Leaving Out Employment Dates From Your Resume

Posted by on June 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Q:  Should I leave out employment dates from my resume?

A:  I have seen different advice given on this, including those given by resume writers who suggest that a candidate leave dates of employment off a resume if there is a lot of job hopping, or when showcasing the depth of experience in a particular area.  This type of resume is called a “functional” resume, listing responsibilities and achievements under some of your main areas of qualifications.  It is not necessarily chronological.

My advice to you as a pharmacist job market expert who has seen thousands of resumes (not from just writing resumes that work for my private resume makeover pharmacist clients, but from seeing actual resumes that impress hiring managers) is this:  put employment dates on your resume under your Experience section.

Why?  If you leave out dates of employment, it can be a red flag to a pharmacy hiring manager right away.  Even if it does not come across as a red flag, it leaves them to wonder about when you actually worked at a particular place.  And it takes additional time for a hiring manager to find this out from you.  Remember, you have 10 seconds for a hiring manager to glance at your resume and be impressed with it.  If there are 30 other pharmacist job applications, and yours is the only one that requires additional detective work to find the information they are looking for, chances are that the hiring manager will look at the other ones first.

You may incorporate a “functional” resume format into your resume, but when you do so, include the dates of employment so that following the chronological flow of your career path is easy.

The dates of employment may be expressed by the year, or month and year.

Does this mean you should include all dates of employment? The answer to this is situational based.  In general, it is not necessary on a resume, but is recommended on a CV.  Your resume is a place for someone to look for your direct relevant experience to a particular position and does not need to include all of your work history.  Including your most recent experience is also important.

If you are concerned that a pharmacy hiring manager may think you’ve been job hopping recently, there are other ways to get over that objection.  This and other ways to overcome objections about you are taught in my programs for pharmacists wanting to get noticed in this competitive job market, so you get interviews and offers faster.

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How Should I Apply for 2 Job Openings at the Same Pharmacy?

Posted by on March 4, 2010 · 2 Comments 

Q:  Chen, I want to apply for 2 jobs at a hospital–one is an inpatient position & the other is an outpatient position.  What should I do with the application?

A:  My advice to you is to decide on one job to apply for & put your full effort there. I know, you may have extreme resistance to my answer because you (…fill in the blank with your reasoning…).  Let me ask you this–why do you want to apply for 2 positions with the same pharmacy/hospital?  I have seen pharmacists come to me with this dilemma, and usually they tell me they want to apply for both jobs because they want to make sure that if they don’t get one job, they get the other.

Here’s the truth you don’t want to hear:  You dilute the strength of your application by coming across that 1) you don’t really know what you want, 2) even if you truly know what you want, it’s harder to point out everything about you that aligns with the position are applying for, when you have to do it for two separate pharmacist positions.  You don’t want to hear this, because you want to believe the illusion that more is better.  Two applications for two separate positions equals two chances at a job, right?  Wrong.  1+1 doesn’t equal 2 here.

If you don’t wish to listen to my advice & want to apply for 2 jobs anyway, I suggest you apply for one job first, then if you don’t get a response or get rejected for it, apply for the second job.  And in that second job application, re-write your resume and definitely include a cover letter that explains why you also have an interest in this other role, along with why you would be good for that particular role, citing specific highlights that support it.

If you want some help with this, there are 3 options you can choose from:
1) Find out how to do stand out from your competition by doing it yourself, with access to secrets of what works & what doesn’t,
2) Get your resume done professionally by a marketing expert so that it gets noticed in this competitive job market
3) Do it yourself without having the edge over your competition.

The pharmacist job market is saturated with competition for the desired positions right now. I am seeing perfectly qualified pharmacists being headstrong about doing what they’ve always done before with applying for jobs.  They apply on their own without getting advice or access to the inside secrets of what hiring managers are looking for, and then they come to me when the damage is already done.  When they don’t hear back from the employer, or they hear “sorry, we filled the position already”, it’s too late.  They blew it.  Don’t be the one who blows it.  You have one chance to stand out–all you have to do is do it right the first time.

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