Faith and Jobshopping

This morning I had the opportunity to reply to a question on LinkedIn about adding references to one's faith in their resume. Was it a good or bad idea?

I wrote back that I thought it was wrong, inappropriate and dangerous to mix religion and jobshopping (unless the jobs are faith-based jobs or for faith-based employers). My reasons were:

1. There are so many different regions and faiths out there that you risk offending a potential employers by presenting your religious beliefs that could conflict with their personal followings.
2. It is illegal for employers to discriminate against a jobshopper or employee because of religion, but it can happen anyway.
3. In the workplace, it's having faith in the enterprise and your crew that matters most--not your faith in (or lack of faith) in a higher being and purpose that counts. Keep your faith in your heart and off your resume and work products.

I know I risk offending the person asking the original question on LinkedIn, those other LinkedIn members who may read my answer--and I may be offending you or other readers of my blog--but this is how I feel about jobshopping, job-getting and job-doing. This is about my working world faith. And this is the bigger problem with mixing religion and work. It's just too easy to make folks angry.

I think the three biggest causes of conflict throughout history have been sex, politics and religion. I could have added greed and money, but we sometimes need to deal with those two in the workplace. We don't need to add sex, politics or religion to our workplace mix.