Most recent job lasted 4 months -- put it on the resume or not?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In July 2014, I left my government job of 12 years to marry my long-distance partner and move to his state. I knew this was a risk of career suicide. I have few hard skills and my liberal arts bachelor’s degree is 25 years behind me. I’m working on an accounting certificate one class at a time, but that’s a couple of years from completion.

In October 2014 I accepted a job offer pitched to me through an employment agency, and it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. I was terrible at it, and was psychologically abused by my trainer. (Not asking for sympathy.) On the verge of being fired, and unable to cope with the emotional suffering any longer, I quit with two week’s notice in February 2015.

Since then, many job applications, some interviews, no offers. I’ve now passed into what’s considered long-term unemployment, more than six months out of work. I’m getting desperate, and ready to start applying for non-professional jobs that pay little more than minimum wage. Something like a grocery checker might work, and I’d hope to stay with the company and move into the accounting department later on.

My question is, keep the 4-month disaster job on the resume? It’s difficult to explain why I left, but I can come up with something halfway plausible. I’m not sure how bad it looks to have a job obviously not work out after such a short time, but the one before that lasted 12 years, so maybe the short-term job can be explained away as an unfortunate mismatch.

If I take it off the resume, I don’t have to talk about it at all, but then I’ve been unemployed for over a year. It’s true I’ve been taking courses, but only one at a time (while working, at first, then while hoping to be working, later.) Perhaps I can talk up the unemployed period as one of focused education, so long as I don’t have to provide a transcript showing the education has been one night class at at time.

Thoughts?

2

Put it on there. If asked why you left, say “It was an agency placement that didn’t work out.” No further explanation should be necessary. Nobody worth working for is going to turn down a qualified candidate simply because the candidate got placed poorly by a third party recruiter (who are notorious shitbags.)

Anyway, put the job on the resume for two reasons: 1) Like you implied, a six month gap looks better than a twelve month gap, and 2) the job may show up if a new prospective employer gets to the background check phase, and you don’t want to have to explain the discrepancy. Failing to mention a two week or one month gig a decade ago would be understandable, but a fourth-month job (and your most recent one at that) might raise some eyebrows.

3

I agree with putting it on the résumé, however you may be pressed for more details in an interview. You said you were terrible at the job, so perhaps you can explain that your skill set was not a match for the job requirements. But any concerns over a 4 month stint should be mitigated by the 12 year run prior to that. If your whole résumé consisted of a dozen jobs, each lasting a year or less, then you might have an issue.

4

Put it on. With the goddamn background checks they do nowadays, they can find out what you ate for lunch on any given day nine years ago. Omit it, and they might think your trying to hide something.

5

You guys are all awesome. I had not thought of the background check angle at all :smack: so this cinches it for me.

If I had posted this question weeks ago, I would have saved a lot of uncomfortable uncertainty. Thanks!