How do we put our missions on our resume? Do you others who served a mission include it? I want to include it as I think it is valuable experience, but I want to also let them know I now reject Mormon teachings. Should I try? Or just leave it out?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Maybe you could put it on in general terms as representing a church but not say which church. Then if they ask you can explain what you did and which church it was and also then say you're not a Mormon anymore.

I just list it as 2 years sales experience.

lol

Been there done that, in an interview, when asked about sales experience, I explained I had 2 years of sales experience selling a very difficult product, on which required at least 10% of your income, a religion. They liked that and I got a 2nd higher up interview.

My ex used to do recruiting for a huge international company. When he first encountered Mormons who had interrupted their university education to go on a mission, he automatically discarded their applications. He assumed that they didn't have enough dedication to their future careers to stay the course in school and charge right ahead to the work world.

Then he worked with a guy who was a Mormon (I got to know this guy and his family - totally TBM, but very nice, well educated, and fairly rational as TBMs go.) - and this changed my ex's opinion about serving a mission. He decided that it showed commitment, and that it was a good thing, so he didn't automatically discard applications from RMs any more. He didn't necessarily hire them, either, but at least he didn't consider them worthless.

So I guess it depends on the viewpoint of whoever is doing the hiring.

For what it is worth, when I was ward employment specialist and was in a CV training meeting. They said NOT to say u did mission but 'two yr volunteer work for an international organisation'

"Two years Peace-Corps type volunteer work sponsored by an international corporation."

You can add "in France/Germany/Argentina" but only if you ended up fluent in the language.

If asked which corporation, say they were later sued for fraud so you'd rather not say.

The important thing to remember about interviews is that their job is to screen you out. They are holding a gun for that purpose, only you have all the bullets.

Don't give them any.


Kathleen Waters

Yea, don't do it. If you have to, say you volunteered for 2 yrs. I used to intern for a corporate company and I had to sort through hundreds of resumes. The ones that said things like "helped others with spiritual growth for 2 years" or "volunteered teaching others about Christ" were such an eye roll for me!!

...the potential of having to explain the experience to a non-member who doesn't fully understand the dynamics of serving a mission has always, at least to me, outweighed any potential benefit of including it on my resume. I have always been disinclined to include it, even during those first few years of my career. Lumping that time into my college years always worked for me.

Why lie? Why not tell them that you gave up two years of your life to con people into a lie that Joseph Smith had four different visions look at a rock in his hat and married thirty three wives all while setting up a Masonic temple, Tell your boss that you think you will own your own planet and gods planet today is just down the road from Kolob.

Don't

Not if you have 10 years of work experience

That 2 lost years means jack by the age of 30


They will assume you just had crap jobs to pay way through a university experience of drunkenness and debauchery

My inclination would be to not include it. If you have language skills from a foreign mission, then include that in a separate category. The only reason you might consider including your mission is if international experience is important to your employer.

Thanks for that everyone. At the least I will now word it to be generic sales experience. At the most I'll just leave it out.

I put it in as 18 month of volunteering for a international organization, I add some more details about if necessary like learning a foreign language fluently, all the other "experiences" I put under soft-skills.

I would not include it, myself.

I immediately throw those away that make reference to a mission. To me, it shows that they have no other relevant experience, as well as poor judgement in wasting two years when they could have been furthering their education/career.

I find this highly subjective and mildly irresponsible.

and judgmental, some of the best salesmen around did the 2year thing. Your missing out.

Don't put it as sales experience. However, true the statement is, you cannot quantify the experience and will it require that you make shit up to answer a question about it. Remember you can't bullshit a bullshiter.

Don't leave it of if that means you would have a gap in your work/education history. Gaps will kill you faster than having spent two years on a religious mission. (Ten years work history plus education is a general rule.)

Short and sweat wins the day if you have to put it on your resume. Two years volunteer work is just about all you need. If you get questions about it, do not speak ill of the experience. Highlight episodes that will bolster your qualifications for the specific position for which you are applying. Almost the two worst things you can do in an interview are, show negativity and get off topic. Own your experience and past, just don't dwell on it.

Lastly good luck on the job search.

