The Thirdgarage staff ponders our own real life histories (we couldn't make this stuff up, if we tried) and shares some advice on what to leave out or cleverly conceal in those Boomer resumes:
1. Seven Years of College. Technically, someone could make a case that it's really nine years from your first year of attendance to the day the BA scroll arrived in the mail at your beach house. This can all be easily explained, but why take the chance that the interviewer, who was born after you entered your first college, is one of those four-straight-year types? If you must discuss this, take the Horatio Alger approach, rather than alluding to a Jim Morrison technique. Emphasize that full time job in the Exploitation Dept. at a film company to cover the rent on the fourth-floor walk-up. Do not try to explain what "draft-avoidance" means or that you "were catching up on lost sleep due to jungle-themed nightmares." Obviously, you should not mention the actual expulsion letter from one college or the one that your third, alma mater, forgot to send. It's best to conceal all of this from your college-bound children too.
2. The Three Missing Years Of Your Life. Obviously, these would read like some of the best years to reasonably fun people; however, it is very unlikely that anyone interviewing you will be one of those. They will do the math and find that from 1974-1977 you apparently did not exist. As if! You would have to call these years: The Beach, The City, The Mountains, which sounds like the novel you probably should have been writing. You could call this "graduate work" and it wouldn't be a total lie, but why go there? And why try calling it a "writing internship?" Internships only occurred in Dr. Kildare re-runs in those days. Do not, repeat, do not list real jobs held like: pottery shop clerk, short-order cook, census-taker, nightshift porter, ski-lift operator, laborer for masons/landscapers/sheet-rockers/sandblasters, or for goodness sake "Orange County weed-chopping fire-protecting crew." That last one may sound like a prison job, despite actually being mostly for released prisoners, who wrongly assumed you'd also just "been sprung."
3. Some Best, Worst Or Almost Jobs. Okay, so operating the cider mill was truly cool, but it will distract the professional resume reader, who will think you're a flake. Dropping the museum security guard gig is a no-brainer too, even if it was at The "Frick Collection", which may sound like foul language to some. Finally, it's about time that you got over not taking that Forest Ranger job in Placer County, CA. Nobody cares and neither should you.
4. Living With Your Parents At Thirty. Many people would assume that, if even some of the things mentioned above were true, they may have caused you to wind up living with your parents at an advanced age. Don't bring up the result, if you're going to avoid the causes. You cannot successfully explain this to potential employers, despite the fact that this phenomenon has become much more prevalent again during the past three years. This period is easily concealed by the entry called "free-lancing." (Note to young job seekers: The corollary to #4 you avoid is: Your Sixty-Year Old Parents Live With You).
5. What Truly Motivates You. It is not going to be good enough to tell the truth about your always having loved a great story. You cannot say that you won't jump off the job search train without finding out what happens next. Only one person out of hundreds will care what happens to you next. When that person reads your resume, you will know what happens next: you will get a job offer. Then you can really begin to worry about some of that stuff listed above, but do not think about this now.
We hope this helps. It did for us; we wound up here, covering the Transition Era for you using Truth (mostly) and Humor (sometimes).
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