STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Kelly · Hermes

Resume question

Kel · Coach

I wouldn't put my HS only my college. But that is just me. I don't know what others do.

Claudia · Gucci

Kel wrote:

I wouldn't put my HS only my college. But that is just me. I don't know what others do.

ditto. According to the career center at my university you are not supposed to put your HS information on your resume.

-- Edited by Claudia on Thursday 15th of October 2009 06:56:42 PM

pollyjean23 · Marc Jacobs

Yup - we recommend that, once you are in college, you can and should remove high school unless you specialized and took classes in a directly-related career path. For example, the automotive systems technology students at my school might list their high school if they did the automotive track at the tech school. Some even take college-level coursework in their vocation before graduating high school. Very unusual situation tho.

kenzie · Chanel

Ditto everyone else. Once you're done with college, you can remove the high school info.

Kelly · Hermes

I know it's unusual and not recommended but I'm wondering if unprofessional or unusual in a bad way, or would you not care?

-- Edited by Kelly on Thursday 15th of October 2009 09:37:00 PM

wetbandit42 · Marc Jacobs

Kelly wrote:

I know it's unusual and not recommended but I'm wondering if unprofessional or unusual in a bad way, or would you not care?

-- Edited by Kelly on Thursday 15th of October 2009 09:37:00 PM

I don't know - I think it might make people looking at your resume think you can't "follow directions," if that makes any sense.

pollyjean23 · Marc Jacobs

Kelly wrote:

I know it's unusual and not recommended but I'm wondering if unprofessional or unusual in a bad way, or would you not care?

-- Edited by Kelly on Thursday 15th of October 2009 09:37:00 PM

I think the average employer who just needs to hire someone might not care, but someone who sees many resumes every day might. If everything else on your resume was fine, and you included high school, a recruiter wouldn't trash it or anything.

Granted, some of the issues with this rule about removing high school information have to do with age discrimination. You can be 18 or 80 and be a college student, but high school graduation information usually reveals most people's age.

Aurora · Marc Jacobs

I've just helped two people write a resume - 1 professional and 1 in college. In both cases all things related to high school were omitted. That information just didn't fit with the rest of the items on the resume and we were trying to keep both to 1 page, 2 max and that would have helped push it into the full 2 page to almost 3 pager.

Boots · Gucci

If you are looking to make a connection with the recruiter through having a shared high school (say you know that the recruiter went to the same high school as you) maybe there's a better place to put that info on the resume? Do you volunteer with any alumni activities that might highlight your skills?

Suasoria · Chanel

I would assume the person didn't have enough relevant experience to list, so he/she added high school just to take up space.

If it's a specialized HS (for the arts, humanities, sciences, whatever) AND that's relevant to the job, then I support leaving it in.

NCshopper · Hermes

pollyjean23 wrote:
Granted, some of the issues with this rule about removing high school information have to do with age discrimination. You can be 18 or 80 and be a college student, but high school graduation information usually reveals most people's age.

Ditto. And ditto to Suasoria too.

I think that unless you have a really good reason why you have it on there, it's more of a liability than a plus.

Honestly, if I run across a resume with HS info on it, I automatically assume that person has no idea how to create a resume and probably won't know other basic business tasks related to the job. If your HS info is important to include, I wonder if it might be better for you to include that with an explanation in your cover letter?

Good luck on the job hunt!

Kelly · Hermes

Thanks ladies - I really appreciate your input!

Basically, here's what I'm thinking about: my high school has a very good academic reputation in the area. You have to skip at least one grade to be allowed in (most people skip two or more - I graduated at 16 and I was one of the oldest ones in my class), you have to take an entrance exam, and even then something like 60% of the people who come drop out before the end of their freshman year. When people I know learn that I went there, I get impressed comments about it. I'm not trying to brag about it - it was so long ago anyway - but it's something I've thought about every time I've had to work on a resume, and in the past it didn't really matter much because I was just going for piddly jobs and didn't have much else to put on my resume, anyway. Friends who have gone to my high school are pretty split about whether they put our high school information on there - a lot of people don't because we're afraid of exactly what you guys said, that people will think we were just trying to take up space or something. But a lot of the people who do put it on there have said that it helped them get the job, because the interviewer would bring it up in conversation and pretty much say that caught his/her attention. It helped my brother get a great co-op in college (of course there were other factors that made him a great person to hire, but after he was hired his boss told him that the high school was what made him stand out from all the applicants).

