Hi!
I’m leaving my job today (very happy about that - new job starts Nov. 28th). What I can’t quite figure out is whether or not I should put this job on my resume.
I’ve only been here 5 months, and the position sounded really great - lots more responsibility, supervisory role, etc etc. The catch is, if I only stayed in it for 5 months, I’d imagine that would bring up questions. What do folks think?
I’d put it on – it counts as good experience. IMHO there’s nothing wrong of saying that the position didn’t turn out to be what you thought it was, or that the boss misrepresented it and you weren’t happy there, etc. An interviewer would prefer a direct answer like that to something like “err, for those five months I was touring Australia with the circus. Yeah.”
If it’s relevant to your career path, and you did good work during those 5 months, I’d go ahead and put it on. Especially since it was your most recent job. That way you don’t look like you were sitting around with your thumbs up your ass for 5 months 
If it’s not your most recent position, less than 6 months, and not really related to your career path, then the usual procedure is to leave it off.
You’re going right into a new job with no gap. No reason to create one on your vita. If asked in the future, you can always say something like “I was going to stay there but a better opportunity fell into my lap.”
Sure, go ahead and put it on. Any future employer will ask you to explain the gap anyway.
In my experience employers don’t care that much about gaps. Maybe you took time off work for family. Maybe you were working outside the field and didn’t want to clutter up your resume with irrelevent experience. They probably won’t even ask.
Having said that, I’d suggest leaving it on the resume. I’d only worry about short term stays at jobs if it becomes a pattern. If you’ve worked five jobs in five years, then that could be a problem. If this one five month stint at the last place you worked is the exception to the rest of your resume then you have nothing to worry about. I’ve also heard that employers are much more forgiving of job hopping early on in a career. It’s expected for a twenty something worker to switch jobs every couple of years. It’ a problem if their still doing this ten years later.
In fact, that reason would work fine on this one, if they ask. Though some places don’t like job hoppers. But what else is there in this miserable economy?
Just curious, but how do you explain the gap – say to the average anonymous nosy Doper? Job not all it was cracked up to be, new opportunity that came along, just a temp job in the first place?
That’s the catch 22. My last 5 years are a mess… Prior to that, it actually looks ok. (Years at a single job)
6mo contract
5mo full-time (left to move to better opportunity)
1.5yrs - laid off after 9/11 (IT related crash)
10mo - jobless
1.25yr - contract - company out of business
1yr - full-time - layoff (Ironically because the economy was getting BETTER!)
1yr contract. (current job)
On paper, without an explanation, it looks bad. But it’s all very reasonable when you consider the economy from 2001-2004, and the overall IT industry.
I’d leave any job in, you can always explain in a positive manner why you swapped jobs, as long as they are seamless dates (don’t fudge these either!!!)
Learn to ignore months on your resume.
Just say “2005 Supervisor, Jumbomart”
Wow… it’s actually something of a long story, but I’ll try to give the short version.
Back in the spring I decided I needed to move on from my position then, and four different people emailed me this job announcement that sounded perfect. The job was as Education Coordinator for a non-profit that works on marine conservation issues, and given my background in marine biology and teaching, it seemed like a perfect match. I went into a full-court press to get the job, and luckily I was able to mobilize my network pretty effectively.
I started the job in June, and it isn’t long before I realize that there are some tragic flaws in the organization and its leadership. The funding that had sustained the education program for five years dried up just before I arrived, and there was no fundraising plan in place to fund new sources of funding. There hadn’t been a lot of focus on the throughput of the program, so the program was woefully underused (although very effective in terms of quality). I found myself doing a lot of work trying to fundraise and marketing, neither of which are things I’m terribly good at or even like to do. On top of that, I was just about the only one with computer skills to update the website and create the newsletter, so I had ancillary duties irrelevant to my mission. The final straw was the integrity of the organization’s leadership, which was asking me to do unethical things.
Basically, I was out of there like a shot once I realized these problems were way too big for me to take on: I would have had a busy enough plate being Ed. Coordinator in a well-run, ethical organization. I’ve been interviewing for other jobs since September, and when I finally landed one I turned in two weeks notice. Now I’m officially free :), so I feel more comfortable talking about my issues on the internet.
Actually, my resume does kind of look like power sawyer suggests:
Hoity-Toity School 1999-2002
Science Teacher
Fabulous Non-Profit 2002-2005
Field Science Teacher
Since I primarily apply to positions that work based on the school year, generally employers assume the position ended spring 2002 and the next began fall 2002, which is most often correct.
Now my question is, should I put:
Poorly Run Non-Profit 2005
Education Coordinator
Private School 2005-present
Science Teacher
or just leave out the Poorly Run Non-Profit?
You really don’t need to answer this until you eventually leave this new job you’re starting in November, right? You might want to postpone the decision until you know how long you stay in this current job, what type of position you’re going after next, etc.
If you are the type of person who always has a resume/CV out there as a marketing tool, for part-time gigs or just to promote your expertise, I believe you are fine to leave off the 5-month stint at the non-profit. In this sense, your resume is a marketing piece, and you will only have room to highlight your strongest selling points. Giving employment dates in years is fine for this, too.
Now, if you are required to fill out applications for employment, they typically have a statement at the bottom that says by signing you agree that all information is complete and correct. Here you will need to include the 5 months with the non-profit, and it’s advisable to include months of employment. This is where narrow-minded HR types (I am an HR person, so I understand why they have this mindset sometimes) look for unexplained gaps and assume you are hiding something really horrible in unexplained gaps or fudged numbers.