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Comment by hbcondo714 | Hacker News Reader

I was laid off from a CTO role in 2016. I was only at the company for 9 months but the President who hired me was let go by the board and myself and a few others were let go shortly after by the new President. I landed my next full-time job in the same industry a year later as a VP but between that I struggled a bit & even contracted as a developer working on a ReactJS web app.

I still have the CTO role on the front page of my resume but I can't help but think prospective employers shy away from me assuming my short-lived C-level role ended by termination even though it says "downsized".

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It's so interesting that people get hired on account of the organizations and jobs they've held in the past, instead of strictly based on current skill. It sounds like those things should roughly line up, but from my experience they often don't. Makes for a high-friction and vaguely irrational recruiting process.

> I can't help but think prospective employers shy away from me assuming my short-lived C-level role ended by termination

I understand that if they're not enthusiastic about the rest of your resume in the first place, they might not bother checking your references, but generally, isn't that why one provides references? So the prospective employer can check your story?

Or perhaps ask for a letter of recommendation (though it's probably a bit too late for that now, I'm just thinking of the general case)? Not sure if that is a thing for C-level jobs.

yeah, I'd think of removing that. It just looks bad. No one can tell if you are lying about it.

Yeah, a recruiter actually told me to add "downsized" but I see your point too.

I agree. A resume is not supposed to be so much a confessional as a brag sheet. If you are not proud of it, consider removing it. But be sure you have a cover story for the interview. e.g. "it was a job where so much went wrong. I learned a lot from it, like what I do and don't want to do, and that is definitely something I do not want to do again." Safe statements whose accuracy can easily be defended.

removing what? the entire CTO position? or just the bullet point that said it was due to downsizing?

both things. cto is great, but you'll have to spend a lot of effort to explain your side of it and that you weren't removed by cause. if someone ever brings it up, then you explain, and say that you weren't hiding it, you were wanting to avoid wasting time on a confusing situation and you are happy to discuss it.

The conundrum I have with this is not just removing it from my personal resume but also from LinkedIn. In my experience, recruiters and companies pay for the premium version of LinkedIn so they can see my entire profile even though I limit viewing to just my connections. I would like to keep the CTO role on my LinkedIn because I have connections, colleagues endorsing my skillsets and recommendations from the former President and a VP.

If there is a discrepancy between a personal resume and LinkedIn, then that ends up being a "red flag" in the eyes of recruiters and HR.

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