Resume experience formatting and internal mobilityCreateCV Editorial TeamAug 12, 2026قراءة 8 دقيقة
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When you have held several positions at one company, your resume needs to show two things at once: continuity and progression. A single employer entry can make your tenure easy to understand, but collapsing every role into one title can hide promotions, expanded responsibility, or a deliberate move into a new function. Listing every role separately, however, can make the experience section repetitive and consume valuable space.
The most useful approach is to decide how much the work changed. Stack roles when the responsibilities stayed broadly similar and the main change was the title. Separate roles when the responsibilities, function, or level changed materially. In either format, show the complete employment period, include every relevant title, and give the newest or most target-relevant work the strongest detail. This approach follows guidance from Indeed on showing a promotion on your resume, Texas A&M University’s Career Center, and Columbia Business School’s experienced-professional checklist.
Choose between stacked and separate entries
Start by comparing the actual responsibilities of each position, not just the titles. A title change by itself does not necessarily justify two large, independent resume entries. Conversely, a lateral move with a different function may deserve its own section even if the new title does not sound more senior. The decision should help a reader understand the pattern of your experience quickly.
Use this decision matrix before formatting the experience section.
Situation
Recommended format
What to emphasize
Similar duties; title or level changed
Stack under one employer
Promotion, increased scope, and results
Materially different responsibilities
Separate positions under the same employer
Distinct skills, outcomes, and career direction
Lateral move into a new function
Usually separate, or use a clearly labeled sub-entry
Transferable skills and deliberate capability expansion
Brief move with little distinct evidence
Combine only if doing so does not hide relevant progression
Stacking is usually the cleaner choice when your day-to-day duties remained similar and the advancement mainly reflected a new title, level, or larger scope. It lets the employer name appear once while still making the promotion visible. Separate entries are more useful when you changed departments, moved from an individual contributor role into management, or took on work that requires a different set of keywords for the target job.
Do not use separate entries simply to make a long tenure look more substantial. The format should clarify your career story. If two positions have nearly identical bullets, stacking them and assigning the strongest bullets to the later role will usually create a more focused presentation.
How to stack promotions under one employer
For a stacked format, write the company name and location once, then list the roles beneath it in reverse chronological order. Give each title its own date range. The most recent position should appear first, followed by earlier positions. This preserves a clear timeline while avoiding repeated company information.
A simple structure looks like this:
Example:
Northstar Software, Austin, TX | March 2018–Present<br>Senior Customer Success Manager | January 2023–Present<br>Customer Success Manager | March 2018–December 2022<br><br>• Lead enterprise onboarding for a portfolio of strategic accounts, coordinating product, support, and sales stakeholders.<br>• Expanded renewal-planning processes across the team and improved visibility into account risks.<br>• Promoted to Senior Customer Success Manager after taking ownership of larger, more complex accounts and mentoring new team members.
The example does not claim that the promotion was caused by one specific achievement unless the writer can substantiate that relationship. If you know the relevant result, make it concrete: “Promoted after reducing implementation delays by 18% across a strategic-account segment.” If you do not have a defensible number, describe the expanded scope instead, such as larger accounts, broader ownership, or team leadership.
Keep the most detailed bullets under the newest role or the role most closely aligned with the position you want. Earlier roles can use fewer bullets when their work is less relevant. This follows Columbia Business School’s recommendation to order bullets by relevance to the target role rather than simply by importance in your current job. You can review layouts in the CreateCV resume templates before choosing how much space the stacked structure needs.
When separate entries tell a stronger story
Separate entries are appropriate when the jobs had materially different responsibilities. A move from financial analyst to recruiting operations, for example, should not be presented as though it were simply a promotion in the same discipline. Distinct entries allow you to show the skills and achievements associated with each function without forcing the reader to decode one blended list.
You can still group the roles under one employer so the overall employment period is obvious:
Brightline Health, Chicago, IL | June 2016–Present<br><br>Business Operations Manager | February 2022–Present<br>• Built operating reviews for cross-functional leadership and translated performance data into planning priorities.<br>• Managed process improvements involving finance, customer operations, and product teams.<br><br>Financial Analyst | June 2016–January 2022<br>• Prepared recurring financial analysis for department leaders.<br>• Developed reporting tools that supported budget and resource discussions.
