Comments on: Politics… and Resumes https://corporette.com/politics-and-resumes/ A work fashion blog offering fashion, lifestyle, and career advice for overachieving chicks Wed, 17 Nov 2021 20:05:19 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 By: bb https://corporette.com/politics-and-resumes/#comment-4241119 Wed, 17 Nov 2021 20:05:19 +0000 https://corporette.com/?p=124246#comment-4241119 Disclaimer, I used to work in politics (and now in “normal” corporate America) so I may be a bit more open to hiring somebody with a political background.
In general – I think include it if it is important to you! Having to censor an important interest/passion of yours for an application is probably not a sign of a supportive, healthy environment to work at anyways. If a hiring manager cannot see past your political affiliation/activism on a piece of paper and thus don’t deem you worthy of an interview, honestly you have probably dodged a bullet.
My only caveat is: there is always a right and wrong way to present anything on a resume. Focus on your accomplishments and skills demonstrated as anon said above! Leave any inflammatory or underhanded insults off, and run it by some trusted friends to make sure you’re not subconsciously saying something aggressive. I wouldn’t necessarily write “fighting capitalism” in my hobbies/interests section, but activities like community organizing or publishing content for an organization are a bit more tangible!

]]> By: Anon https://corporette.com/politics-and-resumes/#comment-4240734 Tue, 16 Nov 2021 21:01:53 +0000 https://corporette.com/?p=124246#comment-4240734 Maybe this is my bias as a former VP, I don’t think clubs belong on a resume if you merely showed up at a few meetings. If you’re not an officer, attending conferences, and helping to set up panels, your involvement isn’t really relevant to anything. At least in my experience, if it means something to a hiring manager, they will place a call and quite quickly figure out whether or not you were heavily involved or only darkened a door when free pizza was involved.

That brings up the larger point: you should only have these things on your resume if they demonstrate something important about your skills, rather than “you” as a person. If you are the chair of a statewide ballot initiative, you are fundraising, interacting with the press, filing reports, coordinating a huge number of volunteers, and meeting with stakeholders. In that case, it’s easy to put the focus on the achievements and the responsibilities, rather than the actual issue.

Counterintuitively, I think political activism works better on a resume when it runs counter to the area’s prevailing ideology: it demonstrates the ability to be effective despite long odds, and further demonstrates an ability to be reasonable with people with whom one disagrees. There’s something impressive about an ACLU member from Alabama that there just isn’t about a Boston campus progressive activist.

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