How to Create Your Job History

If you are a part of the workforce, it is a great idea to record a detailed version of your work history. Creating a document that compiles information and data about each job you have had can be a useful tool for your resume preparation when finding your next job. One issue with this, however, is that a previous job may have been years ago and your memory of it may be foggy.

Fear not, however, as in this article we will assist you in finding the details of your previous roles and help you decide which aspects are most important. If you are successful, you will have a detailed job history that you can impress employers with. After all, job hunting favors the prepared.

Keeping Track of Your Job History

Let's start by stating the obvious, keep track of your job history while you are working. This means writing down any important information about the job before moving on to your next one. If you do this, your resume preparation is already taking care of itself with little effort being put in.

If you haven't kept track of your job history as you go along, you will need to rack your brains to remember what you did in previous roles. For some, it will be easy to recall the day-to-day duties of the job, but for others, it may be harder. For the jobs that are tougher to remember, you will need to reconnect with your past.

This means contacting old colleagues or bosses to discuss the ins and outs of your role within the organization you worked for. Explain to them that you are using it for job hunting purposes and that it would be of great help if they could lend you a hand in remembering details. If your communications are successful, you may even land yourself a new reference to count on.

If you have any documents or a portfolio saved from a previous job, this can also be a great source for tracking your work history. Be thorough in your investigations to try and cover as many bases as possible. Once you have enough information available about your work history, you can focus on the most important aspects.

Which Aspects of Your Job History Do You Need to Include

Your job history doesn't need to include every tiny detail about the roles you had. This would be an enormous amount of data, with the majority of it being useless to you. Instead, focus on these aspects of your job history:

• Job title
• Organization name
• Address
• Time period
• Boss's name and contact information
• Co-worker's name and contact information
• High-level description of the job

The components above will help give a picture of what your job history looks like. Each aspect is vital for recalling what your role was, who you worked with, and for how long. As part of your resume preparation, this information is key when drawing on the experience and skills you have.

When conducting research for your job history, you must ensure that the data you collect is complete and accurate. Any inconsistencies have the potential to be found out, so it is only worth including what you are 100% sure of. This accuracy can also help references corroborate the facts you present and speak about.

If you have blank spots in your job history, don't worry as this is more common than you think. What you do need to do is address them. What did you do? Why did you take a break? Did it improve your life? These kinds of questions need to be answered in preparation for questions from a recruiter.

Who Will Use Your Job History?

First and foremost, a document entailing your job history will be used by you. As part of your resume preparation and job search as a whole, you will need to be well-versed in speaking about your job history. This means using your past to talk about what you want, what you've done, where you're going, and how you're going to get there.

Speaking about the past like this will be for the benefit of a recruiter. A recruiter will use your job history to try to understand how you will fit in within their organization. To do this, they will assess the experience and skills you have learned and the organizations you've worked for.

Prepare yourself to be asked about previous experiences in your job history. Whether these experiences were positive or negative, tailor your answers to the role that you are interviewing for now. If you are successful, your resume preparation will have paid off and you will be one step closer to your next job.