A little more than a year ago, I took a different job in my field. It didn’t work out, and I left after 4 months.
There was clearly no love lost between me and the person supervising me. I bore some of the blame by being untimely on a couple items of work; she bore the rest of the blame for being an overbearing, micromanaging, unprofessional jerk.
My main question is, do I leave this job on my resume, or do I show a gap?
My concern about leaving the job on my resume is that my old boss is somewhat well-known locally in my industry. If someone calls her up to casually inquire, there’s a good chance she’ll trash me. (I have others at this company who could provide a good reference, however.)
Leaving a gap has its own problems, however. If asked about the gap, I don’t think I can lie. Lastly, due to timing of jobs, being vague with dates is not an option that will help here.
What’s your other job record? If you have held several jobs for several years, one for only a few months won’t hurt you. We all make mistakes. If all your jobs are for four months, you have problems.
I think it is best to be honest about it assuming it isn’t a part of a series of short term jobs, and give one of the people who will say nice things about you as a reference (after checking with them, of course.) Bad bosses are the number one reason people leave jobs, more than money, so saying you liked the work but weren’t compatible with the boss (if prompted) shouldn’t hurt. You left voluntarily, and weren’t fired, which also helps.
Good luck.
Be upfront and tell them what you learned from the experience.
Have a friend call her to ask about you, sounding like they’re vetting work history. Then you’ll know if she will or won’t trash you.
Sounds familiar - I posted the same question recently, and got some really good advice. Most memorably, someone noted that 4 months is certainly long enough for a job to show up on a routine background check, so it shouldn’t be omitted if for that reason alone – it would make it appear you were hiding something much worse than the truth.
Thanks for the thoughts so far and the link to your question, masonite. I liked the line of “It was an agency placement that didn’t work out”, which is in fact true in my case (3rd party recruiter). New lesson for the future, I’m always going to ask whether the position is new or not, and if it’s a replacement, how long the previous person was in the job and the reason they left. I gathered (after starting, of course) I wasn’t the first person “not to work out” with the problematic boss.
Any more opinions are welcomed. Voyager, my other jobs record is pretty decent–no short term positions other than internship stuff.
My bet is you’ll have no problems. I got my current job after being in my previous job for just over a year. I don’t think anyone even asked why I wanted to leave. If you have lots of long term jobs and one short one, the presumption will be it’s them and not you.