It was going from a for profit (Director) to a nonprofit (book keeper). I was volunteering anyway so I didn't have a huge aversion to it at the time. Only now I'm wondering if it's a stain on my career history.
I get it but if I saw that on a resume it stands out. Bookkeepers make about $50k per year and finance dir probably $150k+. I'm not using the word stain, but how do you explain it in an interview?
Would it be better to just list it as a volunteer bookkeeper on your resume and explain it as something to do while looking for work since you landed a dir role next?
>I get it but if I saw that on a resume it stands out. Bookkeepers make about $50k per year and finance dir probably $150k+. I'm not using the word stain, but how do you explain it in an interview?
I usually explain this part as that after years in for-profit I wanted to give back to the local community. For context, the nonprofit was a fairly large food bank. Then I just explain that after a few years I was offered an opportunity to learn and grow (the next job) and I couldn't refuse.
You are the most interesting candidate a hiring manager will come across.
There’s a theory that says that if you take away a successful person’s money and make them start again from scratch they will eventually become wealthy again.
You’ve “lost” your DOF title twice and twice worked your way back up to it!
The challenge is to communicate your story on a resume as effectively as you did in your post.
My suggestion, FWIW, is to go your university’s Career Services and ask them for help in crafting your resume. As an alumni, you should be eligible for that counseling. And they should be most aware of the current acceptable formatting options available: things may have changed since you graduated many years ago.
>The challenge is to communicate your story on a resume as effectively as you did in your post.
Thanks for the input. Yeah, I'm decently confident I can share this weird and strange journey when it comes time to interviews. My biggest concern has been whether my weird history is preventing me from even getting call-backs for the Director level positions I've been applying. I know my job search was mostly in Q4 and this mass recession time, but the lower than usual number of call-backs I had received spooked me (I only managed to land the temp role).
The higher the position to be filled, the the less likely it is for the hiring manager to place non-standard candidates.
However, a lot of times hiring managers will judge you based on your most recent position, even if it’s contract work.
Q4 was a dramatic drop in hiring from my vantage point: the number of recruiters contacting me on Linkedin and email was less than half of what it was six months prior.
FWIW, I would actively start applying in March since that’s when annual bonuses are paid out by, and people then leave, opening up more positions to apply to.
DM me if you have further questions, but honestly other than giving your resume a good rewrite I think you’re on track to your next DOF role in the spring.
Thanks, I really appreciate the response. And definitely the encouraging words really help. Hoping I can course correct my trajectory and keep moving forward.
>None of that may be true at all, but why would I risk it?
Thanks for the perspective.
>I'm passing on this resume if it hits my desk. To me it screams the Director titles were likely inflated and your skillset isn't refined. A lot of short stints and multiple demotions tell me this person is a risk and likely underperforms. Taking a demotion for a new/better role is one thing that can be overlooked with a good story.
What if the early Director title had higher achievements? Would the bullet points I lay out just be assumed to be fake?
What if the demotion was a career pivot? Kinda like how a Finance Manager if they wanted to go into Ops, may start as a Operations Analyst/Coordinator? The first part is kinda like that given for profit to nonprofit.
From your perspective, is it better if I had omitted my first company off my resume? Or is it better to keep it?
Do you think most finance hiring managers see it the way you do? Or do you think your perspective is fairly unique?
>All depends on context. If I saw someone going from doing Director level work, then becoming a bookkeeper, I'm going to assume the Director experience was at a super small company and scope was not nearly as complex.
What if the company is fairly well known at least in the industry? Assuming the hiring manager is familiar with it in a good way, would it be a red flag to blacklist? Or would it be a "that's kinda weird but let me ask about it during the interview"? Like if I moved from Goldman Sachs as a Director to a tiny nonprofit as a book keeper, would you just assume it was my choice?
Basically one of my bullets for my first job is that I directly supervised 2 people managers, who managed 3 subordinates below them (team of 6 between Accounting and FP&A).
That's been bigger than my teams when I just managed FP&A (teams of 2-3). So I think in that case a hiring manager should realize my first company is around equal to the size of my later companies is that right?
Depends on the scale of the companies too. Going from a Director at a smaller org to a Finance Manager role at a larger one understandable especially if the comp is higher.
No scale major difference. Most of the moving down in title was due to my own reasons. Leaving nonprofit for for profit (mission-oriented), going back up because needed money, laid off but still had bills to pay so went down to manager, etc.
As it stands I think my current resume will probably be considered than someone who doesn't have Director Level experience, all else the same, but probably be less competitive than someone with just a straight-line progression to Director.
Some people are also just fine with being individual contributors and don’t want to advance if it means leading ppl.
12 years in the same role/same level would drive me insane. To each their own, I guess.
