Feedback on Resume
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@jimmy9008 said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
So let me ask you, as director, did you have hundreds or reports? Could you fire any non-executive in the company yourself, without needing approvals from anyone? If not, you'd better not use that term anywhere.
That means there were only 2 directors and everyone else was a manager, which i guess is accurate.
Were they really directors? Even outside of IT it is rare to have a director in the SMB. Most SMBs are smaller than a single department size.
Yep. Seen this often.
I've seen places with multiple directors, and all of them were not directors. No larger than only 20 people in size. One 'Sales Director', who had the actual sales people report straight to them... Not lots of regional sales managers reporting to them... but the actual sale staff. The cold callers... they are not director.
Its just like 'IT Director' - actually no, you just replace the toner and check the server has a green light.
See it so often.
Yes, in the SMB "director" normally means "step between intern and junior". They are always employees, not interns. But it is almost always the junior most position in the company, too junior to get even the title of "junior whatever you actually do." When I see director on a resume, I assume that they are too junior to count as experienced.
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@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@jimmy9008 said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
So let me ask you, as director, did you have hundreds or reports? Could you fire any non-executive in the company yourself, without needing approvals from anyone? If not, you'd better not use that term anywhere.
That means there were only 2 directors and everyone else was a manager, which i guess is accurate.
Were they really directors? Even outside of IT it is rare to have a director in the SMB. Most SMBs are smaller than a single department size.
Yep. Seen this often.
I've seen places with multiple directors, and all of them were not directors. No larger than only 20 people in size. One 'Sales Director', who had the actual sales people report straight to them... Not lots of regional sales managers reporting to them... but the actual sale staff. The cold callers... they are not director.
Its just like 'IT Director' - actually no, you just replace the toner and check the server has a green light.
See it so often.
Yes, in the SMB "director" normally means "step between intern and junior". They are always employees, not interns. But it is almost always the junior most position in the company, too junior to get even the title of "junior whatever you actually do." When I see director on a resume, I assume that they are too junior to count as experienced.
Mostly because people working in and around IT that style themselves as directors almost universally are not just not directors and not managers and not even leads or seniors, but are not actually in IT at all but are IT buyers - just a secretarial like role that managers the relationship with the IT vendors that are the actual IT staff. So I think of it as a junior secretary or purchasing title in most cases.
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@jimmy9008 said in Feedback on Resume:
If I were ever 'IT Director' or something, i'd expect to have lots of remote 'IT Managers' reporting to me worldwide, each with a team of Techies under them... If I were ever called that, but only a sysadmin... yep, i'd lie and call myself sysadmin on resume... otherwise its a lie.
Even in one location it is okay. If you have 200 people in your department, and five managers that report directly to you and 40 people under each of them, and you really are an executive with autonomy over a department... that would be okay to be called director even if just one building.
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@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@jimmy9008 said in Feedback on Resume:
If I were ever 'IT Director' or something, i'd expect to have lots of remote 'IT Managers' reporting to me worldwide, each with a team of Techies under them... If I were ever called that, but only a sysadmin... yep, i'd lie and call myself sysadmin on resume... otherwise its a lie.
Even in one location it is okay. If you have 200 people in your department, and five managers that report directly to you and 40 people under each of them, and you really are an executive with autonomy over a department... that would be okay to be called director even if just one building.
In my case it was 33 buildings, but I do see your point
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@dashrender said in Feedback on Resume:
Where does a Director fall in comparison to an Executive?
In normal business, it is the junior most executive.
In finance it is the senior most. Weird industry twist.
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Normal business does this....
Director -> Managing Director -> AVP -> VP -> SVP -> EVP -> P -> CEO
But finance does this...
AVP -> VP -> SVP -> EVP -> Director -> Managing Director -> P -> CEO
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@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
Normal business does this....
Director -> Managing Director -> AVP -> VP -> SVP -> EVP -> P -> CEO
But finance does this...
AVP -> VP -> SVP -> EVP -> Director -> Managing Director -> P -> CEO
What do you think on entirely removing job titles from resume? Only putting organisation, and achievement's?
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@dashrender said in Feedback on Resume:
Considering I clearly have never experienced the levels of management that Scott has, I have only ever seen directors report to executives, so a director could never fire one, they are lower than executives.
The term director implies an executive. Just normally a junior one. If someone used the term director and they were not an executive, they were not a director. They were just out of their internship most likely.
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@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@eddiejennings said in Feedback on Resume:
This thread has encouraged me to change my title to IT Generalist on Linkedin rather than keep my company-provided title of Network Administrator.
It's not really a good title to use. It's a good description, and it is what all SMB IT people really do. But I would not use it on a resume directly.
How would one translate that into a title?
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@dashrender said in Feedback on Resume:
But according to Scott's comments, when he was a director, he was over the top of executives.. so I'm wondering what is the fortune 500 management chain look like from the lowest employee to the CEO/board.
Where did I say that? As the SENIOR MOST director, I was over the other directors. I wasn't a rung higher, just the highest on my rung. But the seniority difference was enough to be able to fire the Director of Operations without any other approval.
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@eddiejennings said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@eddiejennings said in Feedback on Resume:
This thread has encouraged me to change my title to IT Generalist on Linkedin rather than keep my company-provided title of Network Administrator.
It's not really a good title to use. It's a good description, and it is what all SMB IT people really do. But I would not use it on a resume directly.
How would one translate that into a title?
Pick a title which that description matches. His example is LAN Administrator
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@irj said in Feedback on Resume:
Let me ask you this. How often do you see companies that follow the @scottalanmiller guideline for titling positions? 20%, 10%, 5%, 1%, .000001%?
