A few days ago I wrote about Generation Y disaster employee Simone Francis who’s managed to burn through 70 jobs and still not find something she likes and it got me thinking.

With 70 jobs ranging from just three days to a few months Simone’s resume must be a nightmare to sort through!

Late last year I left my previous job and was faced with the challenge of cutting down my previous employment history to tailor my experience to the position I was applying for.

Granted I didn’t have anywhere near seventy jobs to filter but I feel what I learnt applies no matter how many previous jobs you might have had.

Whether you’ve had ten or a hundred previous jobs a good rule of thumb is that you should aim to showcase three to five jobs on your resume. No more and no less.

The reason for this is that unless you’ve won some groundbreaking awards in your previous employment, most employers are going to primarily want to see your recent employment history. This is to get a sense of where your career might be going and what you’ve taken on after previous employment.

A giant long list of employment is most likely to get overlooked and worst still lack relevancy to the position your after. If you make the employment shortlist you don’t want to be known as ‘the one with the huge resume’!

With three previous jobs on your resume you’ve got more room to go into detail about what you did, any achievements you won and specifically what it was that drew you to that role.

Five listings means you have to be briefer but it can be a powerful statement to have five similar but progressing positions if you’re going for a job in a specific industry.

While time and relevancy to the position you’re applying for should be your primary contributing factors in filtering out your previous employment history they aren’t the only things you should consider.

Here’s some of the more overlooked reasonings I came up with when I was creating my own previous employment shortlist.

1. Did you enjoy the job?

If you get to the interview stage and you’re asked about the positions you’ve listed on your resume you’re going to want to be able to talk about them confidently and positively.

We’ve all taken on jobs we might have hated to further our career prospects but if you hated the position it’s going to shine through when you talk about it.

Relevancy is important but if you’ve got options pick the positions you enjoyed. You don’t have to have loved the job but being able to confidently and positively talk about your previous work shows the employer you’ve got an interest in the industry. What’s more it also shows you’re passionate about your work.

2. Do the positions I’ve listed have any sort of progressive order to them?

If the position you’re going for is an upgrade to what you’ve done previously (and it should be!), it can look nice to have some sort of progression down on paper when you’re discussing why you’re ready to take on the new position.

Even if the previous jobs you choose to list are unrelated if they show that you’ve worked your way to where you are today you can show an employer that you’re not afraid of hard work.

Simply having three to five similar but recent positions which are similar could indicate that you’re a restless employee and are struggling to seize a progressional opportunity when it presents itself.

3. If asked, will I have any suitable referees for a particular position I’ve listed

Despite having a set list of referees I was happy to use, I was caught offguard by one potential employer when they asked if I had any referees for a particular previous position I’d listed.

When I queried why they mentioned because the position was slightly different work wise to the others I’d listed.

Unfortunately for me my boss at this particular position had passed away six months or so after I’d left and I wasn’t comfortable asking another manager to act as a referee.

This made me think about the positions I was listing and about whether or not if asked I’d simply be able to call up and get in contact with someone I’d worked with there previously.

The chances of this happening are admittedly low but it’s nice to know that if asked you’d already have someone in mind to ask.

4. Are my employment periods different enough to not show a pattern

Although it is true that some people get restless in a position after a certain amount of time, it’s important that we don’t convey this in a resume.

3-5 positions all with a 12 month employment period tells the employer you’re most likely to stick with them for twelve months and then move on. Depending on the position you’re going for this could be attractive but it’s probably not.

By having a bit of variety on your resume you aren’t inadvertently revealing any patterns in your employment history and give one less reason for an employer to not hire you. Obviously avoid listing jobs you might have only held for extremely short periods of time as you’re most likely to be questioned about them.

If you’re not careful this could then wind up being the focal point of your application rather then why you’re suited to the position.


For me these four were the main additional factors I took into consideration when crafting my resume for a certain position. I probably applied for 70-80 positions all up till I landed my current one and had a pool of five to six positions to call on.

Because of my relatively small pool of positions I went with listing three at a time and focused a lot more in depth about what I got out of the positions and what I achieved. I found this immensely more beneficial then simply blanket listing all six positions with every application.

Cutting down your position pool can be hard but with a bit of thought into the process and solid reasoning it’s not that much of a task. Hopefully the above tips out there will help some of you job hunters weather the abysmal jobs market out there at the moment.

Good luck!

1. The tightrope that is the Generation Y jobs market