Feeling Embarrassed by Irrelevant Experience on My Resume – Should I Omit or Summarize It?

Hi, I have completed a master's degree (with publications) and expert-level IT certifications. I have 6 months of internship experience from a Delhi-based Internet service provider. Prior to that, I had 2.8 years of irrelevant experience in repairing PCs/cable work and administrative tasks. I have interviews scheduled with Fortune's top 10 companies. I am planning to omit or summarize my trivial experience in 2-3 lines as I do not wish to highlight it. Is it okay to do this? Also, before pursuing my master's and certifications, I included this experience and faced interviews, but now I don't find it relevant to the roles I am applying for. I have always been embarrassed by this irrelevant work experience during my previous interviews. Should I omit this or summarize it at the end of my resume?

Dear Raohn_gupta,

First and foremost, you need to remove confusion between two words, "unrelated" and "trivial." Trivial means "small and of little importance." However, "unrelated" need not necessarily mean it is trivial.

There is nothing wrong if you show 2.8 years of Admin experience in your CV. Each job teaches us something new and builds certain skills. By repairing PCs or doing cable work, you gained at least an overview of hardware. There is value in that experience. Through your Admin activities, you must have interacted with service providers and learned the importance of record management. There is no need to label it as "irrelevant."

Every type of work is important as it teaches us how to function in an organized environment, understand the consequences of rule violations, handle customer dissatisfaction, and navigate workplace conflicts. Such exposure is not irrelevant in itself.

In many government jobs, primary and secondary duties are assigned with a ratio of 80:20. However, in the private sector, this balance may not always hold. While many professionals focus solely on primary duties, it is the secondary duties that help develop common sense. After all, what job does not require common sense?

Therefore, my recommendation is not to delete that experience. Removing it could create a gap in your CV. How would you explain such a career gap?

All the best!

Regards,
Dinesh Divekar