I am about to become 29 years old..and I feel like people think it's a joke that I was a director of SWE a year ago when I'm a lowly SW3 now.
Should I still put it on my resume? I feel like people tend to toss it out because it looks either pretentious or like a lie.
Some titles only mean something in a specific context, like SW3 And GS-4. Those refers to an org chart slot or pay grade in an organization but carry little meaning otherwise.
And then some titles mean nothing, like Senior Wizard or Director. Anyone can call themselves a Director of their own company. By itself it means nothing.
A resume should communicate accomplishments, demonstrable skills, and experience. It should not advertise meaningless or pompous titles.
If you were Director-level at a recognized company that's one thing. A Director at Apple or Microsoft will send a different message than a Director at some three-person operation that lasted for a year and no one ever heard of.
There's a glut of very small companies started by friends who all call themselves Director and CEO and Founder and so on. With no responsibilities or accomplishments the titles are just a joke, and rightly perceived as such.
The people who will decide you are a liar and toss your resume in the trash can without so much as making a phone call to check your story probably aren't people you really want to work for.
The purpose of a resume is to get an interview. That's it. It's not intended to tell all about yourself, or to present a test for the potential employer to pass to prove they are worthy of you. You have 15 seconds or less to make an impression with a resume, so every word has to count, and you can't expect some deep analysis, phone calls, etc. at the first stages.
At most companies the person tasked with turning a big stack of resumes into a short list of candidates to interview is not the person who makes the hiring decision, so you have to get on that short list first.
Anyone can "prove" they had the title Director, that's not the question. What's hard to prove is that the title meant anything or just signals vanity or a two-person company. A Director at Microsoft is a very different job than a Director at Jack at Jane's Design Agency.
I imagine the hiring process would also vary substantially between the two.
I know something about giftedness, something more than I know about theoretically standard hiring processes. One of the things gifted people run into is people routinely thinking they are making stuff up or exaggerating.
Over the years, I've learned to just be me. If people have a problem with that -- with who I actually am -- it's not going to be solved by finding polite euphemisms and telling little white lies and dressing down my accomplishments and trying to pretend I'm less than I am. All that does is give them a new excuse to claim I'm a liar because now I've "changed my story."
YMMV and probably will.
I tossed out my 2 cents on the theory that someone being called Director in their twenties is someone with problems like mine. Of course, I could be entirely wrong about that.
The OP asked this question here, and referred to their current job as lowly. The OP also brought up doubt about age, perceptions, and pretension. All of that does not communicate confidence, much less “giftedness.” The question was about how those job titles might be perceived.
A person with demonstrable skills and a record of accomplishment would not have such doubts, and would not worry about how titles get perceived. A resume is for getting interviewed, not to prove something to yourself.
Do you think Directors with a list of accomplishments and measurable responsibilities send out resumes to get a new job?
In all seriousness, no business owner wakes up thinking they want to hire another expensive middle manager. Filling a director role means that a business decided to pay a significant salary for management of something important to the business. That means something on a resume, and is totally worth keeping there to showcase your skills.
That’s not my experience at least. Sometimes you’ll get a candidate where it turns out that they aren’t as good at something as they made it sound, but I can’t recall a single time someone ever doubted a candidate before the person made us have a reason to doubt them.
As long as you had substantive experience and can show it, then yes. If it was a title only, then probably not.