I put the relevant experience from that 2 year "conscription" in my resume many years ago because I could at least refer to the role I performed as the mission's financial secretary and the leadership role of managing people as a DL and ZL. I think it was something like this (two bullet points):
"•Managed the Operating Budget, Coordinated all Contract and Procurement Activities, Prepared Double-Entry Book Keeping with a General Ledger, Prepared Weekly/Monthly Financial Reports, Forecast and Developed the 1990 Operating Budget.
•Organized, Supervised, Trained, and Managed the Activities for 3 – 6 Districts with Approximately 4 – 10 Individuals per District."

The state in which I currently reside (and in which I have worked in various executive roles for over a 15 years) requires a more detailed employment application; in that application I provided additional details about my role as financial secretary. I was careful to avoid any reference to religion, proselyting, and focused on actual useful experience, skills, and business knowledge either developed or deployed that had relevance to the "real" world.

Why?

Primarily to avoid an employment gap and to leverage the relevant experience in that period in order to get my foot in the door post-mission and post college.

I worked long and hard in my delusional TBM mission days/daze and much of that work demonstrated reslience, leadership, and relevant work place skills. I also worked full-time as an undergraduate (mid/late 1980's interrupted by a mission) and through law school (early 1990's)and wanted to show a full work history void of any gaps. As mentioned above, gaps are worse than a two year block introducted generically as "my two-year experience in Portugal was of my own volition and at my own cost; I served in the following capacities, often concurrently..." followed by an honest description of useful skills (double-entry accounting, budgeting, financial management, personnel management, etc).

For the same reason, I also briefly reflected my work at a prominent grocery chain in my state while studying as an undergraduate and later as a law student - to avoid gaps, but to also demonstrate time management, stability, reliability, management of staff, and could then explain how that work resulted in scholarship funds from that employer for law school.

I would conjecture that most could provide a short bullet demonstrating some sort of relevant trait or experience gleaned in that time (or as many reflect back upon - that two years of hell that you'll never get back...."

When I first got back from my mission I was applying for sales jobs. I listed my mission as sales experience. The woman I interviewed with and who hired me, said it was the mission experience that got me the job. She said if I could sell religion that I could sell anything.

I also had it backfire on me when another interviewer said he would never hire a Mormon because they think they're better than everyone else and don't think they have to work as hard.

So I guess it comes down to the views of the person reading your resume. It can either help or hurt.

That being said, with TSCC getting so much bad publicity lately, it would probably be in your best interest to just list it as volunteer work.

I left it off, I did have a graduate degree and a year of experience between me and the mission, though. I had a couple managers ask about the gap, one gave me a knowing look when I said it was volunteer work, the others just said "okay" and moved on. Got a job out of it, no clue what the right answer is. Good luck!

If you are looking for space filler on your resume then put it on there as volunteer work. If you were a district or zone leader put that too and say you supervised x number of volunteers and maintained a 90 hour work week.

If you don't have room then it should probably be the first thing that drops off your resume.

This.

Not too many prospective employers will care that you were a missionary, unless of course you're applying for a job as a door-to-door salesperson.

If you have a really thin resume, it might possibly help pad it a bit if you are careful, but make sure it has relevance to the job you are applying for, such as leadership and work ethic, as oneflewwest noted. But unless you live where Mormonism is common and understood, trying to explain it without coming across as a religious nut will be difficult.

The only thing mission-related I have on my resume is that I speak Spanish fluently, but then that relates to one of my majors in college, so the mission never comes up.

As a nevermo, and someone who has been on both sides of the
hiring process: I would include it only if it's relevant
to the job, e.g. for a job in door to door sales.
Or: if you did something on your mission that was
substantially beyond what was expected.

Volunteer work can help on a resume if it shows skills,
accomplishment, leadership, recognition by your peers
or community, or dedication: long service that you
chose without pressure.

Volunteer work can hurt on a resume if the group
is controversial, or the work unimpressive.

I never put it on my resume. I don't need it there. It wasn't volunteer work. It was religious proselyting. My field of work really doesn't care about speaking a second language, so my Spanish skills don't help much either.

Just leave religion out of a resume.

A mission most certainly is NOT valuable experience that is worth a crap in the professional world...just sayin'...

If you put it on a resume, you run the risk of having someone very opposed to Mormonism (especially in Utah) just 86'ing your application without saying a word.

