The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has raised many questions for all of us around where and when we work, but one question has become more pressing for job seekers in recent weeks, “do you need to include your Covid-19 vaccination status on your resume”?
Hiring Managers and businesses alike are consequently grappling with how to comply with vaccine mandates without making job candidates feel uncomfortable.
Recent surveys conducted indicate that 69% of organisations are more likely to hire someone who has already been vaccinated against Covid-19 and 63% said they prefer to see a job candidates vaccination status on their resume.
Australia has already released legislation that supports organisations in the Construction, Health Care, Aged Care and Disability sectors requiring existing staff to get fully vaccinated by the end of November and those seeking employment opportunities with those sectors will need to be fully vaccinated before commencing employment with them.
We at PP don’t have an opinion either way but we need to address this issue as several of our clients already have mandatory COVID vaccination policies in place right now with others following in the coming weeks. Consequently, we need to be aware of who is and who isn’t full vaccinated so we know which clients we can present you to for employment purposes, be it temp, contract or perm. Please be aware that you should be able to provide proof of the vaccination if asked, which is the My Gov Digital Vaccination Certificate.
Ultimately it is up to the individual whether you’re going to include your vaccination status on your resume, but what you should know is that at some point through the hiring process you’re going to be required to share this information. You may also be asked the question during the interview if applying for a role privately.
As more businesses adopt vaccine mandates, disclosing your vaccination status on your resume can only help you in the interview process. Employers see that as a “sign” that you’re sensitive to a challenging issue company have faced and volunteering that information could elevate your chances for securing an offer.
As a recruitment agency it is not our position to judge you or advise you on this matter, we respect your personal choice. What I can tell you though is if a client comes to us for the purposes of assisting them in filling a role and advises us that they do in fact have a Mandatory Covid vaccination policy, it is a question we will need to ask you and that you will need to prepare for.
We had a terrible incident last week where one of our temps who had gone through 2 ½ weeks of compliance checks (police, credit, physical, drug, Vevo checks) for a local organisation and finally with all checks complete they started work last Wednesday. Then on Thursday we received a call from the client asking if this person was full vaccinated, we hadn’t even thought to ask, when we checked we discovered that no they weren’t and within hours this person was finished up. After having gone through all these other checks, we felt absolutely gutted for the person involved as prior to Wednesday the client had not even advised us that this was part of their new hiring criteria.
So please be ready for these questions as whether we like them or not, they will be asked so to help us help you can you please email us to let us know if you are vaccinated so we can add this to your file which will help us when we are searching for people to fill roles.