What are you leaving out of your resume?

How do you feel when someone is trying to hide something from you? When you receive an answer which is vague or unclear? Or a response that is little more than a blank look. It doesn’t matter who you are dealing with, your children, employees, friends or colleagues, no one likes to feel like they are being deceived or misled. That said, what are you leaving out of your resume? Recruiters and HR professionals are also human and will most certainly take offense if it appears you are trying to hide something from them. Online profiles have made it somewhat easier to seek out missing information but are you establishing a desirable impression?

Recent rumours are suggesting any information beyond 10 or 15 years is no longer relevant and should not be included in your resume. This advice is not from potential employers. It is not from recruiters and it is not from HR professionals. Since these are the decision makers who will be reviewing your resume, my advice is to ignore the rumours!

You will want to include the degrees you have obtained in your resume but choosing to omit the date will be seen as a deception. Is the applicant really that old that they have decided to hide the date? Employment gaps will also send out a red flag so don’t leave a decision maker guessing. Most are too busy to allocate time to figure out employment gaps, missing dates or whether the potential candidate has a limited career history or has simply chosen to eliminate years of information. It is a sure fire way to fuel the elimination process.

Do not create a resume with the intent to deceive. It is not necessary for a senior executive to list every part time job they had in high school but eliminating 20 years of history or hiding dates for accreditation’s could red flag your resume. If you manage to fool the decision maker with your resume into thinking you are 25 years old and you walk into the interview and are actually 55 years old what have you really accomplished? Ha ha gottcha? You just added a reason not to hire you. If a company only wants to hire a 25 year old, that is what they will do. If a company is open to hiring a 55 year old, you may have eliminated your chances by providing misleading information.

When employers are asked about the most important attributes of an employee, the most consistent answer is honesty!

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