The Washington Free Beacon posted a hilarious hitpiece on Vice President Kamala Harris this morning. It’s a three-reporter byline, featured prominently on their website, and heavily promoted by its editors.
Their big scoop: HARRIS LEFT HER JOB AT McDONALDS OFF HER RESUME. PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!!!
Yes, for real.
These dipshits are doing GOTCHAS by digging up Harris’s post-college and law school resumes and pointing out that she left off a few weeks working the deep fryer between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University. This hard-hitting investigation is just asking questions about why the Vice President didn’t mention the McDonalds gig when she applied to be a summer law clerk at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in 1987. Instead, she included stints at Charles Schwab, the FTC, a senate internship, and clerking at a law firm.
They’re inadvertently proving that she’s normal as hell, and at the same time demonstrating that there is simply no dirt on her. Incredible miss.
there is simply no dirt on her
Listen, I’m backing the Harris campaign 100%, but if you look at the history of San Francisco area politicians, you will see that very few are “clean.” I would not be surprised if it was the same for her.
I heard she also didn’t list any of her childhood lemonade stands on her IRS 1040 form. 🫢
Nope. However she has ties to Willie Brown, who is a notoriously corrupt politician in the San Francisco area. It’s a “where there is smoke…” situation. My point is not to assert that she has dirt but to point out that declaring there is no dirt might be a bit dubious.
I don’t list my high school/college part time job on my professional resume either. It isn’t that I’m assumed of where I worked, or it didn’t happen, it’s just that it feels like small potatoes and not relevant to when I’m applying to a new job in my field.
But if you’re the kind of person who achieved everything they ever did because of Daddy’s connections, that won’t seem obvious to you.
It goes beyond that and… if played “well” this could actually be effective.
For decades, the idea was that Democrats are out of touch hoity toity college kids who don’t care about The Working Man™. That has grown much less effective because… college debt is a massive issue because so many millennials went to college. And the republican candidates are all silver spoon kids who never worked a real job in their entire lives.
But if they can keep consistent pressure AND keep trump or vance or rfk from ever talking? Kamala will eventually have to acknowledge things and there is no “polite” way of saying “My work at McDonald’s was a summer job that had no bearing on my professional career”. Because that means:
- You don’t think working for Ronnie is a “real job”
- You are “better” than that
- You are “hiding” your past
All of which is obviously nonsense. But Biden and Kamala (and to a lesser extent Obama) have been pushing the straight up facts that Democrats are better for the working class. And this potentially undermines it.
I think we are “fine” in that the republicans will just switch back to carrying jizz cups sooner than later. But this definitely has potential to be one of those “How the hell did THAT impact an election?” moments.
if her resume is anything like any of the well-made mid-career resumes I’ve seen then she’s probably left off a lot of experiences, and she can simply handwaved it with a line like “I didn’t list X law clerk internship or y legal work at a corporation either because they aren’t as relevant as the jobs I chose to list” and move on
"I, like so many Americans, worked in a fast food service job. Unlike so many Americans I was able to pursue a career in the field my degree was in, which is an opportunity not given to far too many of our younger citizens. While pursuing those opportunities I tried to focus my resume on the achievements most relevant to the jobs I was applying for. Only after working in law and politics for years did I see that a dozen things needing your immediate attention with a constant time sensitive to-do list was a bit more relevant than those hiring managers would have been able to see. " Then some chatter about not expecting her time working there to come up as an attack, since resume writing and a job not aligned with your aspirational career are pretty normal occurrences, and not knowing that is kinda weird.
I don’t think it’s too hard to politely say that McDonald’s was not the career she was aiming for. It’s basically an acknowledgement that her parents weren’t rich and hiring managers get picky about resumes. Which is honestly a relatable narrative to a lot of people.
I don’t put my fast food experience on my resume, it was 25 years ago, but I have brought it up in interviews to talk about team work and pressure, and to demonstrate that I’ve been learning and improving for 25 years.
Same here, a lot of the experience I got in customer service jobs is very relevant for talking with business users in my profession, so it’s worth bringing up in interviews, even if it doesn’t feel appropriate to list it on my resume as job experience.
I think this type of attempt at a gotcha just shows that right leaning websites/people are grasping at straws when it comes to trying to cut down Harris.
No one puts fast food or retail gigs on their resume unless the experience is relevant or it’s your first or second job after retail.
Exactly you never list irrelevant jobs on a resume. If they ask about the gaps you can tell them but list too many employers can make a resume too long and bore the hiring manager. Also too many employers listed can make it look like you can’t hold a job or are unreliable.
Hiring manager here.
Friendly reminder, when you submit your employment history to a future employer, please do exactly what Harris did if you can. Please tell me about your recent relevant experience, and do not list out every random ass summer job you’ve had.
I’m overworked, I’m reading applications between meetings and I need concise, relevant info - not a 5 page memoir.
The entire point of a resume is that it is a 1 page summary of your relevant work experience. It was never meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive.
It’s reccomened to do 2 pages these days to hit all the automated resume screening points. 3 pages max if you’re in STEM applying for senior+ positions. Most relevant information should be front and center on that first page though for when it gets into the hands of a real person instead of a bot.
I’ve been an independent contractor for a while (so I havent filled put a resume recently), but afaik it’s strictly 1 page unless you have really really relevant experience. Yes keywords do matter now so it’s entirely possible it’s better to do 2 pages with more keywords. For my engineering degree though, we did a CV (curriculum vitae) which typically is longer than a resume but it’s not really a resume, it’s a CV. They are different.
After getting laid off last year (big tech worker with outstanding yearly reviews) , I had a service that my former company paid for that helps people prep for a job search after getting laid off.
I, like you, had this out dated assumption as well goong into the meetings with that service. They strongly advise people to go with 2 pages, if enough relevant experience exists, with custom tailoring for each job role, to ensure you’re hitting the key words and other data points the resume scanners are looking for. They came to this conclusion using data from said resume scanning services on passing resumes
Shit has changed a lot in the last 3-5 years. And I can only imagine it’s gotten worse over the last 14 months since I landed my job (Sr level) and modern LLMs have been integrated into the scanning services.
I think the idea of listing every job you’ve ever had on a resume is very outdated and anyone who still holds this belief is showing their age and privilege. This might have been relevant when you could expect to work for the same company for 20 plus years and maybe only change jobs 2 or more times in your life but that ain’t the case now (and hasn’t been for decades now). Hell I’ve lost count of how many companies I’ve worked for. I even completely changed professions after turning 40. It would be absolutely ridiculous to list any job experience that isn’t directly related to the skills needed for the job your applying for.
