The Washington Free Beacon posted a hilarious hitpiece on Vice President Kamala Harris this morning. It’s a three-reporter byline, featured prominently on their website, and heavily promoted by its editors.
Their big scoop: HARRIS LEFT HER JOB AT McDONALDS OFF HER RESUME. PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!!!
Yes, for real.
These dipshits are doing GOTCHAS by digging up Harris’s post-college and law school resumes and pointing out that she left off a few weeks working the deep fryer between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University. This hard-hitting investigation is just asking questions about why the Vice President didn’t mention the McDonalds gig when she applied to be a summer law clerk at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in 1987. Instead, she included stints at Charles Schwab, the FTC, a senate internship, and clerking at a law firm.
The entire point of a resume is that it is a 1 page summary of your relevant work experience. It was never meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive.
It’s reccomened to do 2 pages these days to hit all the automated resume screening points. 3 pages max if you’re in STEM applying for senior+ positions. Most relevant information should be front and center on that first page though for when it gets into the hands of a real person instead of a bot.
I’ve been an independent contractor for a while (so I havent filled put a resume recently), but afaik it’s strictly 1 page unless you have really really relevant experience. Yes keywords do matter now so it’s entirely possible it’s better to do 2 pages with more keywords. For my engineering degree though, we did a CV (curriculum vitae) which typically is longer than a resume but it’s not really a resume, it’s a CV. They are different.
After getting laid off last year (big tech worker with outstanding yearly reviews) , I had a service that my former company paid for that helps people prep for a job search after getting laid off.
I, like you, had this out dated assumption as well goong into the meetings with that service. They strongly advise people to go with 2 pages, if enough relevant experience exists, with custom tailoring for each job role, to ensure you’re hitting the key words and other data points the resume scanners are looking for. They came to this conclusion using data from said resume scanning services on passing resumes
Shit has changed a lot in the last 3-5 years. And I can only imagine it’s gotten worse over the last 14 months since I landed my job (Sr level) and modern LLMs have been integrated into the scanning services.
I’ve heard that they are using certain things to figure out roughly how old you are. Like people that still use two spaces after a period. That’s nearly demonic.
Sure, like I said I’ve been an independent contractor for some time. Last time I applied for a job, it was common then to adjust the resume for keywords in the job description as well.
It doesn’t change my point either way that a resume is a summary and not meant to be exhaustive. Whether it’s a 1 page or 2 page summary doesn’t really change my overall point that it’s unnecessary to put her McDonald’s experience on there.
I think the idea of listing every job you’ve ever had on a resume is very outdated and anyone who still holds this belief is showing their age and privilege. This might have been relevant when you could expect to work for the same company for 20 plus years and maybe only change jobs 2 or more times in your life but that ain’t the case now (and hasn’t been for decades now). Hell I’ve lost count of how many companies I’ve worked for. I even completely changed professions after turning 40. It would be absolutely ridiculous to list any job experience that isn’t directly related to the skills needed for the job your applying for.
Yes, agree. If I saw a resume like that, I would assume the applicant at minimum will struggle with time management and summarizing and is likely out of touch.