Most of the enterprise I see this. None of the SMB. Which is partially why they are SMB - not enough business, too much politics. It's literally all about dishonesty there. Not every SMB, of course, but it is a market problem. The SMB has a strong tendency to lie about everything, partially because there is nothing like Sarbox to audit them. Positions, titles, capabilities, willingness to pay bills, etc.
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@irj said in Feedback on Resume:
Let me ask you this. How often do you see companies that follow the @scottalanmiller guideline for titling positions? 20%, 10%, 5%, 1%, .000001%?
This is why we all know that titles are false and putting false titles on a resume is bad. It's so common that every hiring manager knows to look for people who are going to lead off the relationship with lies. That the old company made up a false title is assumed. That good people won't repeat it (at least without pointing out that it was only the title) is also assumed.
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@dashrender said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
@dashrender said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
@irj said in Feedback on Resume:
How often do you see companies that follow the @scottalanmiller guideline for titling positions? 20%, 10%, 5%, 1%, .000001%?
0% in my case
Ditto - but other than the one larger company I worked for, the rest have been SMB.
My interest is to get out of the SMB but I'm not sure how clear I made that in this thread honestly. A lot of posts.
This makes me wonder, how many non SMB's are there. There's SMEs and then Enterprises.
I think Scott said SME's start around 2000 employees, enterprise is over 10K employees.
There are roughly 2,000 enterprises in the US.
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@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
@dashrender said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
@dashrender said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
@irj said in Feedback on Resume:
How often do you see companies that follow the @scottalanmiller guideline for titling positions? 20%, 10%, 5%, 1%, .000001%?
0% in my case
Ditto - but other than the one larger company I worked for, the rest have been SMB.
My interest is to get out of the SMB but I'm not sure how clear I made that in this thread honestly. A lot of posts.
This makes me wonder, how many non SMB's are there. There's SMEs and then Enterprises.
I think Scott said SME's start around 2000 employees, enterprise is over 10K employees.
I also think he said enterprise is more of a mindset than it is the size of the company
This is also true. There is no single hard and fast definition. The gov't DoL would look at it by a single factor like staff size or revenue. I've worked for companies that literally couldn't decide if they were SMBs or enterprises. By one measure, solidly SMB. By another, solidly enterprise. Staff of 1,400; revenue higher than Apple. Enough cash in the bank to buy anything under the Fortune 50, probably - with CASH. So by one standard SMB, by another enterprise, by others, medium.
In IT we generally care about the behaviour aspect, as that is what influences us. So a few smaller companies are enterprise to us and several big ones are not.
And of course non-profits, military, government can be enterprise size and budget but aren't enterprise.
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@jimmy9008 said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
Normal business does this....
Director -> Managing Director -> AVP -> VP -> SVP -> EVP -> P -> CEO
But finance does this...
AVP -> VP -> SVP -> EVP -> Director -> Managing Director -> P -> CEO
What do you think on entirely removing job titles from resume? Only putting organisation, and achievement's?
Job titles should never have been on resumes. There should be a "role name" that says what you actually did, not what title you were given. The only time you ever use a title on a resume is if it actually overlapped with your description / role.
Example: If you WERE a DBA and your title was DBA. Then you can use DBA.
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@eddiejennings said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@eddiejennings said in Feedback on Resume:
This thread has encouraged me to change my title to IT Generalist on Linkedin rather than keep my company-provided title of Network Administrator.
It's not really a good title to use. It's a good description, and it is what all SMB IT people really do. But I would not use it on a resume directly.
How would one translate that into a title?
Someone suggested "IT Guy". "LAN Admin" is the traditional standard title for SMB IT Generalist. SMB IT Generalist is not horrific. Technical Support Specialist. IT Administration. Business Infrastructure Specialist. BI Admin.
(You can't use BI as BI, it always has to be written as Business Infrastructure as Business Intelligence has BI and is totally different.)
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@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
The Arc: I was the director of IT. I was responsible for every appliance, server, workstation, etc. All devices. I handled all of the purchasing in relation to IT. I was the sole IT person covering 33 sites all over ocean county (very large county).
snip SAM rant on titles...
It does not matter what you feel is a real title or not. If the company assigned him the title, that is his title. To use anything else is not correct.
If the duties do not match the title, he can explain that in an interview.
But the title as assigned by the company is the title he had.
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@jaredbusch said in Feedback on Resume:
@scottalanmiller said in Feedback on Resume:
@wirestyle22 said in Feedback on Resume:
The Arc: I was the director of IT. I was responsible for every appliance, server, workstation, etc. All devices. I handled all of the purchasing in relation to IT. I was the sole IT person covering 33 sites all over ocean county (very large county).
snip SAM rant on titles...
It does not matter what you feel is a real title or not. If the company assigned him the title, that is his title. To use anything else is not correct.
We've covered this. Repeating a lie you know is a lie as if it was the truth, is lying. There is no expectation of using a title on a resume, but there is an expectation of the truth.
You always have a right and an obligation to the truth. No company's giving titles changes that. Do you have a right to repeat the title they give you? Yes. Do you have a right to do so without stating it is a title if it is not also what you do? No.
If your title is lawyer and you are not a lawyer, you can't repeat it as if it were true. Same with doctor. Same with engineer in some states. But you can always list what you did.
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@jaredbusch said in Feedback on Resume:
But the title as assigned by the company is the title he had.
No one claimed otherwise. It's putting a known false title onto a resume as if it wasn't only a title.
Explaining in an interview is fine... but many times false titles will keep you from an interview. Titles like director are looked for by hiring managers in the enterprise. They know there are no SMB directors. They know that someone stating that is either totally confused or lying - both of which are bad. That your title was director doesn't matter, no one is looking for your title. If you are proud of a title, mention it somewhere as a title. Nothing wrong with that. But don't pretend it was your role.
