Should a resume be titled as if you have the position already?

Question

A friend of mine will soon apply for her first management position, and she was coached by a professional resume writer (who I don't know). That coach recommended to write the resume with the title of the position she wants to get, not with her current role, so her draft is now titled 'rahrahrah Manager'.

Personally, my first thought is that this is ridiculous, and if I get such a resume knowing she doesn't and didn't ever have that role, I would consider it trying to cheat at minimum, and probably would discard this candidate right away.
The application is within the same company, and everyone in the hiring process will know her current role, there is no chance that they would assume she already has a management role.

The coach's reasoning was that 'this is the new style', and it impresses that you are 'ready for that role' and 'feel right at home in it'.

Question: is this a valid and usual approach? Would it be acceptable, or considered fishy?

It could well be that I lived under a rock too long, and I'm fine to get 'ok boomer', but I actually don't want her to ruin her chances, so I'd like to know if this is nowadays common and accepted.

Edit: I am talking about the title on the resume, not the cover letter. I understand that a cover letter would refer to the offered position's title (and mention it as a bolded title potentially); that's not what I mean.
This is in the USA.

Answer 1

Well, this was "the new style" since I sent out my first application 20 years ago. It's not exactly hipster, it's supposed to be assertive and powerful, but it's been around for a while.

Personally, what other people call assertive and powerful more often than not strikes me as arrogant and rude. But that is just my personal taste. Yes, this is a common recommendation, whether I like it or not.

Normally this is recommended for the cover letter though. Basically it's the subject of your whole package of cover letter and CV. It's what you apply for. Why you write all that stuff. Well, the summary. The subject. The bold big line the whole letter starts with. Calling it "title" is a little misleading in this context, it's not supposed to be the applicants title as in former job title, it's the title of the document.

It's not illegal, it's not even misleading. It's the topic of the conversation, just shortened from "Concerning your job opening of senior widget frobricant" to just "Senior Widget Frobricant".

In the end, your friend has to be comfortable with what she sends. If she thinks it's okay, then it's certainly not out of the ordinary. You can read that in almost every book on the topic. It's not brand new, it's at least 20 years old. If she does not like it though she should not use it. Not because it's wrong, but because it's more important she likes her resume and is confident handing it to people than it is to make the coach happy or follow some "how to" book.

Answer 2

Question: is this a valid and usual approach? Would it be acceptable, or considered fishy?

Your resume is supposed to represent your past and current knowledge, experience, and titles. If you add a title that you do not currently possess, you are lying on your resume. I can't think of any company that would find it acceptable for their applicants to lie about their qualifications.

I would advise your friend to only enter information that is truthful on their resume.

Answer 3

TL;TR It's valid: when a position is in the title, it's the CV's title, not your current position

It's recommended (at least here in France) to keep your CV short and readable (usually one page here). When you have a carreer with different domains of experience, and look for jobs in those different domains, you should create a different CV for each one, and not include your past positions the same way and with the same amount of details, to keep what's relevant for the domain considered. The CV is then titled with the job you are looking for, so that it's easier for an organism that distributes CVs to know which one to use (for example in my country we have a employment national agency that can distribute your CV to companies).

It's different than lying about your past positions titles that are listed below in the CV, where the future employer can clearly see if you already worked in the position you look for or not. And if you worked in different domains and are currently unemployed, you don't have a single clear carreer title to show anyway.

So, yes, it is valid if you have a single position, and even often recommended if you have more than one, to easily distinguish between your different CVs.

Answer 4

This question confuses me.

That coach recommended to write the resume with the title of the position she wants to get, not with her current role

Since when do you title your resume/CV with a position title? My CV is titled with my name. I'd recommend anyone to do the same.

If you want to add a sub-title, then "Application for {xyz position}" seems clear, unambiguous and presumably helpful to the hiring manager who wants to see at a glance what position you're applying for.

Answer 5

The title of the resume as a document is the position you're applying for.
No one expects it to necessarily be your previous or current job title. Those have a company and a start date.

Please consider this from your hiring manager's viewpoint. At any given time, I'm likely to have about 5 open positions, and about 20 resumes to consider. Hiring isn't the core of my job, just one of the responsibilities.

Now, as I'm reviewing the resumes and scheduling the interviews, I need a way to quickly:

• Recall which position John Doe applied for,
• Check others who have applied to this position, to see if interviewing John still makes sense,
• Share this information with other interviewers, whose input I want for the interview.

