Those jobs you leave off your resume? They still matter. Here's why

What jobs did you have before your "real" career? You know, the jobs you don't include on your LinkedIn profile. When was the last time you really thought about them?

We're gonna think about them again.

I've also got some strong thoughts on keyboard trackers and productivity monitoring measures. More on that below including a round up of links that are ?? worth your time, the one person you should follow on LinkedIn this week, and one more thing.

???? ??'Pre-career' careers and why they matter

Whether or not you're still early in your professional career or hitting the later stages, those first jobs and internships you held still matter. What you experienced and learned continues to have influence on your current career.

Here's what I mean.

These are the jobs I held after graduating high school, through college and right after (takes a deep breath):

?? Seasonal cashier, Macys in the linen department (1 month, first job!)

?? Landscaping laborer (4 months, quit)

?? Line cook at a Greek restaurant (3 days ??)

?? Retail customer service at a hardware store (quit, 6 months)

?? Delivery and service at a tool yard (fired, 6 months)

?? Buss boy (then server) at Red Lobster (worst job, fired, 1 1/2 years)

?? Retail customer service at an art store (fired, 1 year)

?? Used car salesman (quit, 2 months)

?? Server at a seafood restaurant (quit, 2 years)

?? Government Intern (2 months)

?? Intern at California Builders Industry Association (3 months)

?? Part-time english teacher (1 year)

?? Editor at a small print travel magazine (1 year)

I'll note it took me nearly 7 years to graduate college. Two years at a junior college and four more at University while working and figuring myself out.

Everybody has a different journey and this was mine. Not ashamed of it.

Quite proud of it actually.

When I asked the LinkedIn community what jobs they had in their "pre-careers" the answers ranged from part time sports writer, customer service associate at Blockbuster, lifeguard, pot-washer at a bakery, "bra-fitting consultant" at Victoria's Secret, office clerk, cafeteria worker, mining safety lead, circus performer, EMT, substitute teacher, to de-icing tech at United Airlines, and many more.

As Katelyn Richards commented, "Many of us have lived full lives beyond our resumes alone!"

That's it right there.

The best practice is to put our most-relevant work experience on our resumes and LinkedIn profiles as it relates to our current career status and aspirations. This is pretty common knowledge.

I'm not listing "Used Toyota Car Salesman, April 1st, 1999 - June 2nd 1999" on my resume or as a career accomplishment.

And I doubt that somebody with the current title of "Health Economics Manager" is going to list "bra-fitting consultant" on theirs either.

But what selling used cars did contribute to my life and career was the realization that it wasn't going be my path, and that I needed to step up my academic game.

?? What laboring in 100+ degree temperatures digging holes in other people's backyards taught me is that some people have to do those jobs to get by, and it is hard work.

?? What working in the retail and service industries dealing with customers all day taught me to respect service industry workers and understand they don't get paid enough.

?? What teaching kindergartners English for a year in a foreign country taught me is that teachers are super heroes who deserve more credit, support, and pay.

These jobs also taught me that work is perfectly acceptable as purely a means to an end, and there's zero shame in whatever it is you do to earn money (within reason, of course) if its what you have to do to get by.

My "pre-career" career taught me patience, respect for others and what they do, empathy, humility, a hard-work ethic, resilience, and that you don't always figure things out on the first, second or even sixth go of it, and that's perfectly OK.

Maybe you're still in the middle of your pre-career (whatever that might be) and figuring things out, working to get by because that's what's available right now.

That's fine.

Keep exploring and discover your path, doing what you need to do, and never be satisfied or complacent.

If like me it's been some time since your pre-career career, occasionally take a few moments to look back and remember your experiences and see if there's some hidden lessons you can dig up that you could apply to your current career.

What jobs did you have before your "real" career that you don't put on your CV? Comment below. ??

?? Keyboard trackers and productivity monitoring

We're still, mostly, in a brave new world of remote and hybrid work.

The pandemic has come and nearly gone, though still lingering and present in daily life with the effects still being felt.

The nature of work has drastically changed as a result and continues to do so. A big part of it is the continuation of remote work post-pandemic.

The transition to remote work employees understandably wasn't smooth for every company out there, but many have still retained at least a portion of remote employee positions.

As a part of that adjustment, there's been a rise in use of time tracking and productivity monitoring tools. Not to be confused with tools that help make you more productive, but not by spying. Instead the good products out there are the ones that help manage time and efficiency, rather than hold an employee accountable for every keystroke and minute spent on their computer.

How prevalent are time tracking and productivity monitoring tools? According this survey 6 in 10 of the companies polled use them. This is basically to ensure staff are "being productive" and working the hours they're supposed to be working.

This doesn't just apply to remote workers either. According to the Verge, at Tesla "employees have complained of excessive monitoring (including tracking keystrokes) and productivity targets that are so high that employees have felt pressured to not visit the bathroom."

Elon Musk doesn't need keyboard trackers because we all already know where he spends all his time...Tweeting.

