Honesty May Prevent Suspension
The D.C. Bar's Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended a 30-day suspension for an attorney who fabricated academic achievements on his resume. While most of us are savvy enough not to outright lie on a resume (would you want to hire a lawyer who lacks basic integrity?), beware of omitting material information as well. I cannot think of a scenario where a overseeing agency would suspend a lawyer for omitting information on a resume (though I'm sure someone out there can come up with something.)
But last year, I worked with a candidate who omitted her last place of employment from her resume. On poor advice from another recruiter, she neglected to report that she had worked at a large firm for a couple of months and had been fired for taking too much medical leave.
While the large firm may have been in the wrong, leaving this information off the resume (or at the very least, not flagging it in a cover letter) was clearly the wrong thing to do. The firm who hired my candidate fired her on the second day when they found out about the previous employment. Try explaining that one to a third employer!
But last year, I worked with a candidate who omitted her last place of employment from her resume. On poor advice from another recruiter, she neglected to report that she had worked at a large firm for a couple of months and had been fired for taking too much medical leave.
While the large firm may have been in the wrong, leaving this information off the resume (or at the very least, not flagging it in a cover letter) was clearly the wrong thing to do. The firm who hired my candidate fired her on the second day when they found out about the previous employment. Try explaining that one to a third employer!
posted by Stephen Seckler, Esq. at 10:28 AM
2 Comments:
I don't include my snow shoveling job from high school or the brief corporate legal job I had where the company lied to me about the work either. I also don't mention any of my part time reserach jobs in law school or my work as a bartender in college. How much of this is a career killer? Please, any employer that cares about anything other than my ability to do the job at hand is wasting my time. My resume reflects that experience and education which appears from the job description to demonstrate my relevant education and experience.
Snow shoveling can certainly stay off the resume and it is not necessary to list part time jobs in law school; though sometimes you may want to list some of these law school experiences to show that you have had an ongoing interest in a particular subject matter.
But any legal jobs that you have held after law school are material and potentially of interest to an employer. It's not so much that the employer will not think you can do the job if you fail to mention an in-house experience that didn't last very long; rather, the failure to mention a law job raises issues of trust.
At the very least, a legal employer should be alerted in a cover letter that you did work briefly for a corporation but that it was not a good fit. If you leave the job off the resume and the employer only finds out about it after asking questions, then it will appear that you are trying to hide something. It will also call your judgment into question.
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