Honest Resume

Everyone in the work world is told to keep their resume up to date. Because you never know when the next great opportunity will pop up, and then you'll be ready for it.

I suspect my resume reads like many women my age, and perhaps many people in general. There are part time and full time gigs, gaps of time in between, or abrupt transitions with the end date and start date within a week. Just like the cliche goes about the dash in between the birth and death dates: everything interesting really happens in those gaps and transitions.

I wish we could write honest resumes. Like Honest Trailers, only instead of mocking our lives it reads like a tell all, the kind that makes you realize how impressive it is that a person could hold a part time job while also navigating an extremely challenging home situation or paralyzing illness.

What my resume tells you is where I went to school, what job I did when, and what were my responsibilities. Some of the online applications now have an extra detail where they ask you why you left a particular job, but even that leaves little space for honesty and the full story. "Moved," "Babies," "Grandma needed me," "Boss was impossible," "Company ran out of money," "I was miserable"- how can you really tell the story? The idea is that if you have a series of short-term jobs, you're a terrible worker. But maybe you're actually a really lovely human.

I struggle with this. I look at my jobs and I used to think maybe when I was younger I wasn't a good employee. But, I always did what was asked of me. I always had integrity. I just didn't always love my job, so I felt like that made me a bad employee. I didn't always want to put in the extra mile, which made me feel guilty. But at 24 years old, I think it's fair that I hadn't figured out exactly what I was gifted to do yet. I had some learning to do. I did the job, but I could only do it so long before I lost my sanity.

Here are the gaps I want to explain to my potential employers:

I quit a part-time job under a negative boss to be a caregiver for my newborn son and Grandmother. The part time job would not have paid for the childcare I would have needed. My Grandmother would have been alone in her declining health due to dementia if I took a full time job. My newborn would have been fine, but I don't know if I would have been OK to spend my entire salary for someone else to watch him. Without that gap in my resume, my Grandmother would not have known my son. I would not have the memories from those two years that I treasure now that she's gone. I would have never discovered the old letters she kept that included letters from my great-grandmother to my Grandfather who was a refugee from Germany during WWII. It's one of the best decisions I ever made, and it made me a better human. But I can't put that on my resume because I don't have a 401K to show for it. So what you see on my resume is a two year gap between paying jobs.

I quit one job to take another job that I was better suited for. I knew that if I remained in my old job (which I had been successful at even though I was miserable), I might have negatively affected and stunted an entire program because my heart wasn't fully in it. I was actually doing the program a favor by leaving it. I also wouldn't have learned that I really was gifted with the skills and desire to do one-on-one work in the ministry setting, which led me to chaplaincy where I have excelled. It was a smart choice, but on my resume I quit one job after a year.

I had a challenging internship. It was one of the most humbling learning experiences I ever had, but if my supervisor were called up, I'm not sure she would speak highly of me. Our personalities clashed. Her issues and mine did not mix well. I worked through a pregnancy, un-treated depression, and made calls and visits and attended meetings with a newborn nursing. I thought I was weak and useless, but my God I was superwoman! I learned incredible lessons on humility, and about who I am and how much I need to worry about who others think I am. It was trial by fire and I made it. My liaison who supervised me in the ministry setting would tell you good things about my work- that's why he's on the resume as a reference. The supervisor who watched me struggle in a group who was forced to be vulnerable in an "instant intimacy" expectation: she might not have the best things to say. But she's the one who signed the paper on my internship, so she's the one you'll think matters more. But on my resume, it's a referral I might not get.

I moved after that internship and spent time getting my children settled in their new environment. I took master gardening classes and was involved in my children's classrooms and volunteered in an underprivileged school. None of those details are pertinent to my resume, that dash was just wasted time where I didn't work. But I worked really hard. I invested in my family and in my community. It was one of the first times I felt connected to my community, and as a child of the military, that was ground-breaking. I set down roots when I didn't even think I had any to set down. I learned how to put my compassion into action in ways that didn't pay. On my resume it's another two years between jobs.

In that time I also researched those letters that I found. I made trips to Germany and Kansas, tracing my family's history. My parents and my spouse were all on the journey with me and we will all be forever changed by that research. The book I am writing and the blog I keep are just small (and barely seen, especially not on my resume) evidences of that transformative journey that I am still on. I learned more about family dynamics, history and trauma. These things shape how I see people today and the world we live in now. I am no longer blind to my global community. If I did not have the time and attention to do this, then my Grandfather would not be a part of the new exhibit in the Holocaust Museum in DC. I am very proud of this project. Where do I put this on my resume?

I worked as a hospice chaplain almost two years before my husband's job moved us. I was working full time, well-liked and respected by my peers and supervisors. I had been given new responsibilities that reflected their value of my opinion (being in interviews). I also had been given flexibility to work 4 day weeks and convinced my supervisors to hire an on-call chaplain so I didn't need to be on call 6 months out of the year.  They valued me as an employee. (And I set the stage for the next chaplain not to be burned out.) Then I had to quit because we moved. That supervisor will say wonderful things about me, but if you quickly glance at my resume, it's another short stint of two years and gone.

When we moved, I took time to help my children adjust to their new environment. I almost took a full time job as a hospice chaplain but turned it down to focus on my book research and my kids. It was the right thing to do for my family and for myself. I finally got the right treatment for my depression (medication is a beautiful thing). I volunteered for hospice, I made friends so that this new community can be a place to call home. I got a part time job as a chaplain. But on my resume it looks like I dawdled and then became underemployed.

Everything in my resume, gaps included, are life choices I made that made me wiser, healthier, and my family stronger.

Looking back at all of these gaps and dashes and learning experiences, I am sort of amazed. I had no idea how much all of this was good, to the core. If I were to have any regrets, and believe me, I have plenty about the little things, but my main regret is that I didn't give myself enough grace in the learning process. I expected myself to be confident, competent, and omnipotent almost- at every step of the journey. What a ridiculous thing! I am a human who has learned beautiful things. I wish I could have given myself a break from the shame in the learning. Pain was inevitable, but I didn't have to think I was weak or unemployable.

In fact, now I think I might be the best employee you'd ever have. But my resume can't tell you that. I do wish that somehow when we talk to our children, and even our peers about resumes- that we could  give space for the learning process. That we could lend value to the gaps and short stints that taught us how to be more fully ourselves. That even though our resume doesn't show our career as a steady diagonal line up to the right, it has nothing to do with how employable we are, and certainly not how valuable we are as humans. Very few people have that steady soaring success on their resumes, and honestly- I'd rather work with the person who started out as a bat biologist and then became a pastor (true story- a friend of mine!).

My honest resume might not make me more exciting to a potential employer, but it has made me more grateful for my life's experiences. Maybe we should keep our resumes up to date, but maybe we need to have an honest one for ourselves that we keep up to date. It might remind us why we make the choices we make, or refocus us if our gaps and dashes aren't telling our true story.