1

For the last 2 years I have been working as developer. Coming September, I'm going back to school for ~4 years. I will be studying and working as a part-time developer. After I'm graduated, can I put a total of 6 years of professional experience as a developer on my resume?

Improve this question
4
  • Any reason why you think you would not? If you indeed work the 4 years as someone with responsibilities then it only makes sense, specially if you can provide reference.
    – lucasgcb
    May 2, 2019 at 13:39
  • @lucasgcb The question is about how to count "years of experience". If you work 2 years full time, then obviously that is 2 years of experience. But if the next 4 years are only part time, then at the end of the four years, how many total years of experience is that?
    – Brandin
    May 2, 2019 at 14:06
  • @Brandin if this was any other occupation that'd be easy to answer, but it's hard to measure this for software developers because depending on the job you can even have less hours with more throughput than someone who just maintains a codebase and clocks out. That's why companies like portfolios / personal version control repositories (and also why they like young faces alongside them, "aged" devs tend to lock their skillset in time). In the end years worked might not even matter much (for dev positions).
    – lucasgcb
    May 2, 2019 at 14:23
  • Why not just list what you did? No need to put "x years of experience" there literally.
    – ThiefMaster
    May 2, 2019 at 14:56

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

After I'm graduated, can I put a total of 6 years of professional experience as a developer on my resume?

When people think 6 years experience they think 6 years of full time experience. I would not advertise myself as having 6 years of development experience when most of that time has been with a part-time job while also being a student. 6 years for a developer can turn into Senior-level roles which you probably aren't ready for.

I would avoid listing the amount of years of experience on your resume and instead list out the jobs on your resume and for the part time job put either that it was part time or put how many hours per week you spent at that job to avoid confusion. It can be difficult to try and quantify how many "years" of experience you have when part time jobs are included. Avoid the calculation yourself and let the companies decide how valuable your experience is

Improve this answer
1
  • I'd like to add that the employer looks at skills and past (school) projects that you should include as well as your part time jobs (list the start date- end date). Some employers consider internships and such as "work experience" depending, of course, on the company.
    – Rich B
    May 2, 2019 at 17:47
3

(In the US, at least) a resume usually has a section where you list each job you've had, when you had it, etc. You should list your part-time work on that resume, but you should make it clear that it was part time. If it was for 20 hours a week or more, I'd be explicit about how many hours you worked a week, as that represents a lot more experience than someone who worked just a few hours a week.

I would not describe yourself as a developer with 6 years experience, as that would be misrepresenting the truth.

Improve this answer
0

Can I put on resume experience I got while I was in school?

No. Usually the work experience is considered based on a full-time position. So without any mention of the part-time work, simply adding up that time to the overall experience would not be the correct thing to do.

Can I put on resume experience I got by working part-time while I was in school?

Yes, you can. Just make sure to mark the tenure of work as part-time somewhere in the resume.

Improve this answer
4
  • This is something interesting, this answer mentions the same thing like the other answers, however ends up receiving DVs. Wondering what could be the problem I'm overlooking?
    – Sourav Ghosh
    May 2, 2019 at 14:33
  • 1
    I'm not understanding the downvotes either, maybe people are reading the first paragraph and misunderstanding that part-time does not count as exp at all.
    – lucasgcb
    May 2, 2019 at 15:05
  • @lucasgcb Maybe, maybe not. I'm failing to see the problem, still.
    – Sourav Ghosh
    May 2, 2019 at 15:07
  • This does not seem to answer the question as asked. Maybe the wording was different originally and you answered that question, but it has since been clarified. I think only your current second answer "yes, you can. Just make sure..." currently makes sense. So your current first answer ("No") is something that doesn't apply anymore.
    – Brandin
    May 2, 2019 at 16:42

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .