Stop Hiding on Your Resume, LinkedIn Profile, or a Zoom Call

By Bruce Hurwitz

THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR.

Anyone who is a fan of Sherlock Holmes knows that the best place to hide something is in the open. I literally have no room in my home for a book-book. (There’s plenty of room in my Kindle.) Every wall is covered with bookshelves and the shelves are full. If I want to hide a book, it will be on a shelf. (I recognize the contradiction but it’s rude of you to interrupt!) You’ll never find it but, if you do, you can keep it!

You hide something you don’t want to be found. So why are job applicants (I doubt they’ll become candidates) hiding things on their resumes (and, for that matter, LinkedIn profiles) or during a Zoom call? If you are hiding something it means you have something to hide. Employers don’t want employees who have something to hide. They want open, honest and transparent employees, the antithesis of hiders.

Recently I received a resume from a veteran looking for a resume writer. He sent me his current resume. He had been out of the military for decades. Importantly, it was clear that he had a sense of humor. So I began our initial conversation thus: “Before I embarrass you., how can I help you?”

A minute later we got to the embarrassment. I asked him if he was looking at his resume? He was. I then asked him how he expected employers to contact him? He reacted the way I knew he would. There was no contact information on his resume. Understand, this man is a bona fide hero. He’s no dummy. He had been at his civilian job going on 25 years. He had had numerous promotions. He did not need to provide contact information on his resume to get those promotions because his employer knew how to reach him. There was a logical reason for the contact information not being on his resume. We had a good laugh and moved on. No harm, no foul.

But I have received resumes which began with the word “Confidential.” No name. No contact information. Before you ask, they were mailed to me, not emailed. That’s not what I mean by “hiding.” “Hiding” is when you don’t want to reveal something. For example…

The Name of an Employer

Writing, “confidential” in place of an employer’s (the company’s) name means the applicant worked somewhere with a bad reputation. The implication is that the applicant was in some way responsible for that reputation. That may be true. Or it may be that they were not responsible, just ashamed of having worked there. If they were not responsible, they have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only a handful of people were responsible for Enron and Arthur Andersen (am I aging myself?) and only they would need to hide, an impossibility.

There are those who do not want to reveal their current employer out of fear that the employer will discover their job search, in other words, that the employer to whom they are applying will contact their current employer. Fact is, it could happen, but the odds are so small it is not worth worrying about. Their are rules to a job search and the Number One rule is no one contacts a current employer without the employee’s permission.

LinkedIn Profile

I get it. You are proud of your family or friends. But for purely innocent reasons employers want to see who they are considering. Having a photo where the employer has to guess who’s who is problematic. (If you don’t want your photo on your profile because you don’t want the employer to know your race, my question is, Why would you want to work for/help a bigot/racist?) A clear headshot is needed.

And then there is location. Stating that you are in the “United States” means either you are lying – you want to get a job in the US and don’t want your present location to be held against you – or you are looking to relocate and, again, don’t want your present location to be held against you. But you will be discovered fairly quickly. If not the first question you will be asked then pretty close to it will be, “Where do you live?” So why play games?

Zoom Background

Whenever I am on a Zoom call and the person with whom I am speaking has blurred their background, I tell them that I immediately assume there is a reason for their hiding what is behind them and that my assumption is that they are messy and disorganized. Employers do not hire messy or disorganized people. When that is not the case, they immediately reveal what had been hidden and, in response to my question “So why did you hide it?” they shrug their shoulders.

(Once the reason was that the candidate did not want his dogs being a distraction. He had three St. Bernards. He was right, they were a distraction, but loveable and funny. Nothing worth hiding.)

Hiding something draws attention to it and raises red flags. Don’t hide!

Stop Hiding on Your Resume, LinkedIn Profile, or a Zoom Call | Employment Edification