How to handle short-term jobs in your resume work history

How to handle short-term jobs in your resume work historyHow to handle short-term jobs in your resume work historyAdding structure to your job search can be a key component to helping you succeed, especially when youve had short-term jobs.The company was called Shortstop Ltd. You worked there for only three months. Now its a blip on your work history, and youre wondering Should you leave it on your resume, or should you leave it off and be stuck with a work-history eu-agrarpolitik?In general, the rules of thumb for short job stints are these, according to Steve Burdan, a certified professional resume writer who works with LaddersIf a given job lasted less than six months, you can leave it off of your resume.If a given job fits into your recent past, i.e. the past year or two, and it lasted six to 12 months, you must put the job description into your Work History section.For jobs that lasted six to 12 months and are buried in your past work chronology, leave them off.If a job last at least 12 months, you should put it on your resume.Beyond the rules of thumb, however, are qualifiers and exceptionsUse years only in work historyMany people tend to put both months and years on their job listings because they feel obligated to be precise in their work chronologies. Such thinking is a hangover from the earlier days of a job seekers work life the pre-resume time when candidates filled out job applications that required the months and dates of your employment history.One reason to leave months off is to give yourself elbow room to leave off jobs with less than six months of tenure. Another is to keep hiring professionals from nitpicking.I dont want some HR guy picking through and nitpicking and trying to account for every single month, Burdan said. Why wake that sleeping dog?Avoiding the job-hopper labelBut what if you have two six-month positions within a single year? Burdan recommends choosing only one of the two to list in a work history for a given year.Typically, you dont want to put two short-term jobs together, he said. The default impression two short-term jobs give is a job-hopping tendency. In that situation, I would in fact leave off one of the two.Burdan cited a hypothetical example a job seeker in his mid-30s whos been employed for 10 to 15 years. During that time, he has had eight jobs, two of them for six months or less. If those short stints are left in the work history, it increases the likelihood that a reader will conclude the candidate wont stay anywhere for long.In such a case, Burdan recommends winnowing down work history to the best job descriptions. Were a job seeker to have three positions over a 1.5-year time window, he would typically try to pick only one, or at fruchtwein two, positions to titel the given chronology.Special casesContract work A series of short gigs done under contractual or freelance circumstances should be bundled up in a section labeled Contract Experience. Burdan recommends compressing such work to be precise without sacrificing veracity.Relevant but dated experience Resumes typically cover no more than 15 to 20 years of work history. Work history thats relevant but older than that should be bundled into a section titled Previous Experience.Multiple short jobs with the same employerFast-moving companies often promote their best employees fast and furiously, shifting them from one task to the other as needs and priorities shift. The resulting patchwork of short-term jobs is a tribute to an employees versatility but can be difficult to parse and may even be mistaken for job-hopping by the inattentive resume reader.Handle this special case with formatting. If youve been at a company 13 years and have had 10 positions, list the company flush left and then at flush right, list the accumulative dates 1995 through 2008, for example. Then break out the most recent, most advanced three or four positions, bolding the position titles, describing each job, and listing achievements and bul let points just as if the listings were all for separate companies. Have the last position cumulatively cover the most distant dates and all the relative positions there under and have its last bullet point read, Promoted through levels of progressive responsibility.This keeps your resume from delving into the distant past and more junior positions, Burdan said.Resume truth or consequencesDoes leaving off short jobs constitute lying? No. Such editing is at the opposite end of the truth spectrum from lying, which boils down to making things up.In fact, leaving short stints off a resume is not only permissible truth-wise, it helps to transform the document into a lean and mean marketing tool. Most often, 95 percent of the time, leaving a six-month job off will not only tighten a resume up, but it accounts for the fact that a job seeker wasnt at a job long enough to have a positive impact, Burdan said.Theres always an exception to the rule, however Sometimes short stints produced solid results that the job seeker can document.Such productive short stints are typically rare, but they do merit inclusion on the resume.