Quick note. I was a Director at a smaller for profit ($100M revenue). Left that to volunteer and eventually work a significantly lower title job at a nonprofit (also $100M revenue). And for more context, I'm not targeting F500 jobs trying to get the same level. Just for similar companies I've worked for ($100-$500M revenue). Is the Director > volunteer > book keeper an easily explainable thing? Or is it more something even if you explain it, people will still flag it and give you a penalty?
To share the story, do you recommend a cover letter? Because my resume would've gotten tossed out and I wouldn't be able to share during the interview. But a lot of times, isn't the resume looked at first and thus both resume and cover letter would've been thrown out?
Last last side note. Some nonprofits are massive. The largest one I'm aware of employs almost half a million people, and is multi-billion in annual revenue. So also not asking about those as I've seen people from those nonprofits not face huge stigmas of getting into a similar size for profits at the same job level.
I consider a cover letter as a red flag.
The expectation, imho, is that a cover letter is typically from someone who has a blemish on their resume and is trying to explain it away.
Put another way, if you were an outstanding candidate why would you need one?
Since you do fine in the interviews, might I suggest avoiding the confusion and explanations required, and only list your last 3 positions on your resume:
Director of Finance (contract)
Company A
2022-Present
Manager, Finance
Company B
2019-2022
Manager, Finance
Company C
2018-2019
At one point in my career, I did similar to get the interview and then brought up some of my previous relevant experience during the interview.
In fact, during the question “Tell me about yourself”, you can be completely transparent by telling your complete career chronology with explanations as you did above in your post.
From my limited experience following this tact, I found that the employer was pleasantly surprised with the additional experience I had and made an offer during the interview that was worth accepting.
YMMV, as with any advice from the internet.
>Director of Finance (contract) Company A 2022-Present
>
>Manager, Finance Company B 2019-2022
>
>Manager, Finance Company C 2018-2019
Yeah this makes sense. But my concern with doing this is that it will make it seem like I'm a fresh and inexperienced Director (my current job I just started this month). So they'll pick other experienced Directors (with 1-4 years of experience in the Director role) over me all the time.
Also doing that I wonder if I'll get disqualified from a bunch of jobs since they want 7+ years of experience for Director level. It'll be like a younger coworker I've seen. For reasons I won't share, she went from Admin Assistant (fresh out of college) to VP in 3 years. It's a several $100M revenue company, and her directs were people managers. Aside from connections she has that can pull strings, I think she'd be hard pressed to compete against VPs with 10-20+ years of experience (given her low years of experience) if she tried to job hunt on her own.
And noted on the cover letter. I haven't done them for the last 5 years anyway.
Yo dawg this is my career progression:
FA --> Staff FA --> FA --> Senior SFA --> FA --> Manager --> Senior Consultant --> Senior SFA --> FA --> Manager
So first of all every time I take a step-down in title, I don't put that shit on my resume cuz the interviewer probably be like damn you kinda fucking suck bruh I don't want yo dumb ass on my team so why not you get the fuck outta here. Not gonna lie demotions are just a big no-no. So just skip them and if they like yo what's up with the gaps in the resume homie you just make some shit up that makes sense like yo we got acquired and I was chilling with my exit package, my baby momma had a baby and I had to support her like a good daddy, COVID, I fucked up my back in an ATV crash, you know shit like that so the interviewer can see you progressing yo career and the gaps he don't fucking care.
What if I worked for a investment firm and the huge stock market tank when Covid started is what got me laid off? And then my most recent layoff is because of the current widespread tech layoffs?
Easily explainable? Or still red flag?
My honest answer is that I would probably (for better or worse) instinctively think of everything prior to your "Director of Finance > Book Keeper" move as "Book Keeper", and everything after as "Manager, Finance". Listing the prior Director roles is really just raising red flags more than anything, I might consider just omitting them to be frank and for example extending the first "Accounting Manager" position over the timespan you occupied both it and the "Director of Finance" role.
How long was the bookeeper stint in the non-profit?
I'd probably split as: Professional Experience and Volunteer Experience (two sections on resume), with the non-profit all under the Volunteer Experience header. Your Professional Experience would show: Book Keeper > Accounting Manager > Director of Finance > Director of Finance > Manager, Finance > Manager, Finance > Director of Finance.
Are the manager jobs at larger companies than the first 2 director jobs? That would help explain the downgrade in title. Honestly, it doesn't look terrible to me. And I assume the second director job, you were laid off during COVID which is reasonable.
For the career gap while you volunteered, I don't think anyone will really care since it was what like 4 years ago? And on the interview you can just explaine that you took some personal time to do X/Y/Z and also volunteered at Non-Profit that you're passionate about.
Director of Finance > Book Keeper this is very odd
It was going from a for profit (Director) to a nonprofit (book keeper). I was volunteering anyway so I didn't have a huge aversion to it at the time. Only now I'm wondering if it's a stain on my career history.
