Employment history

[LauraMercier]

Do you have to declare all your previous jobs on an application form or CV?

Pre kids I had a pretty solid career but I dabbled briefly in a couple of totally unrellated jobs part time for 2ish years. Now I'm back to my pre kids career but hating my current job. I want to start applying for other jobs (in the same profession) but I'm worried that having only been in current job 6 months it will look really bad that I only stayed in my previous 2 part time jobs for 9 months and 18 months respectively, and they were so so different.

As they were unrelated to my actual career/profession I look on it as a career break so I'd be happy to list it as such on my CV, but if it were to come out, would it look like I had lied? I don't want to be dishonest, it just doesn't seem relevant now. I've had great references from both jobs so I don't have any worries about that.

In truth after maternity leave I thought I'd try something totally different, didn't really like it, tried something else, decided I actually really missed my old career, plus we really needed the money because our circumstances changed so I went back to it, but i have actually found myself in an awful office, with a bullying boss, I'm not sleeping, I'm on edge all the time and I just want to leave, but I'm actually enjoying the actual work.

so it's kind of like (fictious btw):

2000 - 2005 Senior Accountant
2005 - 2009 Head of Finance
2009 Painter and Decorator
2009 - 2011 Preschool Assistant
2011 Management Accountant

Would it be better to just put:

2000 - 2005 Senior Accountant
2005 - 2009 Head of Finance
2009 - 2011 Career break/family
2011 Management Accountant

when I first started working I worked in a pub in the evenings but I never used to include it on my CV and this feels like that but not quite as simple

I would probably do the same to be honest - if someone then mentioned my 'career break' in interview I would say that I took a couple of light part-time jobs to stop me getting bored whilst I concentrated on my family.

Saying that, you might want to ask yourself what you need in the next job to make you settle down again happily, and make sure that you only take a job that ticks those boxes, because another short stint will make your cv start looking a little bit toxic. If you are only working really because of the money you might want to think about switching to doing temp/contract work, if you think that might suit you better.

I have had someone apply to me in different profession who had done exactly as you had. She listed the time she had worked in the pre-school and explained that she wanted a less challenging role while her children were small. In her covering letter she explained what she had done to bring her skills up to date and also why returning to the profession which has anti-social hours was right for her. This got her an interview with as and there should got to put forward her merits.

the first ten years of my life I worked as a Secretary/administrator and changed about every 2-3 years - and that work experience is largely irrelevant to what I do now.

So I just write
1988-2008 - Secretarial and Administration positions, working with in the Education and Television production sectors.

1998-1998, obviously [rolleyes]

aaaaargh! you know what I mean.