Yikes.
For those of you who have a job in your work history that’s not on your resume… look out, here comes Equifax.
Equifax feeds your work, salary, and possibly tax information to The Work Number, an employment verification service used by many companies to outsource their employment background check data. In some cases, The Work Number might hold week by week pay information about you! Here’s the NBC report about it. And here’s the website for The Work Number.
What’s a job seeker to do?
The risk: You have a resume that has a gap. That gap represents a job at a company that may or may not feed information to The Work Number. If that employer is a large employer that outsources its employment verification process, I’d err on the side of including that iffy job, despite the downside of your short tenure. In addition, you will need to make sure you fill out your salary history from that employer correctly on any future applications.
If, however, you worked at a start-up company, I think you may be able to leave a job off your resume without too much risk. (Make sure if you leave it off your resume you also leave it off your LinkedIn profile. Also, if you have previously submitted a resume to a headhunter or possible employer, make sure you are consistent with what you’ve submitted in the past since your resume stays in a resume tracking system.)
Not all career advisors will agree with me; many say your resume should have a complete history no matter what.
My personal view is that you should ALWAYS be honest on a resume… with what you INCLUDE. I don’t think you need to volunteer information that might stop someone from calling you, so I think it’s fair to EXCLUDE things on your resume.