My coworkers did the nicest thing ever for me and it saved my life

My coworkers did the nicest thing ever for me and it saved my lifeMy coworkers did the nicest thing ever for me and it saved my lifeMy husband was in the throes of long-term unemployment we had already foreclosed on our home and moved into a scary neighborhood that I could afford on my pathetic but steady salary. Then I lost my job. Welcome to the Great Recession.I immediately applied to every temp agency in the city and immediately landed a position with a start-up-unternehmen wholesale insurance company employing about 50 people that had only been in business two years. It didnt pay the same money as my miserable lost corporate job, and I lost 20% of my weekly pay every unpaid holiday, but I could pay my cheap slum rent and the people I was working for were wonderful.Therbeie was very little left over after bills were paid, but after ruined credit and a foreclosure, we were used to doing without. I packed lunch every day instead of joining my coworkers in restaurants, worked every hour my supervisorin would give me, volunteered for overtime, worked sick so as not to cut my paycheck. I never missed a day for a year and my supervisor apologized that she was not in a position to hire me permanently.I took a second job, driving on weekends, to pay for the failed transmission on my 25-year-old car. It was too much. After a month without a day off, I was so exhausted I tripped over my own feet and fell and broke my arm.The first thought was, I have lost both my jobs. My second thought was, I have no health insurance. My third thought was, these groceries have to be put away before I can go to the emergency room.I called both supervisors on Monday to explain what happened and that it would be three months before I could work again, and I tried to resign. Both supervisors said no, that my jobs would be waiting for me.Ho, ho You all thought that was the end of the story, that keeping my jobs is the nicest thing that was ever done for me. But noI called the utility com panies, including my badly needed ADT burglar alarm, to explain that I would be unable to pay my bills for three months, and why I would have no income. All the utilities set me up so I wouldnt get disconnected, and ADT even credited my account, giving me three months tafelgeschirr free.Still not the nicest thingWith destroyed credit, there was no credit card to fall back on, but there was enough in my savings to pay three months rent, and my kitchen was stocked with food. If we were very careful, and if I didnt need surgery, wed be okay my only worry was paying for gasoline and the medical expenses.Because I was a contractor with a temp agency, my supervisor at the insurance company didnt have any of my private information. But she had my cell because Id called her. One month after the fall, she phoned to ask how I am and could I give her my address my coworkers were collecting a potluck for us and she wanted to deliver it. I was too embarrassed about my slum address to give it to her, and instead sent my mother-in-law to pick up.Still not the nicest thing.My mother-in-law arrived bearing a grocery bag. I expected a couple casseroles and thats what we got. And at the bottom, a greeting card. Again, after a year of coworker birthday cards and cakes and baby and wedding showers from these wonderful people I worked for, I was not surprised by a greeting card.I opened the envelope and pulled out a get well card signed by everyone in the company, telling me they couldnt wait for me to come back.Still not the nicest thing.Inside the greeting card was a $300 gift card from a local supermarket that also sold gasoline, and almost $600 in cash. My coworkers who knew we were living paycheck to paycheck collected not only a potluck, but enough cash to get us by until I could come back.I wept. After 20 years of abuse and being taken advantage of by my past jobs, I got genuine concern, caring, and love from people I had felt inferior to and inadequate around. I was so emba rrassed about being so poor compared to my affluent, sophisticated coworkers that I hid a great deal and they really didnt know me very well. Yet they had done this of their own volition it was a private thing among the employees, not from the company. Even people in our satellite arbeitszimmer on the other end of the country that I had never met had contributed. I didnt realize how scared I had been until I had that money in my hand. Now my slumlord wouldnt need to know that I wasnt working and he wouldnt have to put us on the street. I phoned the office and I thanked them and I wept.I finally realized that I was poor, we were struggling, I didnt know anything about fancy restaurants or European vacations, I could only contribute a few cans to the Christmas food drive instead of bagfuls, but I was accepted and respected and I was a good worker and they wanted me back and they cared about us. I wept.That was the nicest thing that has ever been done for meA year later, the utility bi lls were finally current again, and these same people threw me a surprise 50th birthday party with cake and decorations and gifts. And a year after that, 3 years after they met me, they made my 51st birthday my official hire date. Now for the first time in my life, Im not worried about the bills, I own more than one pair of shoes, I have 3 credit cards and Im planning a vacation and hoping for a mortgage soon.I love these people and they genuinely love me and the greeting card is in a frame on my desk. I will never work for anyone else.Susan D Smith has aBA in English and Education from Virginia Tech.This post was originally published on Quora.com.

What Recruiters Look at When Stalking Your Social Media

What Recruiters Look at When Stalking Your Social MediaWhat Recruiters Look at When Stalking Your Social Media You probably already know recruiters are looking at your LinkedIn page, but what about your other social media platforms ? You know, the ones where you post pictures of your latest vacation, share what you had for dinner and occasionally tag your friends in memes. Why, you might wonder, would a recruiter possibly be interested in viewing things like that?As it turns out, those personal details are precisely why recruiters and hiring managers keep tabs on applicants social media accounts, says career coach Hallie Crawford. It can help them get a more accurate idea about who you are outside of your resume - a more personal view into your life, she explains. A resume can tell them your qualifications, but your social media profile can help them determine your personality type and if you would be a good fit for company culture .Plus, recruiters are looking for red flags - risqu photos, bad language, signs of drugs use - that would show them youd be a less than ideal man or woman to have in their offices.So now that you know why theyre looking, how about knowing what theyre looking at?According to Crawford, recruiters and hiring managers are concentrating their efforts on two sections of your Facebook page - your about me section, and your photo albums.About Me They will want to see how you describe yourself and if it matches upwith how you have described yourself in your cover letter and resume, Crawford says. Any discrepancies could cost you points pre-interview. Whats more, Crawford says, they will also be looking for proper spelling and grammar in this section, to see how seriously you take those skills.Photos When it comes to your photos albums, a hiring manager will be checking not only your photos but also your descriptions, Crawford warns. A hiring manager wants to see if you represent yourself in a professional way. To come off in the fruchtwein positive pre-meeting light, you will want to avoid using profanity, sexual or drug references, Crawford says.Who Youre Following Recruiters like to see if you have any mutual connections and if you are connected with others in your industry, Crawford explains. Following others in your industry is a smart thing to do no matter what - watching their feeds can give you a scoop on a new job opening, company announcements, the latest tech and much more.Tweets Recruiters will be checking to see if you share useful information, if you share information relevant to your trade or if you just use tweets to fight with others, Crawford says. If youre applying for a job, take a look at your tweeting history and consider deleting anything that wont show your best - and most thoughtful - self to a potential employer.Followers Recruiters will check out the kind of followers you attract, Crawford says. Plus, theyll want to see how friendly and social you seem to be wit h your followers, she says. What you say to them and what you say back, she explains, can also give them insight into your personal relationships and if you would be a good cultural fit for the company.Pictures You probably figured this, right? But recruiters are looking to see more than your photography skills (or lack thereof). They will want to see how you represent yourself , Crawford says. For example, if you are at a party, do you represent yourself in a dignified way? Crawford asks, or, do you post things that others would consider inappropriate?