How to write a resume when you have two career paths

We get lots of clients who have parallel career trajectories – they’ve been a producer for years but have also worked in events, or they’ve worked equally in TV and branded content, or they write while holding down a steady day job, or any number of other dualities (as resume writers and entertainment professionals ourselves, we fall into the same category)! But what does this mean for your resume and LinkedIn profile? How can you prove to a hiring manager that you’re interested in a specific job, when half of your experience is in a different part of the industry (or a different industry entirely)?

First of all, you will almost certainly need at least two different resumes, one focused on each trajectory. The particulars depend on the specifics of your situation -- that's why we advocate for letting your story guide your resume format, not the other way around. Generally speaking, there are two ways to go about this: 1. If you can leave one path out without creating gaps, only include related jobs in your timeline and allude to your unique perspective in another way, like a call-out in your professional summary or skills & interests section; 2. Include both sets of jobs in your timeline, and for the divergent career path, only include transferable, relevant skills. If your timeline overlaps, put the more relevant jobs first. If you're looking to combine your two skillsets for an entirely new role, you'll need a strong professional summary or even a functional resume that allows you to organize your work by core skills -- these being, of course, the skills you'll bring to the new role. 

But what about LinkedIn? You can’t have two LinkedIn profiles.

Before you write off LinkedIn as a tool for your career, consider that it offers a huge upside compared to your resume. LinkedIn lets you write in first person and tell your story in a truthful way -- it's an opportunity to add context to the simple chronology and explain what your unique perspective is. And with two backgrounds, you certainly have a lot to say!

If there’s one side of your two career paths that you’re leaning toward more heavily, focus more on those skills on LinkedIn as well and express the other work as a side interest, highlighting what you've learned from those experiences that enhances your work in your primary path. But even if you’re looking for jobs in two fields equally, you can use your professional summary section to outline your unusual career trajectory and explain that you have two different passions, each one informing the other in its own way. Explain that you're open to roles on either side, and frame it as a value-add. Take the opportunity to give reasoning behind your career choices and explain how the things you have learned through each enhance your business approach. 

However, there are some times when you may want to be a little more vague with your LinkedIn profile -- if your boss doesn't know you're looking for jobs and expects your profile to reflect your full-time position, if you use LinkedIn as a sales prospecting tool in your current role and need to show focus to potential clients, or if there are other political reasons you need to maintain a level of privacy, that's fine. We still recommend you have a profile so that you can connect with people, but you may prefer to keep your profile sections short and sweet. When you've moved on to your next role, you can build your profile out more.

One key thing to remember – no two people have the same career trajectory. In fact, the things that make you an unconventional candidate might be the same things that make you stand out from the pack! Take pride in your ability to excel in more than one area and come up with a few different frameworks to express your skills and background, so hiring managers get the information they need to see. It may take a bit more work to craft your story for your audience, but with two careers, we know you're no stranger to hard work, and in this industry, no stranger to storytelling!

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-- Angela Silak & Cindy Kaplan