Should You Dumb It Down?
Get the Job
By Dawn Rasmussen, CMP
THERE IS A RAGING DEBATE OVER HOW TO LIST CREDENTIALS ON A RESUMÉ, AND THE BATTLE LINES HAVE BEEN DRAWN. In this economy, people are desperately looking for work—anything that brings home a paycheck—even seeking jobs that are vastly below their skills, knowledge and abilities.
This begs the question: When your credentials seem more like a liability than an asset, should you “dumb down” your resumé?
The one thing you don’t want to do is convey to a hiring manager that you are far more qualified than the job position, and therefore send a subliminal message that you will jump ship to a higher position the first chance you get. Remember, prospective employers are evaluating you as a candidate to fill the current open position. It’s costly to employers for you to use open positions as springboards for your career; they lose money by having to start the hiring and training process over again. This is a common frustration of hiring managers and human resource professionals. And let’s face it: Many workers do exactly that just to get their feet in the door.
However, some job seekers worry that they are simply too qualified for open positions. They need jobs—any jobs—even if they are vastly over-qualified in terms of education and professional experience. Some industry experts argue that a resumé needs to be written with the employer’s needs in mind. If the job description doesn’t require a doctoral degree (and you have one), don’t include that information in the document. Selective omission can improve your chances, according to some career management experts.
Continuing along those lines, let’s say you’ve been working as a hotel sales manager for more than 10 years and lost your job. You’ve been looking for a year and half with no success. Then, an entry-level job posting comes up, and your skill sets fit 100 percent. Do you list all 10 years of your experience in the field, or tone it down to only list a few years, suggesting that you are still fairly new to that position yet possess the necessary qualifications in that area?
It’s a slippery area ethically—you can certainly choose to play that game and push an employer into buying that new-to-the-industry perception. But what happens, if, in the interview, or even during a background check, it comes to light that you’ve been employed for much longer in this particular area? You weren’t straightforward in your application, and that can spell trouble, as employers perceive you as less-than-honest.
Conversely, look at it from the employer standpoint. Companies that are hiring right now are on a shopping spree. It’s a buyer’s market. They can “buy” top industry talent that they couldn’t have afforded salary-wise just five years ago. Sure, there’s the danger that a much-credentialed candidate will move up or out at the first available opportunity. But the company can still reap the benefits of hiring an industry expert, albeit for a shorter amount of time. So, listing relevant credentials could put you at the top of the pile for some employers who are on the hunt to build company capacity and quality with talented top staff.
There really isn’t a right or wrong way to go about it because both sides of the equation have merits. The only real way to try and resolve how to make your background work for you is to know your audience. Understand more about your target company culture and values, especially by doing what you can to get insight from someone on the inside, to help you evaluate whether you should “dumb down” your resumé.
Know what hiring managers are looking for by leveraging your network to its fullest, and don’t be afraid to call in favors within your business, professional and social networks. Everyone else is doing the same thing, so you have to gain as much intelligence as you can about the open position and find out what the real objectives of the hiring managers are, so you can design your resumé to meet those expectations.
A good rule of thumb is to target your resumé to showcase the history that is most relevant to the job for which you are applying. You might need to omit accomplishments made in other industries (otherwise known as “selective omissions”). Ask yourself, “Will this help or hurt me?” You aren’t de-emphasizing accomplishments, but rather not listing them because they are neither pertinent nor important to your target job opening.
DAWN RASMUSSEN, CMP, is the president of Portland, Ore.-based Pathfinder Writing and Careers, which specializes in hospitality/meeting professional resumés. She has been a meeting planner for more than 15 years and an MPI member since 2001.