Is it Ok to Leave A Job Off Of Your Resume?

Should you always list every single job you’ve ever had on your resume? Or is there ever a time and a reason to leave jobs off of your resume?

Some people are under the impression that you need to have a complete history of every single job that you’ve ever held. This isn’t true. There is no reason to list all the jobs that you’ve ever worked.  Especially if you have worked for many years and have had periods where you had short term work.

However, it’s also not a good idea to leave off jobs where there will be a big career gap.

We’ll touch on all of the reasons that you’d be interested in shortening your resume and if leaving off jobs is the proper approach.

Will There Be a Big Career Gap?

Your first concern should be the career gap. If you leave a job off of your resume, will there be a career gap?

Employers hate to see a career gap on a resume. The common understanding amongst employers is that anyone who has not worked for a significant amount of time is not someone who is capable of working.

Long career gaps or frequent career gaps are the problem. Whenever there is an issue with someone not working for extended periods of time, it significantly reduces the chances of them being hired again.

Only in the nursing profession is it common to have long periods of off time. Travel nurses make six figure salaries for extremely grueling work schedules, so it makes sense that they take time off.

Nurses can have career gaps without any repercussions—but if you’re not in the nursing profession, then it would not be wise to have a career gap if you can help it.

Small career gaps (say, less than 6 months) are not a huge concern. If there are multiple career gaps of 6 months though, that speaks more to the quality of job performance or desire to work.

Employers who see frequent career gaps on a resume as a sign that the individual either doesn’t want to work (and so only works for a few months at a time to continue to qualify for employment) or that they are simply incapable of good work (in that their employer never keeps them on board).

Why Do You Want To Leave The Job Off?

What is the reason for wanting to leave a job off of your resume?

There are only a few legitimate reasons for wanting to leave a job off of your resume:

• -the job isn’t in the sector you work in
• -you had a bad experience and would not be able to use them as a reference
• -the job will reflect poorly on you
• -the job is from a long time ago and you are concerned about age discrimination

In most cases, you should not leave a job off of your resume unless it is for one of the above reasons. Employers do not like to see resume gaps, so this is the biggest reason to never leave a job off of your resume.

If you are dealing with a string of short term work, then that might be a red flag in and of itself. However, you can’t simply leave them all off and leave a huge career gap. We will discuss how to handle short term work later on in the article.

Anyone who is concerned about ageism (which is a major problem in the job market) can certainly leave off jobs that were on from early on in their career.

Finally, and this one is the most tricky to handle, but if you left a job on bad terms or were fired, it might be tempting to leave it off of your resume.

The reason why so many people want to omit jobs they were fired from is to avoid having to discuss them.

The ugly fact of job hunting is that people who are conducting interviews will think poorly of people who were fired. They will ask for professional references, and if you can’t use a former place of work as a reference, then it might be smart to leave it off—unless that leaves you with a large career gap. Recruiters really do call references. They want to make sure they are avoiding hiring a bad canadite.

Omitting A Job: Pros and Cons

The only upside to omitting a job from your resume is to not have your employer know about it.

That is obvious, right? Well, you would want to keep a potential employer from learning about a job if you were fired or if you were not able to get a positive reference.

Or, if the job was so short term that an employer might assume you were not a good worker and were fired (even if it was a temporary role).

If you are concerned about being discriminated against because of ageism, then it might be wise to leave off the early jobs you held in your career. There are employers who do not like to hire older people (that counts as anyone who is middle aged) because they want to pay as little as possible. This is the real reason that employers only want to hire new grads and younger people—they can pay them less and offer them no benefits.

Other than that, there’s no good reason to omit a job from your resume.

Should You Leave Short Term Jobs Off Your Resume

This one is a tricky. A run of short term jobs on your resume is bound to make you look bad in the eyes of the employer.

The general idea among business owners is that people who are not able to hold a job for more than a few months are not fit to hire.

While this is not true—there are many people who go through the cycle of temp jobs because companies do not want to hire full time employees— it is a fact that many people believe this.

So, if you have a series of short term work, how do you go about listing it? Do you list all of the jobs even if they were only a few weeks?

Well, no, that’s going to make your resume look bad. If you obtained these jobs through a staffing agency, then the best approach would be to simply list the temp staffing agency that you worked through and have that on your resume.

Instead of listing multiple administrative assignments that might have lasted only a week, it will look better to have a single entry for the Staffing Firm and then a much longer date.

Before we finish up this discussion, it’s worth mentioning that the importance of your resume depends on the field of work that you are working in.

Resume gaps in the corporate world are very problematic. So, do your best to avoid them. However, what counts most is your most recent work experience. Employers don’t care where you went to college, especially since grade inflation is now rampant at even the best colleges. There are some Ivy leauge professors who argue that all students in Ivy Leauges should just get A’s...obviouisly this makes employers discount college from recent grads.

Other industries, such as medical professions (everything from nurses to hospital administrative assistants) are less concerned with resume gaps and more concerned with background checks and licenses and verification—so make sure to have those on your resume if you’re not a professional and are applying to a hospital or non-profit place of business.