How do I feel about these practices?

Kill them.

With fire.

Safe to say I'm not a huge fan. Seems that's the general sentiment.

You can still vote in Riva Gold 's poll here.

To the companies that do this to their employees:

There's a better way.

Hire the right people and measure them on reasonable deliverables. If they don't deliver the results required to succeed, part ways, assess your hiring practices and expectations and find a better fit.

Of course there's going to be bad apples that take advantage of the added freedom of remote work. And the benefit for a company that installs spy software is that it can protect itself against potentially fraudulent claims and "time theft".

But employers should be seriously asking themselves the immediate return might end up hurting in the mid to long run. Turnover, retention issues, dissatisfaction, setting a bar of average, not excellent performance are should all be considered.

So what's the compromise, especially if trust with employees might be an issue?

If there's reason to be concerned about an employee not being productive enough or hitting their KPIs, is it the right move to track everybody's time and activity and risk damaging employee retention on the chance of catching a bad apple or two?

Consider the results of the survey mentioned above:

• 88% of employers terminated workers after implementing monitoring software
• 81% of companies that implemented monitoring software saw an increase in worker productivity

Of course a high percent these employers terminated workers after implementing monitoring software. They obviously installed the software because they knew they had a problem and didn't trust their employees in the first place.

How can you build a good culture without trust?

It's worth asking: Why did they have a problem? What outcomes were they tracking? Especially if they were concerned about time theft.

Time theft is only time theft if an employee isn't delivering on the agreed outcomes of the job description.

Here's what I mean:

"At the end of the week these tasks must be finished." Tasks get done? Great. Tasks start slipping? Investigate. If this is made clear from the outset of hiring it's easier to manage when something goes wrong down the line.

• Should the Sales Development Rep (SDR) who makes less calls but has a higher closing rate be punished because they're not making as many calls as the SDR who hits high volume but closes less qualified leads?
• Should the Quality Assurance Tester who logs less bugs but finds the most critical issues that save the company money get dinged for not finding as many less-critical bugs as somebody else?
• Should the recruiter who spends less time sourcing candidates for a role but has a exceptional placement success with high retention rates be nicked for not sending through as many qualified candidates by volume as would be dictated by hitting productivity metrics?

So "productivity" may go up, but what about employee retention and satisfaction? What happens to those performing employees forced to fit into a system that might push against top performance?

?? If you hire the right people for the right (remote) roles, use software that upskills and improves productivity without punishment, and set clear expectations, then there's less need for spy software and productivity / time tracking monitoring.

Anyway, here's some links that are...

?? Worth your time

• Corporate digital learning company Skillsoft released the Lean Into Learning 2022 Report (PDF downloadable) on February 14th which provides some excellent insights into hybrid work in 2023, building inclusive work environments, IT skills and salary reports, the top 20 industries that leveraged learning, top trending topics across a variety of categories and quite a bit more. Worth a read through.
• Why are some laid off workers not rushing to find new jobs? After the initial shock of being laid off dissipates, some are actually finding some relief and spending time to take stock of their next move.
• A compelling take from Forbes arguing that the longer you remain at a firm without learning new skills or advancing, you fall behind your competition. How to earn more money and learn new skills? Moving on to another opportunity.
• The "Rule of 5 little things to start being more productive, focused and happier." I like number 3.
• As the population gets older, is the 40 year career turning into the 60 year career? Here's some thoughts as to what those 60 year careers could look like.
• From a recently laid-off tech worker, "the least helpful thing you can do when someone you care about and respect been laid off is to send some version of this message: 'I'm so sad to hear you were impacted by the layoffs. If you need anything, just let me know.'" She suggests a great alternative to this approach.

?? If you could follow only one person this week...

• Then it should be *drumroll* Virtual Keynote Speaker, Course Instructor and Consultant Lorraine K. Lee . She's also got a new newsletter you can subscribe to. Very active, a LinkedIn Learning instructor and former LinkedIn News Editor, Lorraine's updates and content is easy to digest and informative. She's also a genuinely nice person, and that always helps!

??This week's random but useful LinkedIn tip

• Don't believe everything you read or see on how to use ChatGPT. I've seen some "advice" and explainers floating around on LinkedIn purporting to show how to use ChatGPT to generate new "original" content based off of other people's successful or trending LinkedIn posts. So before commenting "Brilliant!" on some marketing "expert's" post, really use a keen eye to see if what they're showing you how to do lands closer to plagiarism than "inspiration."

2?? more things...

• I've been regularly using generative AI to create imagery for this newsletter and I fiddled with Midjourney to create a futuristic concept of an editor's desk. Here's the result based on this prompt: editor's workstation, messy desk, futuristic, metalic and wood, white background, product photography, photorealistic, hyper-realism, 3d, 8k --ar 1:1

• A trailer for AppleTV's Tetris movie just dropped and it looks glorious.

Yup. Count me in.

Until next week, have a good one.