The recession took a toll on my job seeker’s long term employment prospects. Short term jobs and unexpected layoffs created a generation of workers with resumes featuring a year or less at several jobs. This is often viewed as a red flag but it doesn’t have to be. How can you make your short term job experience look good on a resume?

4 Ways to Make Frequent Job Changes Appealing on Your Resume

Note the Temporary Nature of Your Jobs.

Sometimes job hopping is beyond your control. Did you take a number of temp roles while looking for permanent work? Did several of your last companies have large corporate layoffs that affected employment on a massive scale? If you can, note that a job is short term or temporary on the resume in a constructive way.

Combine Experience.

For many short term jobs you may be able to combine experience. For temporary jobs you can create a heading such as “Temporary Assignments” and list the total dates of employment. Then use bullet points to describe the different jobs, duties, and accomplishments.

Omit jobs that don’t provide value.

There is no rule that you have to include every single job you’ve ever held on your resume. If there are jobs that don’t provide values, such as a short term job at a restaurant between professional roles, you can simply leave it off. If you are asked about this job gap just be honest about what you were doing.

Write a killer cover letter.

Finally, in order to encourage interest in your resume you should start with a killer cover letter that describes who you are, why you want to work for their company, and why they want to call you back. This will encourage them to read the resume and be more likely to take any job hopping into account in a constructive way.

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