Nothing can replace a good experience. Over the years, an SCM professional may work towards to become a generalist or a specialist. This should be a well thought out decision by the professional. Changing the direction frequently, that is generalist to specialist or vice versa, may not be a good decision and may harm one’s career. Let us take two scenarios to understand this generalist and specialist notion.
Ramkumar is an SCM professional stared his career at a warehouse as a warehouse assistant manager right after his graduation in engineering. Over the last 10 years or so he worked in various capacities in about 3 companies and reached a level of warehouse manager. This is a typical case of a specialist role. Now he is looking for his next move for career progress. I would say he should continue to grow in the warehouse domain rather than taking a completely different role. He should become a renowned name in the domain of warehousing. This is the speciality route.
On the other hand, his friend Jawahar Ali, who is a commerce student started his career as a Customer Support Executive. After couple of years he moved to an MNC doing Logistics Operations and Documentation, then moved to Reverse Logistics. Now over the last 10 years, he has gained a tremendous experience in the downstream supply chain. This is the generalist route. He should aim to become a Supply Chain Manager (Downstream) in the coming years.
You should clearly understand whether your career is on a generalist or on a specialist path and your resume should represent that. Even the positions you are applying should be aligned with this thinking. A resume which conveys these aspects very clearly will be a winner in the resume shortlisting process by a recruiter.
Resume should show a candidate’s stability and continuous work experience. As you rise in your career to top positions, stability is the one of the most important things a company will look for. During 1990’s, somebody working in the same company for 5 years or more may be called as a stable one. Today, companies expect at least 3 years as a stable one. The main reason is, for higher positions, companies take months to land on the right profile, hence too frequent changes in these positions is not good for the project implementations and strategic direction.
To the extent possible one should not have breaks in their career. Even if there are breaks, there should be a good justification for that. Recruiters construe breaks as layoff period or one’s lack of suitability for the job market.
In summary, a resume which clearly conveys specialist/generalist path, stable work experience, progressive growth and with no breaks make an amazing resume.