It sounds like you and your respondents may be interested in the Bloomberg Business Week article "Why Mormon Missions Produce Leaders" by Caroline Winter or the Forbes article "How a Mormon Mission Prepared Me to Open A Foreign Office." As an HR Director in the financial industry, I am shocked to see that respondents have discarded resumes based on religion. If you are a hiring manager, you are expected to act in a professional, ethical and legal manner. If these respondents or their acquaintances value their position, they may want to review the law.

Williams355 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If these respondents or their
> acquaintances value their position, they may want
> to review the law.

Very difficult to prove it was the reason for not giving employment to the applicant. Requires potentially costly representation on the part of the rejected applicant which likely will not result in plaintiff's satisfaction.

IMO, never list Mafia-like 'experience' on a CV.

I agree with tweaking the CV to the job desired.

There would have to be proof that they were a better candidate than the one that was hired, which is virtually impossible to do.

I don't hire or not hire based on religion, but I also won't tend towards hiring somebody who constantly brings up their religion in an interview as if it's the most important thing about them that I should know. I've had this happen and it does not belong in the work place and shows a lack of professionalism.

Maybe he was one of the three nephites.

In Brazil in the 80s missionaries were there to "study the language abd culture of Brazil" or so it said on the visa application.

Never have only one resume.

Tailor each resume to the job to which you're applying. Thus if you feel certain that your future boss or a majority of your potential coworkers are TBM, list the mission. If they aren't or you're not sure, delete it.

Your resume will likely be scanned with keywords sought and prioritized according to the needs of the organization and position. Tweak it accordingly.

I featured my missionary experience, along with being an EQP in a ward where all the other elders were older than me, very, very prominently in my application for Apostle of the Most High Lord.

...still waiting to hear back...

I have a cousin who used to work for the FBI doing background checks. At that time, any significant unexplained period was treated the same as if the person was in jail.

Simply list it as: "Religious Serve Volunteer." They can't ask you details if it's religious service, and volunteerism is often highly valued.

In a recent resume dropped on one of the Beltway Bandit firms,
I include my mission as "Study of the Australian Language."

A week later they Skyped me and the headhunter opened with "G'dai Mite! Looks like ya got th' job."

Y'jus' never can't tell.

Im long past the point where the two years matters on a resume. But when I was in the job market, 25 years ago, I never put it down. I never got asked about it.

Leave it off. I discard resumes which include irrelevant religious details because they reflect the applicant not understanding what is personal and what is professional. Likewise, don't tell me about your lovely wife and two gerbils on your resume.

Agree, leave it off.
I have put that I speak fluent French.
If they asked me during interviews, I said, "I lived in France for 2 years."
If they asked why (and it was rare), I said, "It was for my church, and was mostly educational." Mentioning church usually raises a red flag, at least for sane employers, not to ask any more questions about it.

I was too busy trying to explain all the scars and tattoos...

Inside the morridor, I don't know what your best option is.



But here in the south, if you can keep the Mormonism out of the reference, it can work to your favor.

How much service work did you do while you were on your mission?

I mean REAL service work.

Did you help build/repair shacks for the people in the country you served in? Did you teach English classes to the native population? Did you help with cleanup after a major storm hit the area where you were serving?


If you did REAL service, put down that you did volunteer work for a group with an international presence, and emphasize the SERVICE you did. Avoid mentioning the Mormonism completely.

OR

If you are not against the prevailing protestant religion of the region you live in here in the south (most often Baptist), get involved in that church and volunteer to teach Training Union when they study Mormonism.

If you are now active in a church like the Baptist church, educating folks about Mormonism, your two year stint will be forgiven, and job seeking will be much easier.

But that latter way is not for everybody.

There are many ways to finesse out the LDS mission on a resume.

1, just list your college graduation date. Your professional employers care little about your unskilled college jobs or when you started college. There's no need to show the gap at all. It's irrelevant.

2 If you didn't do college and went out at 18 or 19 just list the jobs you've had since your mission. List the school you graduated from, omit the date. If you have work experience, it will look pretty natural to most interviewers.

At the professional level, once you have a few years experience, the things you did prior to your professional career have little relevance most of the time.

Right after I returned from my mission, when I was still a university student and applied for an internhsip, I had to explain the two-year gap in my college education.

(Being in Brazil and not in Utah, nobody was impressed with my cultish two-year stint away from college. So I didn't get the job.)

