Greetings, all.
On the day after Labor Day, I had the misfortune to be laid off. I'm now undergoing the painful process of trying to find a new job.
I'm in the unenviable position of being 42 years old with my longest tenure at any job being 4 years and having just been laid off for the 3rd time and looking for my 7th professional gig. I certainly know how bad that looks and am trying to figure out the best way to display my résumé.
Here's a brief history:
* 4 years after graduation, I got hit during the devastation that swept through the Southern California defense industry during the early '90s.
* I then took 3 years to go back to school in the unsuccessful pursuit of a now-dead dream.
* I became engaged and started a new job at a small family-run business that was trying to grow. The commute was too long and it was tough working for "mom & pop" and the "3 little pigs" who ran the company so I left after 1 year to take what seemed a great opportunity very close to home.
* 20 months into my new job at a small division of a Fortune 50 company (during the tech boom), extreme financial problems became evident, layoffs started, and there was talk of divestiture and a management buyout. I got out while the getting was good and took what seemed to be a great opportunity with another Fortune 50 company.
* 2.5 years later, that company decided to close our plant and laid me off with everybody else.
* I took the only job I could find at a screwed up little family run place that had serious legal and ethical issues and horrible morale (not to mention crappy pay and nonexistent benefits). One day, 18 months in, I received an unsolicited phone call from somebody that I'd interviewed with long ago and decided to pursue another "great opportunity" with a tiny start-up company.
* As of Tuesday, I'd been with the start-up for 2 years when all of the capital was consumed without meeting its goals for further funding. The investor has offered a bit more money but is ending further engineering. The 3 guys left have to make it with what they've got. As the highest paid tech guy, I'm the odd man out.
So, here I sit trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces of my tattered career which I'm expecting to be quite difficult. My questions for all of you are:
Given the short tenures, do you think I should consider adding a "Left Because" line to each employer I list? Or, does that just emphasize the issue?
What about foregoing my dates of employment altogether and simply list the dates of my education, my various responsibilities and achievements, and then a simple list of the company names (3 of which are very well known)?
Any thoughts you'd care to share would be welcome. I'm particularly interested in the views of those of you who'd automatically pass over somebody with a work history such as mine. Why would you? What would be your concerns? Could they be assuaged or, realistically, probably not given the brevity of the résumé review process? (Presuming that I've got skill-set match but am certainly not a subject-matter expert in much of anything...sort of the "jack of many trades" type.)
Thanks for taking the time to read this long post.
--------------------
How much do YOU owe?
--------------------
On the day after Labor Day, I had the misfortune to be laid off. I'm now undergoing the painful process of trying to find a new job.
I'm in the unenviable position of being 42 years old with my longest tenure at any job being 4 years and having just been laid off for the 3rd time and looking for my 7th professional gig. I certainly know how bad that looks and am trying to figure out the best way to display my résumé.
Here's a brief history:
* 4 years after graduation, I got hit during the devastation that swept through the Southern California defense industry during the early '90s.
* I then took 3 years to go back to school in the unsuccessful pursuit of a now-dead dream.
* I became engaged and started a new job at a small family-run business that was trying to grow. The commute was too long and it was tough working for "mom & pop" and the "3 little pigs" who ran the company so I left after 1 year to take what seemed a great opportunity very close to home.
* 20 months into my new job at a small division of a Fortune 50 company (during the tech boom), extreme financial problems became evident, layoffs started, and there was talk of divestiture and a management buyout. I got out while the getting was good and took what seemed to be a great opportunity with another Fortune 50 company.
* 2.5 years later, that company decided to close our plant and laid me off with everybody else.
* I took the only job I could find at a screwed up little family run place that had serious legal and ethical issues and horrible morale (not to mention crappy pay and nonexistent benefits). One day, 18 months in, I received an unsolicited phone call from somebody that I'd interviewed with long ago and decided to pursue another "great opportunity" with a tiny start-up company.
* As of Tuesday, I'd been with the start-up for 2 years when all of the capital was consumed without meeting its goals for further funding. The investor has offered a bit more money but is ending further engineering. The 3 guys left have to make it with what they've got. As the highest paid tech guy, I'm the odd man out.
So, here I sit trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces of my tattered career which I'm expecting to be quite difficult. My questions for all of you are:
Given the short tenures, do you think I should consider adding a "Left Because" line to each employer I list? Or, does that just emphasize the issue?
What about foregoing my dates of employment altogether and simply list the dates of my education, my various responsibilities and achievements, and then a simple list of the company names (3 of which are very well known)?
Any thoughts you'd care to share would be welcome. I'm particularly interested in the views of those of you who'd automatically pass over somebody with a work history such as mine. Why would you? What would be your concerns? Could they be assuaged or, realistically, probably not given the brevity of the résumé review process? (Presuming that I've got skill-set match but am certainly not a subject-matter expert in much of anything...sort of the "jack of many trades" type.)
Thanks for taking the time to read this long post.
--------------------
How much do YOU owe?
--------------------
