Should I leave my bachelor's degree off my resume???

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Texasmoneyman300
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17 Feb 2023, 3:34 am

Hi y'all.
I have a bachelor's degree in one of the social sciences.Someone today said I should leave it off my resume but I got mixed feelings about that because I worked hard for that degree.She said it will make me less likely to get hired for a McJob.Should I leave it off or not in your opinion?She also said corporations are stopping making having a degree a big requirement to get hired.



klanka
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17 Feb 2023, 5:31 am

She might be right cos employers do look to see if you are really looking for another job while working for them.



DanielW
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17 Feb 2023, 6:05 am

These days you really do need to tailor your resume to the type of job you are applying for (and keep them as brief as possible) Especially if you have ever been told you are "over-qualified". Those are the 2 issues I have had. The second being that people who screen resumes can't or don't actually read them.



shortfatbalduglyman
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17 Feb 2023, 8:04 am

Daniel's advice has been my job hunting experience.

However, interviewers might also ask, during those four years (when you were at college), what were you doing (in terms of work)?

There is something wrong with everything



rse92
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19 Feb 2023, 3:20 pm

I have multiple degrees including a law degree from an Ivy League university. I also had twenty five years work experience as a corporate lawyer. I got a job stocking shelves at Walmart.

I don’t think a degree is going to be an issue. There are still fewer workers than jobs in this country.



shortfatbalduglyman
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19 Feb 2023, 4:22 pm

What I do is that for jobs that require a degree, I put the degree on resume

The other jobs , I don't put the degree



goldfish21
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22 Feb 2023, 9:38 am

If the degree is relevant to the job Or the level of job you're applying for, then include it. If you're looking for an entry level McJob in fast food, then nix it. But if you're applying for a Management position at McD's then include it. If entry level for a foot in the door and you can't bring yourself to omit it, modify it to say "poli-sci student at The University - 4 years" and then if they ask about it in an interview you could tell them you completed a degree, or tell them you're thinking about returning to further your education etc.

The reason not to include it is because it makes you appear overqualified & too intelligent for a McJob and that makes you more likely to apply for different jobs more suited to your education level with higher pay.. which means you won't likely stick around and work for them very long, and they want people who are going to stay vs. retraining new people all the time. Also, some may feel threatened that you're smarter than them and might end up being better at their job than they are and they don't want to hire too many people better than them as a McJob Manager.. they want to hire people they feel are just smart enough to do the job safely & quickly and make them look good, but not smart enough to take over their management role.

So, for most McJobs, it's better to just omit higher level education. If you just can't bring yourself to do it, you could omit the degree but put a little line in that says something like "Seeking to further my studies in poli-sci" or whatever and then they'll think you're an aspiring student that maybe never finished your degree, and if they ask about it, you could tell them you've had thoughts about going back for a Master's or whatever and so you won't have the time or energy to take on a serious professional job and really think you'd thrive in their environment while you further your education. etc. But really, if it's not relevant At All, it's usually going to do more harm than good to disclose it.


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kokopelli
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22 Feb 2023, 11:14 am

klanka wrote:
She might be right cos employers do look to see if you are really looking for another job while working for them.


I understand that many people with PhDs in Physics maintain two resumes.

Really good Physics jobs can be few and far between and you have to be ready to take whatever you can get. There are far more PhDs then there are teaching/research positions at major universities. Supposedly, the usual route to a professorship is to start out with a fellowship until you have proved yourself.

So with two resumes, if the job requires a PhD, then send the resume with the PhD. Otherwise, send the resume that doesn't list the PhD so that the employer won't be convinced that you are going to leave if something more advanced comes along.



kokopelli
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22 Feb 2023, 11:38 am

I met a woman in about 1990 who had a BS in Biology from a major university (we graduated the same year from that university and knew some of the same people) and had work experience in a major hospital lab. She got terribly bored running the same tests over and over, day after day and ended up quitting after two or three years.

For ten years or so when I met her, her daytime job was washing windows in Houston. She didn't do the ones on the upper floors of skyscrapers where detail didn't matter. Instead, she'd do the windows on the first floor, particularly the windows on the doors and the lobby windows. She would clean and polish the windows to the point that you could not find a speck of dust or water spots on them anywhere. With the level of detail required, both inside and outside, she made quite good money washing windows.

The would also wash windows in the big mansions of Houston. Every year the River Oaks Garden Club would have an Azalea Tour and nobody on the tour wanted to be seen with dirty windows in their multi-million dollar mansions. In 1990, she and a friend of mine would spend an entire day washing windows on one mansion and would get about $700 for the typical mansion.

The friend of mine who worked with her said that it was tough at first to start washing the windows in the multi-million dollar mansions because of all the valuables in the houses and the homeowners concerns about the values being pilfered, but once you earned a reputation as an honest worker who did the job well, you had more people wanting to hire you than you could handle. They would be booked solid for at least a month before the Azalea Tour began and would work six days a week that entire time.

Her other job was working at the door of a private club in Houston. That was a very odd private club. Originally, it was strictly a gay club, but the trendy young people in town started going there. The club ended up being a gay club Monday through Wednesday, a trendy club for the young on Thursday through Saturday, and on Sunday was a mixed club with the gays and the trendy young clubbers.

And she loved it. She did not want to go back to working in a lab at all. I occasionally wonder what she is up to these days.



Texasmoneyman300
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25 Feb 2023, 2:03 am

goldfish21 wrote:
If the degree is relevant to the job Or the level of job you're applying for, then include it. If you're looking for an entry level McJob in fast food, then nix it. But if you're applying for a Management position at McD's then include it. If entry level for a foot in the door and you can't bring yourself to omit it, modify it to say "poli-sci student at The University - 4 years" and then if they ask about it in an interview you could tell them you completed a degree, or tell them you're thinking about returning to further your education etc.

The reason not to include it is because it makes you appear overqualified & too intelligent for a McJob and that makes you more likely to apply for different jobs more suited to your education level with higher pay.. which means you won't likely stick around and work for them very long, and they want people who are going to stay vs. retraining new people all the time. Also, some may feel threatened that you're smarter than them and might end up being better at their job than they are and they don't want to hire too many people better than them as a McJob Manager.. they want to hire people they feel are just smart enough to do the job safely & quickly and make them look good, but not smart enough to take over their management role.

So, for most McJobs, it's better to just omit higher level education. If you just can't bring yourself to do it, you could omit the degree but put a little line in that says something like "Seeking to further my studies in poli-sci" or whatever and then they'll think you're an aspiring student that maybe never finished your degree, and if they ask about it, you could tell them you've had thoughts about going back for a Master's or whatever and so you won't have the time or energy to take on a serious professional job and really think you'd thrive in their environment while you further your education. etc. But really, if it's not relevant At All, it's usually going to do more harm than good to disclose it.

Ya I am not going ever go back to school so I do not feel right lying to them about it.Also the other reason why I am more inclined to list my degree is because they would wonder what I was doing in the years after I graduated high school given that I have never had a full-time job or part-time job on a prolonged regular basis once in my life even at my age today.Lying is a sin in my religion so I dont want to be a liar.



rse92
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26 Feb 2023, 2:19 pm

There are plenty of college degrees for which their graduates are chronically underemployed.



Texasmoneyman300
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26 Feb 2023, 10:16 pm

rse92 wrote:
There are plenty of college degrees for which their graduates are chronically underemployed.

I agree.