employment gap on resumes and interviews?

[sunshine539]

hi all,

I am looking to apply for per diem jobs on top of my current position, just looking to see a bit more on my days off. I currently work for an LTACH or long term acute care hospital/transitional care. I have been in this position for 2 years. However, my previous job i was at for about 1.5 years and i was ultimately terminated for a documentation error; however the management had changed and they were out to find anything to get me out since the office manager did not like me for some reason. i was not happy because the job was advertised different and had been looking for a new job but they beat me to the punch line. I am not sure how to now put this on my resume. Is it ok not to include the months on my resume (i.e. 2014-2015 2015-current) (i have a 2 month gap in employment) and how to i explain it if it comes up during an interview? I mean i am obviously not going to lie about it if they ask but i'm just trying to figure out how to move forward from this and continue on my nursing career. Thank you.

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

If you don't include it, you look like you've only been a nurse for two years, and that there would have been over a year's gap between your boards and your first job, which looks weirder.

You don't have to use the previous employer as a reference. You don't have to say what happened - unless you're asked (and I think one of the standard questions on most applications is "were you ever terminated?")

Did you do any remediation, such as taking a documentation course, between the two jobs? You could say you were working to hone the skills that the other job found lacking.

Good luck!

[sunshine539]

oh no i was never going to leave it out of my resume. was going to perhaps not include the months of employment just the years. But i decided to include the months. I don't want to make it look like i am hiding something. better just to be honest.

I did do some documentation CEUs and i have really been working on my charting in this current job. we are still paper charting so that helps too as my mistake was on a computer. But that is a good idea. Explain that it happened but i learned from it and am moving forward.

any other tips guys?