This format makes the change in function visible while preserving the value of long-term employment with one organization. It also prevents the earlier role from disappearing, which can otherwise leave unexplained dates or make the career timeline look incomplete. Texas A&M University’s Career Center advises including all job titles to show promotion and increased responsibility, presenting positions in reverse chronological order, and supporting them with action-oriented bullets.
Use separate entries for a lateral move when the move expanded your capabilities in a way that matters to the target role. A lateral transfer is not automatically a step backward or a lack of progression. It can show that you built experience across functions, learned a new part of the business, or became effective with different stakeholders. The resume should make that purpose visible through the bullets rather than relying on the title alone.
How to explain lateral moves as career growth
A lateral move needs context because the reader may not know why you changed departments. You do not need to write a long explanation in the experience section. Instead, select bullets that connect the move to transferable skills and show what the new role added to your profile.
Name the capability you gained in the new role, such as stakeholder management, process design, analysis, or team coordination.
Connect that capability to a specific responsibility or result rather than describing the move as a personal preference.
Show how the combined experience fits the target position.
Avoid implying that the move was a promotion if the level did not change; describe it as a change in function, scope, or expertise.
Give the most relevant accomplishments enough space to demonstrate the value of the move.
For example, a move from product support to implementation could be presented with a bullet such as: “Moved into implementation to apply customer-facing troubleshooting experience to onboarding projects, coordinating requirements across client and product teams.” Follow it with an outcome if you have one. The wording presents the transfer as a connected skill-building decision without inventing a formal promotion.
Internal mobility is also relevant context for this framing. An April 2026 Indeed report found that 43% of surveyed U.S. employers said they source agile talent internally, compared with 10% of surveyed U.S. job seekers actively looking for opportunities within their current company. The finding supports treating internal moves as evidence of adaptability and transferable skills, while still tailoring the resume to the role you are pursuing. The report is covered in Indeed’s career-web article.
Write bullets that prove progression without repetition
Titles show progression, but bullets show what changed. Avoid repeating the same responsibility under every position at the company. Instead, divide the evidence by role: earlier bullets can establish your foundation, while later bullets can show broader ownership, more complex work, leadership, or results relevant to the target position.
A useful bullet formula is action + scope or method + result. For example: “Redesigned the client handoff process across sales and implementation, reducing duplicate intake work by 20%.” Use a number only when you can explain or defend it. If no metric is available, specify the scale or outcome: “Coordinated the handoff process across sales and implementation teams, creating a consistent intake workflow.”
For a promotion, include evidence of the increased responsibility rather than repeating the old job description. Possible distinctions include managing larger accounts, owning a wider process, mentoring colleagues, leading cross-functional work, or making decisions at a broader level. These are examples of ways to describe scope; select only those that accurately reflect your work.
For a target-role application, reorder bullets by relevance. The achievement that best matches the new job should not be buried simply because another task takes more time in your current position. This is especially important for long-tenure employees whose latest role may include many responsibilities that are not central to the next opportunity.
A final review for a multi-role resume
Before sending the resume, read the experience section as a hiring manager would. The timeline should be immediately understandable, and the format should explain both continuity and change. Compare the document with targeted CreateCV resume examples if you need to assess the balance between chronology, detail, and readability.
Is the employer’s name and the full employment period easy to find?
Are all relevant titles included with separate date ranges?
Are the roles in reverse chronological order?
Did you stack only positions with broadly similar responsibilities?
Did you separate roles that involved a materially different function or scope?
Does each role have action-oriented evidence rather than a list of duties?
Do the newest and target-relevant positions receive the most useful detail?
Does a lateral move read as skill expansion without overstating its seniority?
Can every metric and claim be explained accurately in an interview?
Have you removed repeated bullets that do not add new evidence?
The goal is not to make every internal move look like a promotion. The goal is to make the progression truthful and useful: show the titles, clarify the dates, distinguish similar work from materially different work, and connect each move to relevant capabilities. When the format reflects the substance of your experience, long tenure becomes a coherent record of growth rather than a single undifferentiated block.