Does a mission look good on an application/resume when trying to apply to a good business school (MBA program) at a top notch, non mormon university? I mean I can portray it as sales and leadership experience. I just don't want it to count against me somehow.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2013 01:05AM by brothergalileo.

...since the mission experience itself is just so surreal and bizarre.

...the mission experience and everything that goes along with it in an interview? My feeling has always been - NO! I don't even want to go there despite the "sales" and leadership experiences I probably gained.

NO. It screams "I'm a self rightious prick with no real work experience"

Leave it off.

In Utah, yes. Outside in the real world, no.

When helping you with writing your CV, LDS employment services tell you not to detail it as a mission, but as 'volunteer service'
I was ward employment 'specailist' and heard this on more that one occassion.

It hurts you if you interview with me. And I do ALOT of interviewing in my profession

I would never, ever, ever want to work for you. You are unethical and I wouldn't be able to be around it.

Don't ask about or question people's religious beliefs. There is something very wrong with that. You need to stop.

A Mormon missionary is the one who spends two years exclusive to questioning everyone else's religious beliefs.

I really couldn't care less what a Mormon missionary does. A Mormon missionary's unethical behavior does not excuse unethical behavior in the business world.

Just because a brainwashed 19 year old went on a mission doesn't mean they are unethical. A lot of wonderful, intelligent people that are hard workers went on missions...including plenty of RFM folks. I agree that you have some serious biases to reconsider.

To the OP-obviously it looks bad to some. I'd go with something more vague.

snb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would never, ever, ever want to work for you.
> You are unethical and I wouldn't be able to be
> around it.
>
> Don't ask about or question people's religious
> beliefs. There is something very wrong with that.
> You need to stop.


Putting "I was on a Mormon mission" on a resume is the *applicant* raising the issue. The interviewer need not ever say a thing about it, but the interviewer has every right to discard an application for whatever reason he or she desires (whether we like this fact or not), up to and including things like the font in which it's printed (some employers use scanners that look for specific key words and not all of them read all fonts).

Nonetheless, it is still illegal to make hiring decisions based on the "Mormon" part of that experience.

Illegal.

It is also highly unethical. I have no tolerance for people like that and I personally would refuse to work for them.

Chances are very high that you do already. Ever gone through a pile of a hundred resumes? You gotta learn how to narrow em down real quick. How many times have you walked into a restaurant where only mexicans or east indians work? That's not by accident

No it looks bad. It took me awhile to figure that out. Don't include it. If you learned a language include that, or any specific skills somehow (jungle warfare?).

Well I was going to say yes. Cuz my ex always listed it. But when I think of it the interviews didnt exactly come rolling in!And if you had a bad experianceor dont want to talk about the church ...no..The tribe has spoken!

Let me risk sounding like a knowitall self righteous prick, who is just trying to stir the pot and say that it depends. However, it doesn't depend on what you think it depends on.

If it takes you six years to graduate from college you need to put your two year volunteer service on your resume if only to explain that ugly scar in your schooling.

If there is a two year gap in your work history you don't want a prospective employer thinking that you went backpacking in Europe for two years, you need to explain that you were performing volunteer work.

If you offer a foreign language as a skill but you have lived in Orem your whole life. Or sun reflecting on your skin would blind anyone within a mile you need to explain how you learned that language.

The point of the above is that gaps or inconsistencies are compounded when you don't include relevant info. BUT

If you're forty and have worked for twenty years as an accountant what the eff are you putting your two best years on your resume for. No one cares what you did twenty years ago.

If you insist on putting your mission on as a religious experience expect to be ridiculed behind your back.

Even if you feel obliged to put it on, don't think that it is worth anything but an explanation. If the words Zone Leader and Leadership experience leave your mouth than you won't get that job. If you answer any question with, "well when I was on my mission" than you can just get up and walk out because you screwed up. If you even think about saying the phrase "the best two years" than your chances of getting that job just went from two percent to zero.



So in conclusion. Lots of scenarios require that you put your mission on your resume, but none of them give you the go ahead to talk about it.

Absolutely not. Even as a "believer" I hated seeing resumes with anything that even hinted of religion. It doesn't belong there. And in no way should even be talked about.

Our HR rules are very specific. Don't even ask about religion, beliefs, anything even similar to that.

Of course in SLC lala land, mission would probably help you out but I'd be really skeptical about working for a place where it did.

A lot of the current generation of college grads took a long time to graduate. Many of them funded said education with student loans and did not work, so I've gotten used to seeing a gap between HS graduation and college graduation in the work history.

The advice about the mission not being appropriate for a resume extends to a lot of other things as well. People will flat-out make !@#$ up in order to be more competitive. Volunteering once a month at the animal shelter doesn't make you a "Veterinary assistant;" likewise, selling your blood plasma doesn't make you a "Medical Research Assistant."

