Has anyone else ever been told to "dumb down" your resume?

[Sub Atomic]

I was told this yesterday by a recruiter. She suggested I remove my certifications, change my job responsibilities to look like I know less than I do and, in one instance, she wanted me to change my job title.

I was absolutely dumbfounded and more than a little unhappy. I basically told her off and said that I hope word gets around that she's telling people to lie on their resumes.

:wtf:


Is this the way it is now? Spend thousands and thousands of dollars to build your career only to have to lie about it 15 years later?

[tularetom]

1. Haven't you heard - smart is the new black

And when you think about it it's much easier being dumb. A bag of cheetos and a remote and you're good to go.

We should all aspire to "dumb".

[KatyaR]

2. I wouldn't do it if I were you.

When I first started looking, I was using a one-page resume and getting nowhere. When I expanded on my job responsibilities and made it multiple pages, that's when I started getting responses.

Good luck in your job search . . . .

[glowing]

3. The only jobs around don't want thinking people; they want people who

follow without question and do not mind really shitty pay for really shitty work. Unless you know there is specific jobs open in your field, you may have to dumb down and take a severe pay cut. AND those who know you are qualified for something, don't want to hire you because you will leave the second a real opportunity presents. Play dumb to get the jobs that are offered today; sadly.

[Deja Q]

12. And then the same corporate folks whine that everybody is dumb!

This is the nation we are responsible for and have contributed to, it seems.

[bertman]

37. A gross generalization which may be true in some instances but not in most. "Really shitty work"

is in the eyes of the jobholder. Some people consider any blue-collar job that requires physical work a "shitty job". My question to you is why would any employer want to hire someone who is overqualified for a position, and who as you admit, would leave that job "the second a real opportunity presents"? Employers invest time, money and training in new employees. It often takes months for a new employee to learn the ropes and to get good at a job, so they don't want them to take off as soon as something better comes along. Is that a bad thing?

It's a shame that people have to dumb down their resumes, for sure. But it's unfair to say employers want people who follow without question and do not mind really shit pay for really shitty work.

[noamnety]

4. It's not bad advice.

Her job is to get you a job.

It's likely companies are recruiting from within for the higher up positions - it's better for employee morale and the boss gets a known entity for the positions that require more responsibility. They are also more comfortable many times not hiring someone who will be underemployed there. They know if you are overqualified, you'll be looking for better opportunities the whole time you are with them.

I was turned down once for a job I wanted very badly because I was overqualified for it - the interviewer told me that straight up. Luckily they called back a year later out of the blue offering me a different job for more pay, but that's not the norm.

You might want a couple versions of your resume, and submit the most appropriate one based on whether they are looking to hire an entry level person or higher.

[SmileyRose]

5. it's been discussed here before.

In my humble opinion, my VERY humble opinion, at some point you will have a choice. Be true to yourself and have no job whatsoever because the market no longer wants to pay top dollar for top experience - or you can rework your resume to portray yourself in the light they are paying for and then have them overjoyed when they got someone with much more capability than they expected when they hire you for the job.

If your personal economics can still support altruism then I applaud you. If not, then IMHO there's no shame it doing what you have to do to "put food on your family".

[murray hill farm]

6. Sometimes....

If you are limited to only jobs for which you are over qualified, this is good advice. It is the times...and fair or not, it is what it is. Have more than one resume and use the one that will give you the best results for the job that you are applying for at the time.

[calico1]

11. This is exactly what I do..

The truth is that the economic situation now favors companies...not workers. So much competition out there.

I have several resumes, tweaked a little differently, depending on which job I am applying for.

If the job requires less than my experience and educational level then I don't use the resume that shows all my experience. In this job market unfortunately, that could work against a person because with companies trying to save money why are they going to want to pay someone for example $80,000 when they can get someone to do the job for $50,000? A too good resume could make the company think you will want top dollar. Crazy! I know. But that's how it is these days.