The easiest way to avoid confusion is to put the position on top of the document. This way, someone with three resumes in their hand (two from another department) won't mistake a support engineer for a developer and start asking them about the heap. These things happen.

Think of it like product packaging: you want to see right away if it's motor oil or a jar of cookies. There's nothing overly assertive, much less dishonest, about advertising a product you intend to be used to lubricate engines as "motor oil", even if the customer hasn't yet decided if it's the right oil for their engine.

You're advertising yourself to be used (that's what the term "employed" literally means) as a "Teapot department manager". Put that on the packaging and let the employer decide if you look like the right manager for their needs.

The one time you'd want to leave the title off is if you're not sure what the position is called, or want to be considered for multiple positions (happens when recruiters approach you). One can still list a generic position such as "engineer" or "team lead" to indicate a broad range of jobs they're interested in.

Placement matters, of course. "John Doe, Teapot Manager" in a signature would suggest holding that job title. But as a resume/CV title, it's clear and concise.

The only way it could amount to lying is by styling it like a job experience, "Your company, Teapot manager, Presently". Clearly that's not the case here, but I've seen this particular bad advice on the net. Even that would really be perceived as tacky, not dishonest.

Answer 6

Typical 'bad coach' advice

This is a really bad interpretation by the coach of the generally good advice that you should appropriately tailor your resume to a company.

That means you should translate company-specific terms and job titles in good faith, where they mean the same thing, saving the people reviewing your application effort by avoiding needless friction.

It does not mean you should take liberties with those translations, or outright lie, to deliberately deceive them into thinking you have experience you don't have.

Ultimately you're doing the same thing in both cases - modifying your job title - but for very different reasons. This is a classic 'bad coach' hallmark that you should look out for and avoid. This type of advice starts with the superficial effects of genuine, good strategies, ignores all the reasoning that leads there, and simply prescribes an extreme version of the effect itself as the strategy.

This obviously doesn't work, but offers an appealing shortcut to achieving things without putting in the work. Skip the hard part, simply 'do' or 'be' the result, right? Easy sales for the coach, bad outcomes for you.

Answer 7

Should a resume be titled as if you have the position already?

No you should put your official title for your current and previous position on your resume. Putting a title that isn't your official title, especially a title that you aspire to have is lying. I strongly discourage this practice and depending on her location, this is illegal.

The coach's reasoning was that 'this is the new style', and it impresses that you are 'ready for that role' and 'feel right at home in it'.

Nope it's still lying. I recommend that your friend write a cover letter stating why she would be a good 'rahrahrah Manager' even though she has never held the exact or similar title.

Answer 8

That's not ridiculous at all to put the desired position in the title, in fact, sometimes the opposite would be. If you apply to a "Java Developer" position with a resumé titled "McDonalds Shift Lead", you will not be taken seriously.

If you list a fake Java developer position in your past experiences section when if fact your only worked in McDonalds, that would be lying on the resumé.

Answer 9

It's certainly common to see resumes with a heading that's neither the word “Resume” or “CV” nor the person's current job title. The current role and exact job titles go in the “experience” section and I have also read advice against a title like “Resume” as it's rather uninformative and wastes space for something that should be obvious from the rest of the document. Thus, I see no problem writing “Senior XYZ” if you have significant experience in XYZ, even if that's the name of the job you're applying for rather than your current job title.

That said, calling yourself a manager when you have no management experience might be a step too far. I am not too bothered about the discrepancy with the current role as I am with the gap between an individual contributor/expert role and a management position. What about something like “Lead rahrahrah"? It's assertive and hopefully reflects a level of expertise and influence that she does already possess while signalling an interest for the management facet of the new role.

Answer 10

One additional reason this can be good advice is that it makes it clear to the hiring manager that you are customizing your resumé to their position, specifically, and aren't just mass-mailing resumés to every job you find on ZipDeeDoor matching some keywords.

Any time you can personalize your resumé and/or application a bit at least for the target position, do, as it tends to improve your chances of standing out from the crowd. If I get a resumé that has the name of the position on it, I'm more likely to look at it than one that's just generic.

Answer 11

This method works as a form of subliminal messaging.

The hiring manager will read "SENIOR WIDGET MANAGER", then read about you, then read "SENIOR WIDGET MANAGER".

Not a foolproof plan but it makes it less likely that they will be murmuring your former job title "junior widget noob" while reading about your achievements.

I put my name at the top of applications for a similar reason. I want to make it more likely than a reader will associate the good stuff on my resume with me, and slightly less likely they will get muddled and misremember some of it as belonging to someone else.