Your job history is not an adequate reflection of who you are.

Really, it isn’t. If you go by just dates and lengths of employment, it says nothing positive. 

For example, looking over my work history, the longest I have been in a position was five years minus a few months. Every other job? Two at the max. This always worries me, that I look like I’m flighty and that I will just up and leave after two years, that I’m not stable or dedicated to a company.

I’m not flighty. I don’t just give up on work on a whim. For my reasons for leaving on this last application, I had to put promoted on many of them. The last three jobs, I left because I went to a new position of management or was guaranteed a position where I could have the ability to work only one job after years of working two or more.

Maybe it’s something in my thinking, that going after opportunities makes me look like a risk. I stepped down from my last position to go after a degree, but that’s a hard thing to make look good, too. I decided after a year to stop being stressed out to the point of bordering on a breakdown to go to school. It feels like a cop out, like that was the easy way out, that I didn’t have it in me anymore to do the job.

Sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to be so formal, either. For example, while debating working for a pizza place I enjoy, I wanted to phrase my cover letter as such:

“To Sir or Madaam:

You like pizza. I also like pizza. I would love to invent creative new pizzas with you. No, seriously. You have no idea how much I want to come and make pizza and enjoy good music and do something different for once.

Please hire me. I won’t call in sick or ask for much. My bosses have liked me. I’m a quality dame. Sometimes I’m funny. I like wrestling…and pizza. Usually together.

Please give me a chance. You won’t regret it!”

But…no. That’s not how these things work. So it comes out more like, “Experienced retail associate with management background committed to creating a personable shopping experience with a focus on blah de blah de blah…”

Gross.

But I’ll keep on plugging away, hoping someone thinks formal me is as interesting as non-formal me tries to be. References available upon request.