I've been working as a IT consultant for the last ten years, helping both large and small businesses to streamline their help desk operations. I've made the decision to re-enter the workforce because of increased competition and I am unsure how to list my consulting services on my resume. Some of the larger corporations that I've consulted for required me to fill out a confidentiality agreement with them which bars me from discussing any work I did for them along with listing them on a resume. Some of the smaller firms that I had done work for are now out of business. So my list of 100+ clients shrinks to about 30. While I feel that is still a strong number, I'd like to be able to represent the larger businesses that I did work for? Any ideas?

Adam Le Magne answered:
Generally if you work as a consultant for a period of time that is listed as an occupation on your resume in the same format as any other previous jobs you might have had. For example, in MS Word you can use the Resume template to create a resume, and just like there are ~4 sample jobs, one of those would be your consulting work. If this work took up a large amount of time in your life or is something you really want to elaborate on -do it! A tactic I would suggest (as someone who hires people, in IT as well) would be put bullet points about the type of work you did, major accomplishments, or maybe facts about the major companies you worked for that don't directly give it away. For example, you might say "Network Consultant" June 2000 through July 2007. San Francisco, CA (or Multiple Cities, whatever). Then put bullet points like *extensive work in MS Windows Server 2003 deployments such as AD migration, installation and maintenance. Or *Installed new Oracle DB architecture for leading Fortune 50 Company (this lets you promote the fact you worked for a good company), or *Daily operations in LAN/WAN optical cabling.

Basically if its something you did for a few years, dedicated a good amount of space to explaining it, but don't put so much data that they don't need to call you in for an interview; just put hooks so a recruiter looks at the major items and thinks, wow, I want to talk to this person.

Another suggestion I would make is don't include the suggested personal info like hobbies, sports, etc.

Elwanda B answered:
I agree with the first poster. Another tactic is to go out to look at the job postings you want and add those key words to your descriptions as well. If they are looking for a Network Analyst and you have Systems Analyst with Networking in your experience, it may not ping properly with the searches. The recruiters also use software that scores your resume based on number of matches with key words in their search criteria. The more keywords you have, the higher the score for the job you want. Also, be careful while reading the job descriptions and call if you have to. If you are submitted more than once for a position, that kinda takes you out of the running. (This is the case of two different placement firms submitting you to the same client. It happens more than you think these days.)