected experience", etc.) that you're not providing a comprehensive list of the last n jobs you've had. This would be an explicit way of letting the list-everything-or-else and I'm-obsessed-with-spotting-gaps people know what you're doing.
posted by onshi at 10:31 AM on November 13, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks so far for the advice. To clarify a little bit, I was never planning to list all the jobs I ever had on a resume and I completely understand modifying one's resume for a specific job or job type. I was using an example freelance film above mosquito to pose the question of how to structure the videography and freelance jobs above (or below) more specific time-based jobs.

Sorry I wasn't more clear about this.
posted by MPnonot3 at 10:55 AM on November 13, 2009

So, I'm on my second career and what I've done is list my recent relevant experience chronologically. However my prior career in graphic design and marketing is also important and I think helps me stand out. What I've done is group that together under a heading of graphic design/ marketing, 10 years. And then under that bullet my most interesting titles with a short descriptor as necessary. I think you could do something similar. It really depends on what you're applying for, though. Can you be more specific - are you applying for a job in that relevant field or something else.
posted by amanda at 1:30 PM on November 13, 2009