Resume question: Previous company sold/name changed

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m in the process of updating my resume and I’m running into a small problem. I previously worked at a division of a much larger corporation. This division has since been since been sold and the name changed. (Sold several years after I left)

**Here’s what I had in the past: **
Primary Company Here (PCH) – Division organization here

At the time all of our hiring paperwork would go through the corporate office (Primary Co), so I’d imagine any employment history is still on file. Part of my job included some time in HR.

Looking for recommendations. Thank you!

2

I’ve had several previous employers change hands. In a couple of cases the name of the company I worked for no longer exists. Here’s how I format it.

Name Of Company when I worked there (Now name of successor company)

3

I’d put something like “Primary Company (PC) – New Division Name (formerly Old Division Name)”, just in case there’s any confusion when they’re checking your history.

But if I understand correctly, your old division is no longer part of the primary company, so I’d call PC to confirm that they still have your records on file. It seems possible, though unlikely, that they may have been transferred in the sale.

ETA: Actually, given that the division is part of another company, I think something more along **kunilou’s **lines would be better - “Primary Company (PC) – Old Division Name (now New Division Name of New Company)”,

4

Not that it’s relevant any more to whether I get a job, but I have a similar problem with the high school that I went to: the high school of that name disappeared in a reorganisation of schools, and the old campus became a new high school with a new name. In that case, I’d just list its name: if people want to find what happened to it, they can look it up in Wikipedia or ask me. However, for a company, unless it was well known, I’d add the new name in parentheses as suggested, or give some other explanation, e.g., “(ceased trading in 2000)”.

5

A lot of my former companies were swallowed up or disappeared.
Nobody ever fussed. I listed the name as I knew it when I worked there. And if they asked me for official references, which seldom happened, I do the legwork then.

6

If the prospective employers knows anything about the industry, it should be no problem. It should be no problem in any case.
I know the issue - I started working for the Bell System, in Western Electric, and went through many name changes, divestitures and trivestitures without ever leaving my desk. There was a New Yorker cartoon at the time, with a guy passing a sign that said;
AT&T (Formerly AT&T).

This is even more true now that PacBell bought it.

Anyhow, this has happened to tons of people, and anything remotely giving the former and current names will be fine.

7

Thanks!!

Now to explain job duties with seemingly unrelated job titles…

8

That’s the fun part… some of my job titles are so far off… and some are so dead on.