I’ve had a lot of crappy jobs this year, most of which I quit after working one to two months. I really don’t want to list these jobs on any future employment applications, but would they show up if my future employer does a background check? What about credit checks? I live in Florida, if that makes any difference.
If an employee does a thorough enough background check, they’ll find out about the crappy jobs and how quickly you left them.
However, it is doubtful that most background checks will be that thorough because that takes more time and money than it is worth. Most background checks will consist of your employer verifying the work history that you listed on your resume. You don’t list a job, they won’t know about it.
However, if you don’t list jobs, there will be a couple of issues:
1). There will be blanks on your resume. What did you do between September and October? Were you unemployed? Did you look for work, or just goof around?
2). If you try to cover up the blanks by munging your job start and stop dates, the employer will find out about that when they run their initial background check. You say you were employed by this company from February 2008 to August 2010, but they said you left May 2010 for another job that’s not listed on your resume. Are you lying on your job application?
Most third party verification will run credit checks where they are allowed. I am not really sure how that really affects hiring unless you find something very egregious that makes you question the person’s judgement. In this period of high unemployment, a few months behind on your credit card bills won’t make one bit of difference.
During that time frame you could put that you’d held “various temporary jobs.” List the general tasks and responsibilities you performed at these jobs. In this economy, lots of people are working at whatever comes along to fill the gaps.
The background check service that my ex-company uses provides a variety of options from which to choose when requesting a background check. Verification of previous employment is one option. Hence there will be variation as to what different employers discover according to which types of background check they choose to run.
A job I’m applying for requires their application filled out with your resume. On the application they want your employment history going back 15 years including times of unemployment. Now, a person like me who worked many seasonal, temporary and 2 part-time jobs at once, my work history is not a short story. I’m still working on this application.
My advice is keep your own documentation so you don’t have to wrack your brain like I’m having to do right now. And hope you get it right.
I’d go with the advice of TheChileanBlob on this one. Just list ‘Various Temporary Positions’ and list job duties most relevant to the current job to which you are applying. If they ask for a reference, you can simply say it was temporary/seasonal work and that the supervisor is also no longer there either (even if that’s not true). Hopefully your older work history is a little more stable so you can still show longevity at a job. Given the crappy economy, no one is going to hold it against you if you just say you had a series of temporary jobs to pay the bills and you are now applying to their company because it is a permanent position in line with your skills, etc.
Excellent idea, thanks.
It depends upon the background check. If you’re getting a background check for a security clearance, you will have to list every job within some given time period before applying for the clearance. You have to explain what you were doing at all times within that period, even if the answer is something like “I had enough money to live on for a while, so I took my time finding a job.” If you quit a job because it was stupid, that won’t affect your clearance, but you will have to list the job.
On an ordinary resume, label that section as “Relevant Work Experience” and only put down the jobs that you had for some time. If they ask, tell them that there were a few other short-time jobs, but they aren’t relevant to the job you’re applying for. They aren’t trying to understand your entire life. They just want to know what experience you have that’s useful if you were to work for them. If they insist, have a list with you and tell them what the short-time jobs were.