So if I could be sure that the recruiter would have heard of my high school, I probably would put it on just because of all these stories I've heard about how it seems to help people. But...my HS was/is really small. Like, 150 students. So a lot of people haven't heard of it even when they're close by (like the company I'm crossing my fingers for right now) and that's where I think it could hurt me.

I think I'm pretty much leaning towards taking it off...I'm just not super proud of where I went to college so I guess I was hoping I could temper that with some better academic information

Kelly · Hermes

NCshopper wrote:

I think that unless you have a really good reason why you have it on there, it's more of a liability than a plus.

Honestly, if I run across a resume with HS info on it, I automatically assume that person has no idea how to create a resume and probably won't know other basic business tasks related to the job.

Suasoria wrote:I would assume the person didn't have enough relevant experience to list, so he/she added high school just to take up space.

Those two were exactly what I was afraid of, what I obviously DON'T want this company to think of me.

Boots wrote:If you are looking to make a connection with the recruiter through having a shared high school (say you know that the recruiter went to the same high school as you) maybe there's a better place to put that info on the resume? Do you volunteer with any alumni activities that might highlight your skills?

Hee no, they didn't let girls in until the late nineties so the alumni association is full of old priests and lawyers...decided not to do that one wink but it was a good idea thanks!

-- Edited by Kelly on Saturday 17th of October 2009 08:07:40 AM

NCshopper · Hermes

Okay, here are my thoughts after reading the reasoning behind your dilemma:

I think you should leave the HS info off 90% of the time you send out your resume. In cases where you think the recruiter may have heard of the school, then put it on. But I think most of the time, it'll do more harm than good for you to list your HS info.

If you graduated HS at 16, can I assume that you graduated college at 20 and thus have 2 years more work experience than other people your age? If so, then let that work experience set you apart and do the talking for you instead of including the HS info. I think that'll get you further without running the risk of looking like someone who doesn't know that they shouldn't put their HS info on a resume. Does that make sense?

In cases where you think the recruiter knows about the school, then I'd put it on your resume, or safer yet, put it in the cover letter.

travelgirl · Kate Spade

Kelly,

I totally understand where you are coming from. I think the fact that we are both from this area helps me understand why you would want to list your HS on your resume. The Latin school you attended is known for being a school for the academically gifted (which you ARE!) and is very prestigous. If you are applying for positions outside of this area I would agree with the others to take the HS part off your resume. However, if you are looking to stay around this area, I would leave it on or at minimum you should find a way to bring up in the interview because I would think most employers around here would be impressed with the fact that you did attend that particular school.

And by the way, I would totally hire you-you are not only super intelligent you are also sweet and humble!

Kelly · Hermes

travelgirl wrote:

Kelly,

I totally understand where you are coming from. I think the fact that we are both from this area helps me understand why you would want to list your HS on your resume. The Latin school you attended is known for being a school for the academically gifted (which you ARE!) and is very prestigous. If you are applying for positions outside of this area I would agree with the others to take the HS part off your resume. However, if you are looking to stay around this area, I would leave it on or at minimum you should find a way to bring up in the interview because I would think most employers around here would be impressed with the fact that you did attend that particular school.

And by the way, I would totally hire you-you are not only super intelligent you are also sweet and humble!

aww travelgirl, you're making me blush!

Yes, the job is around here (downtown Cincy, so really just across the river from my HS). I have been thinking about this all day (trying to get my resume all banged out so tomorrow BF can help make it gorgeous with his magical designer skills so I can send on Monday!). I minored in Latin in college and was the president of the classical languages honors society, maybe I will be lucky and they will bring it up because it's not a common degree, and I can say something sneaky like "well, I fell in love with Latin when I was at the Latin school, so I just kept at it in college" (to which they will of course say, "OMG you're hired!") evileye

-- Edited by Kelly on Saturday 17th of October 2009 09:55:20 PM

XtinaStyles · Marc Jacobs

I'm a lil late in my reply but I'm going to ditto all above and say even if you went to the world's most prestigious high school, leave it off of your resume unless you haven't received a higher degree. I don't quite understand how you would be more proud of your HS than your college, and I think a recruiter might get confused and wonder that maybe you never graduated or were young or inexperienced. Good luck!