[bettyellen]

14. +1

[TahitiNut]

7. Sure. I was told that beginning about 25 years ago.

It seems that anyone over 40 with a track record of significant accomplishment would be told that, by someone, knowing that younger hiring managers are often intimidated by applicants with apparently greater experience. I guess the question has to be whether it's worth working for someone like that. Before the 'Reagan Era' (ascendancy of MBAs and money-makers in lieu of product-makers), such 'advice' was (I'm told) far less often given.

[Skidmore]

8. Yes, and to dye my hair to cover the gray.

I didn't live this long to be told that I must forsake the badges of aging I've earned. I refuse. I absolutely refuse. I worked long and hard to get the education and work experience and I earned every gray hair in my head.

[Retrograde]

15. I got that one too (n/t)

[Ilsa]

29. A very good friend who was in his fifties was told then to remove any

jobs and references on his resume that were from 20+ years ago. After he did that, he started getting calls for interviews. This was over ten years ago.

There is all kinds of discrimination against the elderly in hiring, and aside from the health insurance issue, it makes no sense; Which is why I am beginning to see the wisdom of removing health ins from the workforce -- it causes discrimination.

It makes no sense because if employers want us to dumb down resumes, then they aren't looking for people who wish to move up the ladder. Older employees may or may not want to also. Not everyone wants the responsibility of being a senior manager these days at this time in their lives.

[undeterred]

44. "discrimination against the elderly in hiring"

Do you think people over 50 are "elderly"~!?

Yes, there is definitely discrimination against people over 50, and it starts when you turn 40. People who are over 65 - lets say those who have retired but still want to work, may face less discrimination because they already have Medicare.

[Ilsa]

52. Yeah, I'm "elderly" too! Of course, now I'm hearing that

50 is the new 40. I wish I felt like I was 40.

[Liberal_in_LA]

54. 20/20 did a segment where they sent a guy in looking for a job appearing to be 2 different ages

He wasn't called back when he appeared to be the ripe old age of 37.

[Inspired]

9. I wish I had one that needed 'dumbed' down!

But you can lose opportunities if you apply for a position that doesn't come close to your experience or education.

[Demobrat]

10. Well you made your point.

Did you get a job?

[Sub Atomic]

18. I withdrew my resume.

I won't work for someone who wants me to pretend to be someone I'm not. Been there. Done that.

[tularetom]

13. Would you be happy in a job you had to act dumb to get in the first place?

Seriously, let's say you went along with this advice and toned down your qualifications in order to get this job.

You can't keep up the act forever. Sooner or later it will become apparent to you that the place is being run wrong. What then? Keep your mouth shut and keep the job? Or speak up and risk losing it?

I don't know your situation, don't know how badly you need a job. But it seems to me that the tension of having to spend 8 or more hours a day biting your tongue would outweigh a lot of the financial benefits.

[customerserviceguy]

17. You don't have to "act dumb"

in either the application process, or on the job itself, but you have to give them the impression that you will not take off the very second the economy takes an upturn.

Dumbing down a resume doesn't mean acting stupid, it just means not looking overqualfied so that you don't get passed up. Believe me, once you get on the job, your co-workers and immediate supervisors will appreciate your smarts, if you don't lord it over them.

[calico1]

23. E xactly!

It's not coming across as super overqualified for a job that requires less than what you have.

In this economy, a lot of us can't afford to be picky and demanding. It's not a market that favors employees.

Now when things get better and there are more jobs than qualified people, then absolutely! You want to look as qualified as you can! But that is not the situation we are in now so you have to change tactics to be in line with the reality.

[Demobrat]

27. The reality being

that you're competing with younger people who are perfectly capable of doing the job, don't consider it beneath them and are willing to do it for less money. I've taken steps down during recessions twice in my 20-year advertising career for this reason. Not fun, or particularly good for my ego, but guess what - I'm still working.

[tularetom]

25. Not the case in many organizations

Express an opinion & be labeled a troublemaker.

Make suggestions on improving operations = not a "team player"

Keep your head down and your mouth shut? You are an ideal employee. Regardless of the quality of your output or work product.