Now that I am in my forties, my mission is something from such a distant past that I no longer feel the need to mention it. I have done several notewhorty things since then, and I focus on them instead.

A lot of protestants do fulltime missionary work too, especially in other countries. Be prepared to tell anyone in an interview generally about your experiences of teaching, and doing other general do-gooding, baptising, etc... while being prepared to smile and to decline to discuss the specific religion. It's fair to tell a potential employer that you wanted to be honest in your resume about those two years, but that you wouldn't want to discuss your religious beliefs because you wouldn't want your specific religious beliefs to bias a hiring decision either way. If you set a boundry, any smart employer won't push because at that point they would risk asking prohibited (illegal) questions then. If you exude confidence and a good countenance, and healthy boundaries, that shouldn't hurt your chances. If you can tell they're not mormons and might even be a bit Jesus Freaks themselves, you might even earn some points by using in passing, a phrase like " ... cults like mormonism".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2016 01:30AM by azsteve.

azsteve, just a comment:
It's not illegal to ask about somebody's religion, or to discuss it during an interview.

It's only illegal to discriminate in hiring based on an applicant's religious beliefs. And ironically, it's not illegal to hire someone specifically because of their religious beliefs, only to NOT hire them because of their beliefs.

Most companies don't *want* interviewers to ask any questions about religion, and so "prohibit" the questions...but not because they're illegal. It's because if you reject the applicant, they can't come back and sue you for not hiring them because of their religion if you never discussed religion.

A new home salesman back in 1980's Gilbert AZ had some sort of plaque on his office wall that proclaimed to the world he had performed "Social Work" in New Zealand for 2 years. I was tempted to inquire further but just laughed to myself instead

Don't forget it's a two way street. You should know as much as possible about your prospective employer before the interview. Research on line, through Facebook, and talk to other employees when possible to get an idea of the interviewer's and the company's personality. This will give you an idea how to present your experience as a positive no matter who the interviewer is.

I think it is good for some instances to leave it off, or list it as a cultural experience, but whether your possible employer is Mormon or anti-Mormon or ambivalent, the mission experience can be made to work for you.

Say, your employer is not impressed with Mormons. Then perhaps say, "I am in a different place in my life now with my priorities and I wouldn't do it again, but I did learn an awful lot about life to take with me into the future that I would never regret. It is very hard work (explain the long hours and the difficulties), but I learned I could keep going no matter what, even if I didn't feel like it. I met so many different kinds of people and that broadened my skill set with regard to working with others to achieve goals even when variable change."

As Judy might say, "Like clouds and love and life, I've looked at missions from both sides now."

As you may see from the posts: "it depends."

When I was younger and had less experience I felt it was more important to list. It was actually helpful in getting my internship, because I had international experience in a region the job focused on.

Now that I have more experience, the relative importance of a Mormon mission is diminished. So I would probably just be vague like "religious volunteer" under other experience or something like that.

But, if you are applying to the kind of job that needs to account for what you were doing moment by moment you may take a different approach and list it off more specifically.

When I first left this was a very difficult matter, because my resume screamed Mormon in so many ways--starting with BYU. But, I didn't feel like that's who I was at the time. The me of the past was not the me of the now, and how do you present that? Difficult.

It took my current employers a few months before they really understood that I wasn't Mormon anymore--even though I told them as much. For some people, religion is just something you are born with, why else does DJT wonder out loud if Muslim might be written on the President's birth certificate?

It was so long ago that I don't remember exactly what I put on my resume, but I applied for a summer job with the BLM out of Salt Lake City. I got the job - I had prior experience, but my supervisor who was of Japanese descent, thought it would be fun to have someone who spoke a bit of Japanese. She wasn't LD$.

Can't believe I'm getting emails now from this old thread. Must be years ago now.

I've included it on resumes to highlight relevant skills, but try to subtly let them know I'm no longer a zealot.

I used to put that in my resume. I did apply a long time ago, to a company that had offices in the same building as the Church Offices (this was in another country). So when interviewed I was asked if I was a member of that church at the fifth level... and I said "yes". So he then asked again: "but you are not one of them?" and I immediately understood the answer to that was going to get me in or out of the job, So I said NO. Then he said "good, you start next Monday"