Will a job title change in resume affect my career?

Question

As an employer of software industry with 3 years of total IT experience, in which I have worked as:

• Network Support Engineer in Company 'X' for 1 year 3 months and
• Software engineer in Company 'Y' for 1 year 8 months.

When I was working as Network Support Engineer in company 'X' on contract, in the offer letters issued by them, the job title was mentioned as "Network Support Engineer". But, in my experience letter from the same company 'X' they have mentioned the job title as Network Support Engineer later redesignated as "Product Implementation Executive".

1. Will this be a problem in the future? After leaving company 'X', I'm working in another company as they did not care about it that much as this is a startup. But, I don't know how they might feel in big companies.
2. How can I mention this job title in my resume? When I told the HR manager of company 'X' to mention only one job title, he says he can't do it and it will be against company policy. Currently I'm mentioning it as Network Support Engineer alone and not mentioning it as Product Implementation Executive.
   What should I do for this?

Answer 1

Why not simply list it as "Network Support Engineer/Product Implementation Executive"?

That gets the title you prefer across, as well as the title your HR prefers. Alternatively, list only preferred title in the header, and mention in the description of duties that it is also known within the company as the other one, e.g.:

Network Support Engineer Jan 2013 - (July 2014)
Performed important networky support things, such as (blah) and (blah). This position was also sometimes referred to as "Product Implementation Executive".

My experience in the UK is that the role and work you did is a lot more important than the job title*, so make sure you describe accurately what your roles, responsibilities, skills, and achievements were.

*note: this probably doesn't hold true for differing seniority levels, so you wouldn't want to be listed as a junior llama wrangling engineer if you were actually a senior llama wrangling engineer.

Answer 2

1. No, I don't think this will be a problem. The IT industry evolves so quickly that what Company A describes as an 'engineer' or a 'developer' is described as a 'coordinator' or 'architect' at Company B (or sometimes that switch happens at Company A, within the space of a year. You've run into this.) Describe what you did, even as you list what you were called. Enough people are familiar with this - especially in the IT field - that very few of them will even think to raise an eyebrow at the job title change. Your career would be negatively impacted if you outright lied about your job title in such a way that it implied experience or skills that you did not have. THAT would indeed be bad. This? This is just another case of "the company tweaked the titles {again}".
2. I would list the hybridized title, unless you feel very strongly that you don't want to be known as a "Product Implementation Executive." (The term "executive" can come up in keyword searches on LinkedIn, and you may have to field a few messages from recruiters who don't glance through peoples' profiles before sending off their "are you interested" emails...but that won't be the majority.)