Your experience is obviously different but I'm telling you, insecure bosses resent and fear subordinates who question their decisions.

[glowing]

30. Yes, and in today's world its the shitty little kiss-ass that gets the promotion.

and treats the other's like shit. Too many shitty leaders, and not enough people willing to stand up for themselves and the quality of their work place.. Its where we spend most of our lives; it should be something we can enjoy and something that pays a living wage.

[customerserviceguy]

40. You've got some good points

but when I said "appreciate your smarts" I meant your ability to learn the job quickly, and manage it's challenges wisely. The less stuff your boss has to actually handle, the more time they can spend in meaningless meetings.

[Raineyb]

42. In other words make it possible for the boss to do even less than he's overpaid for

while you do more than you're underpaid for.

That doesn't necessarily mean good things for you job wise either. It's very difficult to get a job if you're so good at the job you're doing that they don't want to bother training someone else to do it.

I have no idea what you mean by no lording one's intelligence over people. If you're intelligent it comes across if others feel stupid by comparison when all you're doing is your job that's THEIR problem not yours.

[customerserviceguy]

43. True

but that boss has a job, you want one. Even if he is getting paid twice as much as you do for doing less than half as much, not having a job is worse than having that one.

I have seen people who start every conversation about work with, "Well, when I was at XYZ Corporation, we would do it better by (fill in the blank)." That's lording it over people who have been there awhile. While it's good to make suggestions, and even better to build upon others' ideas, it's not a smart thing to have a know-it-all attitude.

[HughMoran]

16. I was over-titled in my last position and I'm going to remove that title

It was intimidating future employers and on interviews they were being extra tough on me and some comments were made by interviewers. Since the title was not helping and made little difference in pay, I am going to remove it.

[leveymg]

19. Yes, "You have 20 years too much experience." Just cut everything off before 2001.

Nobody wants to pay you for that much knowledge and experience. All the jobs are for interns who after 90 days they turn into "managers".

This country's going to shit.

[MarthaM]

20. I used different resumes...

... for different jobs. I had two. Nobody told me to do that, but I knew I had to, depending on the job I was applying for. I needed work, and knew I wouldn't get an interview if it sounded like I was overqualified for the position, or that I would require too high a salary. It worked for me.

[caraher]

21. My aunt used to do that

She was a college professor but wanted extra income and for education on her resume she'd say "high school graduate" because the kinds of data entry jobs she sought on a temporary or part-time basis were really not interested in people with a PhD.

Your resume is not you; it is a marketing tool. You should craft it (without lying; but you always have to be selective!) to tell the story that will get you what you want.

[elehhhhna]

22. LOL get a smarter recruiter.

Or avoid them altogether..

I can say this as I was a headhunter for years.

[dbonds]

24. That means she wants to shop you for jobs under your skill level.

Probably has one in mind already. They think employers don't want 'overqualified' people because they will be ready to leave the moment the economy gets better - which is probably true. Of course what isn't clear is 'overqualified' really isn't a skill set as much as a mind set.

[eeyore]

26. If you're overqualified she's absolutely correct.

I've been through this both as an applicant and an employer. It's a strange and uncomfortable thing to do - seems both degrading and manipulative at the same time. But depending on the job you are applying for, you could very well be disqualified simply for being overqualified.

As an employee, you'd think that someone would want to hire a person with as much experience as possible. It's really not the case, though. I recently hired for a 20 hour a week prep cook job, and the resumes I received (180+ in 24 hours) were all over the map with qualifications. There were so many that I was looking for reasons to disqualify people, simply to narrow it down to a manageable pile of applicants, and one distinct rejection pile was overqualified. These were people who would likely never be happy with the job that I had to offer. I can't risk hiring someone who will likely resent the situation and have one foot out the door for a better paying job with more responsibility.

I know it sucks, but it's reality. Employers are looking for any reason possible to thin out the applicants, and being overqualified can be a strong negative. As an employer you just don't want to take the risk of hiring someone who turns out to an insubordinate, disgruntled know-it-all who is miserable that they've taken steps backward their career.

