How to Display Temp Positions on Your Resume
Posted March 26th, 2020
Figuring out how to list your temp positions on a resume can be challenging. Usually, you have two options available for displaying your temporary jobs. Each has its own pros and cons, and each one is best suited to specific situations.
By selecting the right approach, you can increase your odds of being seen as a strong candidate. If you want to make sure your temp positions are listed in the best way possible on your resume, here’s what you need to know about the two options.
Grouping Your Temp Work
If you had numerous temporary assignments but were working through one staffing agency, then you have the option of grouping your temp work together. Technically, during that period, the recruitment firm was your employer. As a result, you can put all of the assignments in one section.
Using this method can be ideal if you had more than a few assignments, and each one was fairly short. It will prevent you from looking like a job hopper by showcasing your longevity with the agency. Plus, it may make it easier to demonstrate that the individual roles were temporary, ensuring there isn’t any confusion about the nature of the work.
The grouping option can also work well if all of your short-term jobs were in the same job category. You can essentially list all of your related experience in a single entry on your resume, which may make it seem more substantial. All you need to do is separate the assignments by making each one (and its related accomplishments) a bullet point.
The main issue with grouping is that it is harder to showcase achievements. You don’t want a single work history entry on your resume to be too long, so you might not be able to include every accomplishment since you also have to differentiate each assignment from the others in the bullet points.
Using Separate Entries
There are plenty of situations where displaying each temporary position separately is the better choice. First, if you only have a couple of short-term roles sprinkled throughout your work history, then you might want to make each one its own entry. That way, you reduce the odds that it will appear as if you had a gap in employment.
If each of your temp jobs was dramatically different from the last, then you might want to list them separately, as well. That way, you can highlight relevant accomplishments from each role, which may be beneficial. However, this also creates a risk, as you might accidentally look like a job hopper, even if you note that the roles were temporary in the job title area.
If you were in contract roles that each lasted approximately a year or more, then it may be best to treat them as individual positions. At that point, the amount of experience you gained in each job may have been substantial, so there might be aspects that you want to showcase more significantly than you could if you grouped. There’s still a chance that you’ll look like a job hopper, but it is substantially reduced due to the amount of time you spent in each role.
Both of the approaches above can be appropriate. Just consider which one works best for your situation, and use it consistently throughout your resume.
Let Bayside Solutions Improve Your Resume
If you’d like to learn more about including temp positions in your work history, the team at Bayside Solutions can help. Contact us today and see how our resume writing expertise can benefit you.