Most recruiters and hiring types don't really care how you came across your knowledge. If you learned a foreign language, make sure the language is listed. If you learned basic book-keeping because you worked in the mission office, put down that skill too. But putting down two years of volunteer work tells me nothing about you if I have no clue what you learned during those two years that would be of use to me, which is the whole point of a resume.

...If you MUST account for those two years (which is a big IF these days with most students taking 5-6+ years for undergrad), I would downplay it as much as possible. Don't make a huge deal out of its "sales" and leadership experiences. Say you voluteered for your church and leave it at that.

Many years ago, I had a cousin who worked for the FBI and was involved in background checks of potential employees. Any significant amount of unaccounted time was treated the same as if the person was in jail for that time.

I agree with shadoe above. Sorry to say, but don't list it. It might (and I stress might) have been seen as a resume booster decades ago, but not today with the horrid image problems distilling as the dew-dew from heaven on the Morg.

Romney ran for POTUS, he used his mission in his life's bio. Look where that got him. LOOSER. The public isn't buying the Mormon Brand - there are too many image problems to overcome.

But, but, but you'll say . . . Yah, I know . . . all the other wealth he accumulated and being a governor et all.

Still, I say LOOSER - don't use it!

Lots of people are saying no. I get that. It is kind of a scary thing.

Here is how people view Mormons:

In Utah people either strongly accept Mormons or strongly dislike Mormons.

Outside of Utah people couldn't care less if you paid them to.


So, if you put it on your resume outside of Utah I would go with generalized wording. Maybe you could name the church, or maybe you could just go with a description that is generally religious but not specific (yes, other religions spend time outside of the US).

I've had some very intelligent people tell me that especially in academia people might be interested. Not because you might or might not be Mormon, but because your story will be very different than another person's story.

Inside of Utah I would be very careful about putting it on a resume. There are some people that will ignore you outright because of it. Mormons are also suspect. I talked to a Mormon business owner about this maybe a month ago and he said that he ignores applications that ONLY have missionary experience on them because they don't produce the kinds of workers he is looking for.

Like everything, think about it. The best answer is probably not, but if you have to include it be careful.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2013 02:13PM by snb.

brothergalileo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does a mission look good on an application/resume
> when trying to apply to a good business school
> (MBA program) at a top notch, non mormon
> university? I mean I can portray it as sales and
> leadership experience. I just don't want it to
> count against me somehow.

I would leave it off entirely, to be honest. However, if you learned a second language, I would include *that* information (e.g., "Fluent in English, Japanese ..." whatever.)

When a person in the government works in a position that is particularly sensitive, another agency in the government will perform "backstopping" generic cover stories for the individual to account for the time in question that the person spent, without releasing specific information. Perhaps it's time for one of our more clever people here to gin up a sort of backstopping cover story service here. An RfM member applies, explains where he or she went on a mission, and gets data-based. If a prospective employer ever makes an inquiry about the 18-month or 2-year period, the employer contacts the phone number of the person or persons providing the story; the service verifies that he or she has indeed performed "volunteer service for our organization" (or some other generic explanation) for the period in question.

I'm young enough and returned from my mission recently enough that a potential employer would probably be suspicious of a big gaping two year hole in my resume. So in my service section, the last line is a generic "full-time church service in San Diego, CA." As soon as I start my next job (and have enough post-mission jobs to fill my resume), the mission line will be the first thing to go from my resume. I can't wait.

For the first few years after I returned from my mission, potential employers would ask, "What did you do between such-and-such job and now? So I would phrase it like this:

Volunteer for religious organization
Beginning month/year to ending month/year
- speak fluent blah blah
- trained others

Stuff like that. After a few years, I dropped the missionary service line from my resume since no one cared anymore. Including me.

If you're applying for something which is run by mormons (i.e. in Utah), then obviously it's a great thing to put down. But otherwize, it's not very useful.

It depends how much work experience you have on your resume post-mission. If you've only been back a year, then you'll want to explain why you have a 2-year gap in employment. It doesn't make sense to leave it blank.

You can change it to volunteer work and frame it like the peace corps.

Having the mission on my resume helped me in AZ until I had enough relevant work experience to take it off.

It should absolutely not go under the job experience section of your resume. But, if you have a section where you list bullet points of other skills it can go there. I would just put it down as "Volunteer service in X - 2009-2011". Don't mention that it's church-related, don't use the terms "LDS" or "mission".

If you were a DL or something, you could maybe beef up that line just a little by saying something like, "Managed Y number of service volunteers in X - 2009-2011".

That way any gaps are covered, but you're not drawing attention to it.