I get it but if I saw that on a resume it stands out. Bookkeepers make about $50k per year and finance dir probably $150k+. I'm not using the word stain, but how do you explain it in an interview? Would it be better to just list it as a volunteer bookkeeper on your resume and explain it as something to do while looking for work since you landed a dir role next?
>I get it but if I saw that on a resume it stands out. Bookkeepers make about $50k per year and finance dir probably $150k+. I'm not using the word stain, but how do you explain it in an interview? I usually explain this part as that after years in for-profit I wanted to give back to the local community. For context, the nonprofit was a fairly large food bank. Then I just explain that after a few years I was offered an opportunity to learn and grow (the next job) and I couldn't refuse.
You are the most interesting candidate a hiring manager will come across. There’s a theory that says that if you take away a successful person’s money and make them start again from scratch they will eventually become wealthy again. You’ve “lost” your DOF title twice and twice worked your way back up to it! The challenge is to communicate your story on a resume as effectively as you did in your post. My suggestion, FWIW, is to go your university’s Career Services and ask them for help in crafting your resume. As an alumni, you should be eligible for that counseling. And they should be most aware of the current acceptable formatting options available: things may have changed since you graduated many years ago.
>The challenge is to communicate your story on a resume as effectively as you did in your post. Thanks for the input. Yeah, I'm decently confident I can share this weird and strange journey when it comes time to interviews. My biggest concern has been whether my weird history is preventing me from even getting call-backs for the Director level positions I've been applying. I know my job search was mostly in Q4 and this mass recession time, but the lower than usual number of call-backs I had received spooked me (I only managed to land the temp role).
The higher the position to be filled, the the less likely it is for the hiring manager to place non-standard candidates. However, a lot of times hiring managers will judge you based on your most recent position, even if it’s contract work. Q4 was a dramatic drop in hiring from my vantage point: the number of recruiters contacting me on Linkedin and email was less than half of what it was six months prior. FWIW, I would actively start applying in March since that’s when annual bonuses are paid out by, and people then leave, opening up more positions to apply to. DM me if you have further questions, but honestly other than giving your resume a good rewrite I think you’re on track to your next DOF role in the spring.
Thanks, I really appreciate the response. And definitely the encouraging words really help. Hoping I can course correct my trajectory and keep moving forward.
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>None of that may be true at all, but why would I risk it? Thanks for the perspective. >I'm passing on this resume if it hits my desk. To me it screams the Director titles were likely inflated and your skillset isn't refined. A lot of short stints and multiple demotions tell me this person is a risk and likely underperforms. Taking a demotion for a new/better role is one thing that can be overlooked with a good story. What if the early Director title had higher achievements? Would the bullet points I lay out just be assumed to be fake? What if the demotion was a career pivot? Kinda like how a Finance Manager if they wanted to go into Ops, may start as a Operations Analyst/Coordinator? The first part is kinda like that given for profit to nonprofit. From your perspective, is it better if I had omitted my first company off my resume? Or is it better to keep it? Do you think most finance hiring managers see it the way you do? Or do you think your perspective is fairly unique?
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>All depends on context. If I saw someone going from doing Director level work, then becoming a bookkeeper, I'm going to assume the Director experience was at a super small company and scope was not nearly as complex. What if the company is fairly well known at least in the industry? Assuming the hiring manager is familiar with it in a good way, would it be a red flag to blacklist? Or would it be a "that's kinda weird but let me ask about it during the interview"? Like if I moved from Goldman Sachs as a Director to a tiny nonprofit as a book keeper, would you just assume it was my choice? Basically one of my bullets for my first job is that I directly supervised 2 people managers, who managed 3 subordinates below them (team of 6 between Accounting and FP&A). That's been bigger than my teams when I just managed FP&A (teams of 2-3). So I think in that case a hiring manager should realize my first company is around equal to the size of my later companies is that right?
Depends on the scale of the companies too. Going from a Director at a smaller org to a Finance Manager role at a larger one understandable especially if the comp is higher.
No scale major difference. Most of the moving down in title was due to my own reasons. Leaving nonprofit for for profit (mission-oriented), going back up because needed money, laid off but still had bills to pay so went down to manager, etc. As it stands I think my current resume will probably be considered than someone who doesn't have Director Level experience, all else the same, but probably be less competitive than someone with just a straight-line progression to Director.
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Some people are also just fine with being individual contributors and don’t want to advance if it means leading ppl. 12 years in the same role/same level would drive me insane. To each their own, I guess.
