Toning down your resume

People have to learn how to tone down their resumes instead of building them up. I just got a resume from someone who put down he was the Director of sales and marketing for a company and President of another company, etc.. He's 27 years old and graduated from college in 2002.

When I asked our HR person what she thought of him for a sales/support coordination position, she looked through his resume and said he's probably overqualified. When I explained that he was 27 and probably just built up his resume she said that if he thinks he did all of these things then he will be bored at our job and will probably leave after a year or so.

I'm not saying that he didn't do what is on his resume, but there are a lot of different ways to present it. We have all been president of our own consulting firms. We have all been the VP of something or other because we were one of two people working in the company and we could be VP. We have all worked summer jobs as interns through which we can claim title to king of the world.

But a company does not want to hire a CEO for a sales position. A company wants to hire a salesman for a sales position. You should never have a higher position then the one you are looking at on your resume. If you are looking at IT Manager, your resume should have IT Manager at the highest level of what you have done. That is called a parallel move. If you write that you were the CIO and now you are willing to accept IT Manager, they will look at you as over qualified. In a 5 person company, the salesman is the assistant sales person as well as the Sales Manager and the Director of Marketing and Sales, as well as the Vice President of Sales and the Deputy Director of the company. However those titles are not going to get you a job, because everyone is looking for a lateral move and are not willing to pull someone above or below his experience.

I recommend before sending in a resume to find out what the requirements are and reading your resume from their perspective. If you were looking through the 100 resumes that you've received, would you consider this one to be a perfect fit for the position?