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"When I started my second job search, I was worried that the short tenure in the job I was trying to leave would be a turn-off to perspective employers. In real
by gregkerzhner 6y ago
"When I started my second job search, I was worried that the short tenure in the job I was trying to leave would be a turn-off to perspective employers. In reality, however, it wasn’t a big deal- people asked about it, but seemed satisfied with my 20 second summary and then moved on to other things."
Alternatively, you can simply leave your new position off your resume and not talk about it in the interviews at all. There is nothing wrong with saying "My last gig was a software engineer at Stripe. I left there to focus on looking for a better fitting opportunity".
There is no need to have your resume be a complete record of your employment. In fact, such resumes are often less desirable because they are long and don't highlight any specific strengths. Instead, make your resume highlight your most relevant and best accomplishments.
I've only been a professional for 10 years, but I am already condensing my resume, removing descriptions from my first few jobs. I imagine that as time goes on, I will even group jobs together like "2010 - 2015 - Software engineer at Companies A, B, C" to keep my resume a nice, neat one pager, and focus on the more important things I have done recently. Like the OP, I've also quit two jobs shortly after I stared them during my career and those are definitely not on the list - its simply not relevant.
- dilly_li 6y agoWell, most companies run background checks which would reveal all the short and long jobs. At that point, you would still need to explain it somehow.
- gregkerzhner 6y agoA few things here: 1. Background check companies usually only contact the positions you list to verify your dates of employment and title. They probably won't contact a job you don't let them know about. 2. If it helps you sleep at night, you can still fill out the background check form accurately, but leave stuff off your resume / not talk about it in the interview. Again, there is no rule that you need to talk about every job you have ever had in chronological order on your resume or in the interviews. As long as there is nothing untrue, or some sort of strange conflicts of interest, you are totally welcome to omit things that aren't relevant. 3. In the rare, extremely unlikely chance that you have to explain yourself, it seems perfectly acceptable to say "I've only been at this job for a few weeks. I am not sure I am going to stay longer, so I didn't think it was relevant". If you are interviewing for the CIA, then definitely list every job. If it's a normal tech job, people simply don't care. Fill your precious chance to impress your interviewer with things that are actually impressive.
- hasmolo 6y agoi’ve actually done this. my tact was to leave off resume and disclose in background check. i got an email asking why the job i left out wasn’t that n my resume. i simply said having it on there always drives the conversation to why i’m morally opposed to that business after working there. that’s apparently a fine answer and i was given the offer. going forward i’m just gonna leave it off the resume and the background check. i simply updated my other job dates to 2/2002 - 3/2003 && 5/2003 - 8/2005. if asked i say i took a long break. been fine since
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]