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I graduated last year and I am currently working as a software developer, but in the past year I have hardly done any development work in this job and worked more towards documentation and unit testing the software. Owing to this I have decided to switch, and now as I work on my resume I realize that I don't have much development work to write on my resume.

My questions are:

  1. Is it ok for a not-so-recent grad to focus his resume on academic work,(and online courses like edX etc.) than on the current job role?
  2. When answering the interview question 'Why do you want to switch?', is it alright to mention the real reason or does that reflect badly as someone speaking negatively of my their current job?

I appreciate all your opinions.

labmat
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  • what is the reason to switch? you don't like to do document+testing in your current company or doesn't like it at all? – Dupond Dec 05 '17 at 01:58
  • @Maixem I am not liking the heavy documentation and testing work. – labmat Dec 05 '17 at 03:47
  • We don't really know what your experience looks like, so we can't really tell you what would be best to focus on on your resume. But there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with focusing more on recent academic work, if that's where your most noteworthy experience lies. Why would "my job responsibilities are different from what I'd like to do" reflect negatively on your current job / employer? "They lied to me" would obviously be bad-mouthing. – Bernhard Barker Dec 05 '17 at 07:39
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    Possible duplicate of Why is it not a good idea to "badmouth" a previous employer? – gnat Dec 05 '17 at 08:39

3 Answers3

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Is it ok for a not-so-recent grad to focus his resume on academic work,(and online courses like edX etc.) than on the current job role?

Sure it is okay to focus on academic work and online courses. 1 year is not too long to ignore academics and online courses (if completed honestly) only show your desire to learn more.

When answering the interview question 'Why do you want to switch?', is it alright to mention the real reason or does that reflect badly as someone speaking negatively of my their current job?

If you do not enjoy the nature of the work, you should absolutely state the true reason. I don't think you are badmouthing your current employer if you say you do not like the profile. It is just that you did not know or realize how it will turn out when you took up the job and now you do. It happens all the time.

PagMax
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If you are under 5 years of working experience i would say it is acceptable to change position even if it has nothing in common with your current job. You are young, you need to try different task/company that suits you. It is normal.

From a recruiter point of view, it is better to have someone that change to a different position after 2/3 years rather than someone that keep the same kind of position of change every 6 month of company.

1) It is difficult to reply without reading your resume. But if you have already work experience, it is what you should mention first. Academics matters less, and online course (usually) doesn't matter at all for an HR. So in your resume you should mention both with equal importance i would say. ( if you already know what position you apply for,it can be a good thing to put in bold the keywords of your resume that appears in the job offer).

2) Yes, be honest; because most of people don't like to do documentation anyway. But you don't need to speak of it negatively. You can say : "At the begining i was hired for a developper job but there was heavy worload on documentation and the teamleader assigned me to it. It is something i don't see myself working on for 10 years so i prefer to look for a more challenging position in devolloping XYZ."

Dupond
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  • Appreciate your view and thank you for explicitly stating a how a positive response would sound like! – labmat Dec 05 '17 at 23:59
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Is it ok for a not-so-recent grad to focus his resume on academic work,(and online courses like edX etc.) than on the current job role?

I'd say at this point you're okay to give your academic elements a decent amount of focus on the resume - you're on the cusp though, much beyond 18 months and it would start to ring warning bells for me. I wouldn't hide what you are currently doing though. It's real world work experience and even if not in the exact area that you are looking for it's still immensely valuable for it's "real" nature.

When answering the interview question 'Why do you want to switch?', is it alright to mention the real reason or does that reflect badly as someone speaking negatively of my their current job?

You keep the tone of it positive rather than negative:

I'm keen to really focus on my building my development skills, my current position is heavily weighted towards documentation and testing work which I understand are important elements of the development process and it has been good experience but I feel the time is right to move into something more focused on development.

motosubatsu
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  • liked how you mention a certain time frame in the first part and the positive statement in the second. – labmat Dec 06 '17 at 00:02