Kamala Harris’s McDonald’s Days Aren’t on Her Resume, and Your Fast-Food Job Probably Shouldn’t Be on Yours

Oh, no! Is it possible that presidential hopeful Vice President Kamala Harris lied about working at McDonald’s? The Washington Free Beacon breathlessly points out that, saying  “Would you like fries with that?” wasn’t on her résumé, even one year after graduating from college!

Admittedly, I’m not doing a fact-check on this. I’m not going to dig through 30-year-old employment records to try to determine if Harris ever flipped burgers, as she claimed on The Drew Barrymore Show in April, for two reasons.

1. I don’t care whether Harris worked there or not. I hope she did, though. Everyone should work in either a retail or restaurant environment, because it teaches you that the customer is not always right. This is a valuable life skill.
2. She was probably being strategic in leaving it off her résumé.

Fast-food jobs are good jobs

I reference my time at Burger King occasionally, but you won’t find it on my résumé or LinkedIn profile. I’m not ashamed of it. It was a great job, and I was even employee of the month once.

I don’t reference it now, because it was more than 30 years ago, and my ability to make a Whopper correctly doesn’t have anything to do with my ability to train HR professionals on FMLA compliance.

I certainly did have it on my résumé right when I graduated from college. But do you know what I didn’t have on my résumé? My time at Hardee’s. Yes, for the first time in public, I’m confessing that Burger King wasn’t my first fast food job. I left Hardee’s after three months because I got an A minus in AP biology, and I was neurotic and devastated. I decided that I needed to devote more time to studying. Plus, the management was terrible.

I just left it off, because I was there for such a short time and had a solid 18 months of Burger King experience. I did work at Hardee’s, though, and if you’d like to do a thorough background check on me, you’ll find it. (Email me for my maiden name, as that will make it easier to track down.)

Most people just finishing school should include their fast-food, retail, restaurant, temp, lawn mowing, and other short-term jobs on their resumes. It shows you have grit and gumption and all that stuff. It’s great.

But, as soon as you gain more relevant experience, the fast food falls off. If I had had multiple internships or something else fancy when I started applying for jobs straight out of college, I would have dropped the Burger King stint as well. No offense to flame-broiled goodness. 

Evaluating résumés

Harris is running for president, and we all should evaluate her relevant experience. A better question to ask is why she has been avoiding interviews. Running for president is a job interview, and she’s not scheduling interviews–in person or via video. There are other things to be concerned about as well, but this is not a political post. 

If you’re evaluating résumés, it’s important to remember one thing: These are marketing documents.

Just like Coke doesn’t lead with “Remember that experiment in third grade where your teacher dissolved a tooth in a glass of Coke?” your candidates aren’t leading with the things that make them look bad or unqualified.

There’s no requirement to include every job you ever had. There’s no requirement to include your last job. Sure, you’ll have to explain what you were doing, but you can leave it off if it suits you.

A job application may ask you to list all your jobs, and then sign that the information is true. In that case, don’t leave off your last job.

But even in those bullet points of accomplishments, people list only good things. They aren’t listing the project they bombed or the time their boss chewed them out for telling a dirty joke. Nope. They try to hide it.

You try to hide it. 

An employer should always take job applicants’ accomplishments (including presidential candidates’) with a grain of salt. And candidates should always take hiring managers’ and company claims with a whole shaker of salt. (“Oh, sure, we believe in work-life balance! And the leadership team is great! Perfect place to work! Never been happier!”)

But teenage and college jobs should fall off your résumé quickly. So it doesn’t shock me that Harris left McDonald’s off her résumé.

Besides, Burger King was better. Hah!

Also, a shout-out to Wendy’s, where I applied as well. The manager literally told me my GPA was too high and that “we don’t want people who care about school.” I wonder what that manager is doing now.

To be fair, I did quit Hardee’s because of an A-minus, so maybe Wendy’s manager knew what he was doing.