Sorry, it's just reality. Don't wear the stink of resentment over being overqualified - it's a major turn off.

[hunter]

28. Yes. That's the way it is now.

Applicants who might threaten the stability of the various internal fiefdoms of a business will not be hired.

Applicants who are likely to move on when they get a better job offer will not be hired.

In some businesses applicants who might notice or complain when something in the business is rotten will not be hired.

I know a guy who wasn't finding work until he dumbed down his resume and then he got plenty of offers. Once he started working it was immediately apparent to him that this "well respected" company was rotten in an Enron way, and they were deliberately hiring people who were too dim, too desperate and fearful of losing their jobs, or too crooked themselves to make a fuss.

[bridgit]

31. It's been the trend for sometime now, recruiters still look for The One Page American Novel

The 'height-weight-eye color, goals & aspirations, used to sing in the choir' resume form has ebbed, recruiters are keying on, yes, education; but important as well the experiences any education is able to point to not so much as a resume would have previous; but as a sweep, a synopsis, or vista point onto your interconnectivity with their organization whew! Am I still at one page? Good. Cause they're keying soft, people skill sets too as the econ transitions into broader levels of customer service, people able to resolve conflict are themselves valuable

I'm sure they feel they're making their jobs easier, but recruiters have a template in hand. They don't seem to want to have to adjust it much beyond 1-2 degrees to find a match and they love it when our 'resume turned footnote' pops right in there

We run our own business and do allot of IC work. I've dealt with recruiters some good some bad, but I've dealt with too many that were pumping people skills they/themselves clearly had no access to

Hang tight go forward there is no substitute for tenacity :kick:

[DavidDvorkin]

32. No, and I would never do it

My experience has been that the great range of experience on my resume has been a positive factor for me. It's excluded me from jobs where they don't want to pay for experience, but it has attracted the attention of other employers.

[valerief]

33. I'll bet even strippers are told to get breast implants by burlesque recruiters.

:shrug:

[toadzilla]

34. I've been rejected from several jobs this year for being overqualified

also have been told in interviews that my resume was "overkill"

I've since started dumbing it down for certain jobs.

[Blue_In_AK]

35. No, but I've been fired for being overqualified. n/t

[undeterred]

36. I think it depends how well the job you are applying for

matches your resume. I have advanced degrees but not in the field I am currently working in, so I list my education at the end of the resume. It a matter of emphasis.

[Mz Pip]

38. I always had a couple different versions

of my resume that would emphasize different skills. It not hard to tweek the info to the specific job.

[BlooInBloo]

39. Yes. I took it as a hint to go to another recruiter.

[DailyGrind51]

41. If you are middle-aged with multiple graduate degrees but new to a field,

you have less of a chance of receiving consideration.

[undeterred]

45. That's an issue for a lot of us in the computer field.

If I had majored in computer science in college, it wouldn't help much because it was too long ago and none of the relevant technologies existed. So I am competing against younger people who have a degree but no experience. Depends on the employer.

[Xithras]

48. The big issue for older programmers...

...tends to be that they held onto the old technologies too long. If a company is hiring a Java programmer and they have two options...an older guy with 20 years COBOL and 2 years Java, or a younger guy with 5 years Java and nothing else, the younger guy will always get the job. Length of experience in the field means little in IT...it's length of experience in the technolgies used by the particular position that hiring managers care about.

Programmers have an unfortunate habit of getting comfortable with certain technologies, and milk those technologies for employment as long as possible. This becomes a problem when that technology hits its EOL and you have to move on...and suddenly find yourself competing against guys who have been working with the "next big thing" since its infancy.

[undeterred]

50. Occasionally I see ads for COBOL

but only certain companies. A programmer friend of mine in his mid fifties took a big break after one project so he could study JAVA and get hired doing that instead of C. So now he's got about 5 years of JAVA and 25 years of other programming experience behind him. That makes him more marketable than the young ones, but he had to change gears and accept less money for a while.

