5 Personal Details You Should Never Mention in Your Job Search

Don’t give them a reason to turn you down.
By Catherine Conlan
Monster Contributing Writer

It can be tempting to share details about your personal life during your job search because it seems like a good way to humanize your cover letter or build rapport with an interviewer. That’s not entirely a bad idea, but there are some personal details you should never mention in your job search. Here are five.

Your politics
Don’t volunteer information that has nothing to do with the job at hand, or your ability to do it well -- including politics. “I recently interviewed someone and they had no problem telling me how much they disliked the president, and how they were a proud NRA member,” says Tim Glowa, co-founder and partner at Bug Insights. The candidate is of course entitled to this opinion, but “this information is completely irrelevant to the job (as a marketing consultant), and made the candidate look unprofessional” in an interview setting.

Your protected status
You want to stand out because of your professional qualifications, so focus on those. “Candidates should avoid conveying information that directly or indirectly conveys their membership in a category that is protected by federal or state anti-discrimination statutes,” says Caren Goldberg, professor with the industrial/organizational psychology faculty at George Mason University. “While some characteristics might be readily discernible in an interview (sex, for example), others, such as religion, are not.” In fact, two recent studies found resumes with evidence of membership or activity in a faith-based group are less likely to get a response from employers. In one of the studies, applications that included information about any religious identification got almost 20 percent fewer contacts than those with no mentions of religion.

Your problems in previous jobs
Don’t talk about the bad times in your employment past because it can influence the interviewer against you. “Candidates generally should not volunteer that they have been unhappy in prior roles, says Werner Krebs, CEO of Acculation. “In general, employers do not want to hire habitual pessimists as it correlates negatively with job performance,” Krebs explains. “Reasons for changing jobs should always be conveyed in a positive sense: looking for that next big career opportunity, or because you have concerns about your current company's future prospects, never that you hate your current boss.”

Your perceived superiority
Obviously, you want to be confident and show off your qualifications, but don’t do it by tearing others down. Krebs says he’s interviewed plenty of people who said they thought they were smarter or more qualified for the position than the hiring manager or even the CEO of the company. “In one case, I had a candidate brag that he was qualified because he was smarter than his wife, who held a similar position at another firm. Candidates will occasionally express this sentiment when getting relevant technical questions wrong, but it turns a minor flub into a total failure,” Krebs explained. The ability to defer to senior management when necessary is an important social skill to cultivate.

Anything that makes you look unreliable
It may not be fair, but some personal details can make an interviewer think you’re unreliable. A work-life balance issue may include “a sick grandparent, personal divorce or coaching a little league team,” says Sarah Benz, a recruiter at the Messina Group. Other details include unstable living conditions or not having a reliable car. No one expects you to be perfect and no one expects your tell-all life story to come out as part of the job search process. Resumes, cover letters and interviews are all platforms for putting your best foot forward and making a positive impression that will land you a new job. Don’t let the urge to overshare stand in the way of reaching that goal.