is it a terrible offense to include profanity in a resume?

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

My husband is a blue collar worker, and he’s very experienced in his field. A little less than a year ago, he decided to switch jobs. He went from doing residential work in people’s homes to commercial work on big buildings. He had over two decades of experience doing the residential side of things, but very little commercial experience. So, in some ways it was like starting over again and having to train from the ground up.

At the time, he had two competing job offers: one with a residential company that was offering a slightly lower base pay, but more potential bonuses and benefits, and the commercial company he ultimately went with. To leverage the other offer, he talked to the commercial company and they decided to hire him at a slightly lower rate than he wanted but with an extra week of PTO, and they said they would look at a raise at his 90-day review to bring him up where he wanted to be, based on his performance.

At his 90-day review, his boss told him that he was incredibly impressed with how fast he was learning the job. His exact words were, “You’re kicking ass and taking names!” He told my husband that they were not only going to give him a bigger raise than promised, they were also going to give him a new work van and send him to be trained for bigger, more complex systems and look at another significant pay bump at the one-year mark if his trajectory continued.

When my husband showed me his glowing review, I told him to make sure and include that on his resume. He’s not actively looking for a new job at the moment, but he is going back to school and needs an updated resume for that (as well as just keeping his resume fresh).

We have a relative who is a hiring manager in a white collar industry (think banking/finance). At a recent family gathering, my husband was talking to this relative and asked for their opinion on his resume. When they saw that he had written that his boss had said he was “kicking ass and taking names” at his 90-day review, they told my husband that that was unbelievably unprofessional and that they would have thrown his resume directly into the garbage the second they saw that. They said having that comment on his resume would make them seriously question his judgment, and they would never, ever hire someone who thought that was acceptable … and in fact, they would consider reaching out to their industry contacts and telling others to avoid that person as well because it was so wildly inappropriate.

My husband was very taken aback and upset by this, but I told him that this feels like (1) a bit of an overreaction, and (2) a difference in industry norms. I said that he was just quoting his boss and the feedback was literally written on his evaluation and told to him verbally, and other people in the same industry wouldn’t be thrown by it at all. I said he could take it off of his resume if he wanted and just leave the other details, but personally I thought it was charming and showed how enthusiastic his employer is about his work.

I work in healthcare, so I feel like I’m predisposed to lean more towards being conservative, but even I thought that the response my husband got was over the top. If I saw that on a resume, my first thought would be, “Clearly, their last boss was very enthusiastic about their work!” (We do live in a more culturally conservative area, though where my husband and I work has become quite a bit more progressive in recent years.)

He seems to be a bit deflated by this, so I wanted to seek other opinions. Is this a “never ever under any circumstances” type of thing, or is this something that can be more industry-dependent?

Your relative’s reaction was over the top.

I wouldn’t include “kicking ass and taking names!” on a resume, but that’s largely because it’s not specific enough, not because it’s an outrageous offense.

I mean, it’s true that you normally shouldn’t include profanity on a resume, and the bar is pretty high for doing it. (There are times when I’d consider it, though! If Barack Obama or, I don’t know, Tom Hanks put in writing that I was “incredible at getting shit done,” I’d seriously consider putting that on a resume. But again, that’s a high bar — and even then some people might raise their eyebrows at it, but that would be outweighed by the number of people who loved it.)

My take on the quote your husband used is that it doesn’t convey enough about why his employer felt he was kicking ass and taking names, which is ultimately the part that matters. It would be more effective to write about the work specifics that made them feel that way. For example: “In first 90 days, exceeded team’s previous sales by 20% and brought in two new six-figure contracts, earning kudos from management and an unusual out-of-cycle salary increase.” (That said, I could see using the “kicking ass and taking names” quote in a cover letter if there was a way to work it in organically.)

Regardless, though, your relative’s reaction is absurd. They’d reach out to industry contacts to tell them never to hire him? That’s ridiculous, and that tells you that this is someone with no sense of proportion and with bad judgment. It’s absolutely useful for your relative to share that the wording would be considered unprofessional in their industry, but once they went beyond that, they were teaching you something about themselves more than about resume-writing (and that lesson is that you shouldn’t take professional advice from them).

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