Q:  I graduated from law school in 1978 and have been practicing ever since, primarily in the area of insurance defense.  I recently located to the Philadelphia area, and am looking for a position with an insurance defense firm.  I am concerned that I may be perceived as too old or overqualified.  How can I avoid creating this impression on my resume?   

Al from Pennsylvania

Q:  Do I have to list every law job I have had on my resume?  I ask because I spent three months at a firm that I would rather just forget and not mention to future employers.  I graduated from law school in 2002, and have other law firm experience that I do want to highlight on my resume.  Can I simply omit the “dud” firm from resume?

Carol from Colorado?

A:  Dear Al and Carol,

You are at different points in your career, but are posing essentially the same question:  How do I account for time on my resume?

The short answer to your questions is that it may be appropriate and advantageous to omit certain items from your resume.

To see why, let’s start with some resume basics.  The resume has two primary purposes: (1) to help you set up a face-to-face meeting with a perspective employer; and (2) to help set the agenda for that meeting.   Thus, the resume should be a forward-looking document that explains to the reader what you can do for them.  In light of its forward-looking nature, and the fact that it’s a marketing piece for you, the resume does not have to include every job you have ever had, or every duty you have had on that job. 

To be sure, there are countervailing concerns.  Employers are concerned about gaps in work histories because such gaps may signal work performance problems or a pattern of job hopping.

Carol, based on the information you have provided, it appears that it might be appropriate to omit from your resume reference to the firm in which you stayed for only three months.  One possible way to do this is to list the years (but not the months) where you worked at various employers. 

Al, your situation is a bit more complicated, but there are a few ways you can combat your concern about age discrimination and being perceived as overqualified.  One is to omit listing the years in which you graduated from law school and college.  Depending on your job history, and the extent to which it raises the job hopping concern, it might be advisable to list only the experience you have had in the last ten to fifteen years.  Likewise, you may indicate (in a cover letter or Summary of Qualifications) that you have had more than ten or fifteen years of experience, rather than mentioning that you actually had twenty five years of experience. 

Regardless of how you list your experience on your resume, both of you need to be prepared to discuss the experiences you omitted from the resume if you are asked to address those experiences at an interview, or if you are asked to fill out an application, and are required to list all your prior employers, or your graduation dates.