Blog
-
From the Military to a Civilian Resume
Rank, trade and unit names mean nothing to a civilian reader. How to translate a service record into scope, responsibility and checkable detail.
-
Gig Work in the Middle of Your History
Delivery shifts, temping, marketplace selling: whether platform work goes on your resume, where it goes, and how to write it up without inflating it.
-
One Employer, Several Different Jobs
A decade at one employer across four roles is a career, not one entry. How to stack internal moves so the movement is visible in a five-second skim.
-
When the Employer No Longer Exists
Acquired, renamed, merged or wound up — how to write an employer a reader cannot look up, without losing the credit for the work you did there.
-
A History With Several Gaps, Not One
Four short breaks across a decade need a different treatment than one long one. How to handle a punctuated work history without labelling every hole.
-
How to List Freelance Work on a Resume
Freelance years read as a gap when they're listed as ten separate clients. Present the practice as one role, with projects as evidence underneath it.
-
When the Business You Started Closed
A business that closed is still four years of running something. How to write the entry, name the ending plainly, and lead with what you actually did.
-
The First Two Lines of a Career-Changer Resume
The top of the page decides how everything below it gets read. A pattern for writing a summary that positions a nonlinear history in two sentences.
-
The Functional Resume Question
Skills-based resumes promise to hide a messy history. Here's what they actually signal to a reader, and the hybrid format that works better.
-
Transferable Skills Without the Buzzwords
"Strong communicator" tells a reader nothing. How to turn a transferable skill into a specific, checkable sentence about what you actually did.
-
How to Explain a Career Change on a Resume
A career change confuses readers when they have to work it out for themselves. Say it explicitly at the top, then prove it in the history below.
-
Writing About an Employment Gap
A labelled gap reads better than an unexplained one. How to put a break on your resume in one line, without over-explaining or apologising.
-
A Run of Short Contracts, Read as One Career
Six contracts in four years reads as job-hopping only if you present them as six jobs. Group them under one heading and label them as contracts.
-
Going From Self-Employed Back to Employed
Hiring managers quietly wonder whether someone self-employed will settle into a staff job. Answer that on the page instead of waiting to be asked.
-
When a Job Ended Badly
A dismissal or a job you left fast doesn't get explained on the resume. It gets dated accurately, kept short, and answered properly in person.
-
Writing Your Resume After a Layoff
Redundancy is a decision about a role, not a verdict on you. Where the word belongs on the page, and how much of the circumstances to include.
-
Returning to Work After Caring for Someone
A caregiving break is one dated line and a category, not a story. How to write the return, and how to bring the last role back into focus.
-
Applying While the Gap Is Still Open
An unfinished break is harder to write than a closed one. Give the current period a dated entry, a category, and something true happening in it.
-
A Career Break You Chose on Purpose
Travel, study, or a deliberate year off is the easiest kind of gap to write, because it has a reason. Name it, date it, and don't overbuild it.
-
Going Back to a Field You Left
Returning to an industry you walked away from years ago is a pivot in reverse. Lead with the old experience, and account for the detour honestly.
-
A Pivot With No Paid Experience in the New Field
Changing fields before anyone has paid you to do the new thing is a problem of evidence, not of confidence. What counts, and where to put it.
-
When Your Degree Is in Something Else
A qualification unrelated to the job you want is a neutral fact, not a liability. What to keep, what to move, and how to place recent retraining.
-
Applying for a Role Below Your Last One
Overqualified is a worry about flight risk and salary, not about ability. State the step down as a choice, with a reason, in one clause.
-
Two Careers on One Page
Fifteen years in one field and six in another is two histories, not one messy timeline. Split the experience section and let each half read cleanly.
-
Reordering a Resume to Lead With Strength
Section order is the cheapest edit available to a career changer. Which sections earn the top of the page, and how to move them without hiding anything.
-
How Much of the Story Belongs on the Resume
A nonlinear history has explaining to do, but the resume is the wrong place for most of it. A division of labour across the four places you can do it.
-
Months or Just Years on a Resume
Dropping months to blur a gap is a recognised move, and experienced readers notice. When years-only dates are fine, and when they cost you trust.
-
Part-Time and Reduced-Hours Work on a Resume
Part-time years are employment, not a partial gap. When to state the hours, when it's irrelevant, and how to keep the scope of the work visible.
-
Moving Between the Public and Private Sectors
A sector move is a translation problem. Grades, acronyms, and scale mean nothing across the line — replace them with what the work involved.
-
When Your Qualifications and Employers Are From Another Country
An unfamiliar university and employers nobody recognises make a strong history unreadable. Add the context a local reader is missing, in one line each.