Do past job titles matter when looking for higher/management position?

October 18, 2015 1:57 PM

Dear All, I have a question regarding my graphic job title. I am applying for jobs but am confused what's best to describe myself in terms of qualification on my resume. I graduated from a fine art program back in college and have been working for 10 years now. During these 10 years, I have been working for several related jobs but in relatively different fields, such as logo design, catalog layout, poster, photography, animation, video...etc., and now I am confused about what I am. My latest job is a one-man team producing graphic works from taking pictures of products to picking up catalogs from printers and eventually have them mailed out. And that was a jr. graphic designer position....

Now, I am thinking about getting maybe not senior but at least an intermediate artist position but I don't know how. I see job listing looking for senior or management position with 5 years experience but I am afraid that I wouldn't be even considered because I didn't have "the experience" of being one.

I guess my question should be, how do I promote myself as someone who is capable of being in charge while I don't have any "management" title in my resume.

Hope you guys would give me some suggestion and help me out.

Thanks,

posted by lanhan to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Best answer: I'm not sure about graphic design, but in my world a management function means you manage people rather than managing a process where a senior role could be a process manager. It sounds to me that you have experience with completing the whole process, but not with managing a team-- do I read that correctly?

I would say that for roles that are senior (i.e., you are expected to carry out the whole task) then you should be able to apply-- on your cv I would say something like: "in this role I was responsible for the whole graphic production process for the media products, and was required to oversee quality and timeliness bla bla bla"

For management functions (managing a team) then in your cover letter I would stress "While I have really enjoyed being responsible for the production process, I would like to take the next step in my career and be responsible for a team. Working with other people really motivates me, and in my last job I was able to mentor other more junior staff bla bla bla".

Make sense? I have a dim memory of a very similar askme not too long ago in your field where similar questions were discussed.
posted by frumiousb at 4:59 PM on October 18, 2015

Best answer: Are you sure "management" is where you want to be?

My background is in architecture and design (with 8 years in each field), and someone with your background/experience might be better suited to a Senior Designer or Creative Director position.

I worked with Project Managers in the fields I mentioned and their roles were more about coordinating people and less about producing stuff: phone calls with clients, putting together meeting notes and agendas, running meetings (both in-house and with clients), and lots of scheduling and emailing. They didn't do any creative work, which is more what you've been doing.

If you want to keep the creative part of what you do active, try looking for Senior, Level III, and/or Director positions. If you're dead-set on management, however, then focus on highlighting the people-wrangling aspects of what you've done.

I hope this helps.
posted by subliminable at 6:59 PM on October 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: 10 years of experience should be able to translate you into a mid to senior level design position. You've worn a lot of hats, which speaks to being able to handle different kinds of tasks. I think it's going to be a combination of picking parts of your work experience and spinning them as having project management components, if the job you're after specifically mentions this as a component. Also selling yourself as mature, authoritative and capable of dealing well with others. This is, of course, on top of your portfolio. You haven't really brought that up, but that's going to do a lot of the talking for you.
posted by picea at 7:52 AM on October 19, 2015