[Xithras]

46. Never seem smarter than the guy trying to hire you.

Nobody wants to hire their replacement in this economy.

My standard resume is five pages long. Page 1 is a summary for the HR sheeple, while pages 2-5 have detailed employment histories and collections of past projects, certifications, and degrees.

I've been looking for a new programming job since February, without luck. I recently started sending out just the summary page for the resume, with a line pointing them to my website for additional details, and the response has increased quite a bit. I still have no job, but I've had three interviews in the last month, compared, to the roughly four I'd had in the previous months combined. Recruiters really don't like overly detailed resumes. They don't want to read it.

[undeterred]

47. I went to an employment seminar once and

the person coaching on interviewing said "I would never hire anyone who thinks they're smarter than me". I get the point, but I didn't think she was very smart!

[DFW]

49. I hate this crap

My elder daughter had to go through this when her company went bust and she despaired of finding a new job.
She finally found a new one, and didn't even have to dumb herself down. My younger one is looking at dismal
job prospects in the USA, and is seriously considering moving back to Europe when she graduates next May, as
she has had some good (and decently-paying!) job offers there (90,000 Euros starting salary!!), and zero, zip,
nada in the USA, even though she is near the top of her class and in demand by all of her professors to be a
teaching assistant (as if she has the time for that).

I am SOOOO glad I didn't have to go through this. I have never had to write a resumé in my life. I got recruited
for my current job a year out of college, and have stayed with the same outfit ever since. The hours suck, but
I get 8 weeks of vacation (though never have the time to take them all), lots of international travel and this big
salary. If I were to put THAT on a resumé, no employer in America would ever hire me--except maybe the outfit I've
already been with for the last 34 years.

I wish you all the luck in the world, and, not knowing the particulars, would crow about everything you can on your
resumé except maybe your salary, in case there is a danger of freaking a potential employer out, scaring him away by
wrongly making him think your salary demands would be too high. Hell, I don't know. This stuff has gotten way too
crazy for me.

[Contrary1]

51. Not a resume, but a similar incident.

Years ago, I sat in a roomful of job applicants. Back then it was standard procedure for this company to give timed tests involving logic, math, and grammar/spelling.

It was given in sections, and while I never went to college, I always aced these kinds of exams.

The administrator stopped by my desk and told me I could better use my extra time by checking over my answers. Told her I already had.

After the third part, I was taken into another room where they told me to slow down. I was making the other applicants feel bad.

:wtf:

[Liberal_in_LA]

53. leaving certifications off a resume isn't lying.

[leftofthedial]

55. non-stop since about 2001.

[aikoaiko]

56. You can taylor resumes to a job and still be ethical.

Sounds like you received practical advice. I understand your point. When I was job searching out of grad school, I was idealistic and presented myself a certain way that might have gotten me cut form a few jobs. I was confident that I would land the post that I would fit well if I were honest.

Now, with wife and kid, I'd be much less idealistic if I needed to find work.

[wickerwoman]

57. Yep, but then companies want custom frickin' cover letters for data entry jobs.

Why should I spend two or three hours customizing my application for a $14/hr data entry job? I used to run a department with 35 people and write product testing reports for shareholders. I would think it would be obvious that I can fill out a spreadsheet.

I seriously think lazy HR idiots are a big part of what's wrong with America today. They don't want to actually read or think about anyone's resume... they just want someone to spoon-feed them all of the items on their list and then grovel for the job.

Customized cover letters are bullshit. They rarely say anything that any reasonably intelligent person couldn't glean from the resume. So are idiosyncratic online application forms that make you cut and paste everything from your resume and then at the end attach the resume anyway.

When I applied for jobs out of college, I could apply for dozens of jobs a day. Now I can only manage two or three because of all the stupid hoops you have to jump through.

And the worst part is frickin' *rude* companies that don't even acknowledge receipt of the application they made you spend four hours filling out and then never contact you with even a form letter to say the position has been filled.