Caveat emptor – the rule about putting “charged” items on your resume

One issue we see over and over is that attorneys have a hard time dealing with potentially polarizing items on their resumes.  How should you deal with religious, political or other “charged” items on the resume?  I’m drafting this the morning after the US Capital was stormed by political zealots and our country is being torn apart by two increasingly different and contentious ideologies, this topic has become more relevant than ever.  

The short answer is that there is no hard-and-fast rule on those entries except this one: caveat emptor.  (Clearly, I don’t speak Latin.  I’m aware that this translates as ‘buyer beware,’ but I think you get the idea.)

If you put it on, you run the risk of inflaming the readers’ biases.  Do I personally think it’s a problem that you were on the board of your place of worship?  Of course not.  Do I think that it will cost you a job if you put that you participated in or helped an organization stage a violent rally?  Yes.  Yes, I do. 

Obviously, there is an enormous chasm between volunteering at a church and running a QAnon social media hub, but there is probably something on your resume that falls within this spectrum.  Were you an aide for a polarizing legislator?  Were you a door-knocker for a political candidate?  Did you follow the Grateful Dead on tour for 3 years  which explains the “lost” years on your resume?  Were you an Eagle Scout (we live in odd times that just about everything can have some polarizing affect).  Should you put those items on your resume?

I want to highlight that you don’t know the biases of the reader of your resume and I believe that it is far better to be milquetoast in your resume than offensive (so long as you are being authentic).

The test I often ask people is that if they are willing to lose an opportunity, or put another way, if they could not see themselves working for a firm or company, that didn’t LOVE what they have on their resume, then they should keep the entry in their resume. If you aren’t willing to lose the job over the entry, tone it down.  

 As I sit here and reflect on yesterday’s events and tensions are running really high on political resume entries (on both sides), I know that there are going to be many attorneys thinking about how to deal with political matters on their resume going forward.  Caveat emptor.