Introduction
Let’s be clear, the CV still has a bright future ahead of it. It reinvents itself, expands, becomes more flexible, but it remains our business card. It projects to employers a first image of our professional identity, giving an overview of our career, our knowledge, and the skills we have developed.
In the past, it was common to have a long career within the same company. This trend was associated with a sense of professional stability, a feeling that still persists paradoxically today, despite the completely different typology of the market. Indeed, careers have become highly diversified. Professional aspirations are no longer the same, companies are transforming technologically more quickly, and economic policies are accelerating reorganizations. We are moving from a society of duration to a society of projects.
Therefore, it is entirely understandable that professionals want to present themselves in the best possible light by optimizing their CV and profile in order to stand out, get an interview, and then a job.
To omit or not to omit... that is the question.
As mentioned earlier in this article, the CV, like your profile, reflects your career path and a part of your personality.
In the case of a career with ups and downs (excluding self-employed individuals), subject to reorientations or more or less extended periods of inactivity, it is legitimate to question the attractiveness of your profile or CV.
To remedy an image of an unstable career path that may appear to a future employer, it may be tempting to omit or smooth out certain aspects of your career, for example by:
- Using the year as a time scale
- Deciding not to mention the name of the former employer or the industry sector
- Not mentioning short or unrelated experiences to your core field
This can have the advantage of reassuring your interlocutors by “creating” stability and coherence. Placing certain information in the background can also direct the reading of your CV more towards your experiences and less on the “details” of your career.
Recruitment being a game of seduction in which fear is your enemy, it is crucial to distance it in order to increase your chances. Of course, once the barrier of CV reading is crossed, it is preferable to take the time to explain transparently the purpose of your approach, which will be all the more appreciated.
If, however, you decide to be completely transparent about your career path and want to highlight absolutely all your missions, even those outside of your “classic” framework, it is important to orient your speech well towards the companies that interest you. So, you will need to provide a coherent and explanatory presentation of your career path, your orientations, and your project in order to provide all the preliminary elements for the recruitment selection process to your interlocutor.
In conclusion
Omitting certain elements on your CV or profile, as long as it does not involve lying or concealing crucial information and as long as that experience is not relevant to your job, is a solution like any other to improve the attractiveness of your application.
What do you think?