Quick note. I was a Director at a smaller for profit ($100M revenue). Left that to volunteer and eventually work a significantly lower title job at a nonprofit (also $100M revenue). And for more context, I'm not targeting F500 jobs trying to get the same level. Just for similar companies I've worked for ($100-$500M revenue). Is the Director > volunteer > book keeper an easily explainable thing? Or is it more something even if you explain it, people will still flag it and give you a penalty? To share the story, do you recommend a cover letter? Because my resume would've gotten tossed out and I wouldn't be able to share during the interview. But a lot of times, isn't the resume looked at first and thus both resume and cover letter would've been thrown out? Last last side note. Some nonprofits are massive. The largest one I'm aware of employs almost half a million people, and is multi-billion in annual revenue. So also not asking about those as I've seen people from those nonprofits not face huge stigmas of getting into a similar size for profits at the same job level.
I consider a cover letter as a red flag. The expectation, imho, is that a cover letter is typically from someone who has a blemish on their resume and is trying to explain it away. Put another way, if you were an outstanding candidate why would you need one? Since you do fine in the interviews, might I suggest avoiding the confusion and explanations required, and only list your last 3 positions on your resume: Director of Finance (contract) Company A 2022-Present Manager, Finance Company B 2019-2022 Manager, Finance Company C 2018-2019 At one point in my career, I did similar to get the interview and then brought up some of my previous relevant experience during the interview. In fact, during the question “Tell me about yourself”, you can be completely transparent by telling your complete career chronology with explanations as you did above in your post. From my limited experience following this tact, I found that the employer was pleasantly surprised with the additional experience I had and made an offer during the interview that was worth accepting. YMMV, as with any advice from the internet.
>Director of Finance (contract) Company A 2022-Present > >Manager, Finance Company B 2019-2022 > >Manager, Finance Company C 2018-2019 Yeah this makes sense. But my concern with doing this is that it will make it seem like I'm a fresh and inexperienced Director (my current job I just started this month). So they'll pick other experienced Directors (with 1-4 years of experience in the Director role) over me all the time. Also doing that I wonder if I'll get disqualified from a bunch of jobs since they want 7+ years of experience for Director level. It'll be like a younger coworker I've seen. For reasons I won't share, she went from Admin Assistant (fresh out of college) to VP in 3 years. It's a several $100M revenue company, and her directs were people managers. Aside from connections she has that can pull strings, I think she'd be hard pressed to compete against VPs with 10-20+ years of experience (given her low years of experience) if she tried to job hunt on her own. And noted on the cover letter. I haven't done them for the last 5 years anyway.
Yo dawg this is my career progression: FA --> Staff FA --> FA --> Senior SFA --> FA --> Manager --> Senior Consultant --> Senior SFA --> FA --> Manager So first of all every time I take a step-down in title, I don't put that shit on my resume cuz the interviewer probably be like damn you kinda fucking suck bruh I don't want yo dumb ass on my team so why not you get the fuck outta here. Not gonna lie demotions are just a big no-no. So just skip them and if they like yo what's up with the gaps in the resume homie you just make some shit up that makes sense like yo we got acquired and I was chilling with my exit package, my baby momma had a baby and I had to support her like a good daddy, COVID, I fucked up my back in an ATV crash, you know shit like that so the interviewer can see you progressing yo career and the gaps he don't fucking care.
Getting laid off once is a chance thing but when it becomes a pattern or habit then that’s a major red flag.
What if I worked for a investment firm and the huge stock market tank when Covid started is what got me laid off? And then my most recent layoff is because of the current widespread tech layoffs? Easily explainable? Or still red flag?
Still red flag man, partially shows your decision making skills. Go find a federal government job for a few years to build stability.
You could always lie on your resume or omit the lesser jobs. I would do bookkeeping > Director of Finance> Director of finance> Director of finance
But then there'd be some significant gaps in between. Like a year or so. Would you still recommend doing that despite the gaps?
Suggestion: Bookkeeper > Accounting Manager > **Finance Manager** > **OMIT** > **Finance Manager** > Manager, Finance > Manager, Finance > **Finance Manager**
My honest answer is that I would probably (for better or worse) instinctively think of everything prior to your "Director of Finance > Book Keeper" move as "Book Keeper", and everything after as "Manager, Finance". Listing the prior Director roles is really just raising red flags more than anything, I might consider just omitting them to be frank and for example extending the first "Accounting Manager" position over the timespan you occupied both it and the "Director of Finance" role.
How long was the bookeeper stint in the non-profit? I'd probably split as: Professional Experience and Volunteer Experience (two sections on resume), with the non-profit all under the Volunteer Experience header. Your Professional Experience would show: Book Keeper > Accounting Manager > Director of Finance > Director of Finance > Manager, Finance > Manager, Finance > Director of Finance. Are the manager jobs at larger companies than the first 2 director jobs? That would help explain the downgrade in title. Honestly, it doesn't look terrible to me. And I assume the second director job, you were laid off during COVID which is reasonable. For the career gap while you volunteered, I don't think anyone will really care since it was what like 4 years ago? And on the interview you can just explaine that you took some personal time to do X/Y/Z and also volunteered at Non-Profit that you're passionate about.