Kamala Harris didn't list her McDonald's job on a law clerk application in the 1980s. Would you?

OAKLAND, Calif. - Former president Donald Trump made much ado about Vice President Kamala Harris not listing her summer job working at an East Bay McDonald's 41 years ago when she applied for an Alameda County law clerk job. 

So we set out to speak to job recruiters and regular people to see if they listed all their jobs on their resumes or job applications, whether it was relevant or not for the position they were applying for.

One person, Waymann Wong, answered our unofficial Facebook poll with a simple yes – he said he lists all the places that he's ever worked.

Job recruiter Debra Mugnani Monroe of Monroe Personnel Service in San Francisco told KTVU on Monday that she understands that government jobs might want applicants to list everywhere they've worked, so their backgrounds can be thoroughly checked before employment.

But in general, Monroe said that listing an irrelevant job – working at McDonald's for a law clerk position – is usually a no-no.

"We usually tell people to only list what's most relevant," Monroe said. "Like jobs, internships and education." 

The majority of the people who chimed in on social media agreed, saying they certainly do not list their teenage jobs when applying for career-like positions. 

"Who does?" someone named Chef Amiir wrote on X. "I worked at many fast food restaurants in college." 

"Ridiculous," Chris Vega wrote on Facebook. "And a desperate move on Trump’s part. I had four part-time retail jobs from the age of 16 to 20. Once I entered my professional career, I did not list those on a resume for the next 35 years of my career.

And someone named Mark asked: "Why the hell would you put McDonald's on a resume for that position when you went to Hastings law school. lol." 

Grant Hall said he worked as a lab assistant for the Department of Education and worked as a residential and commercial electrician's assistant, as summer temp jobs. 

"I’ve never included them on a résumé," he wrote "As a business owner, if I saw someone that put McDonald’s on their résumé, the job wasn’t pertinent to my company. I would immediately disregard that résumé."

What started this McDonald's kerfuffle?

The conservative Washington Free Beacon retrieved Harris' application to be a law clerk for the Alameda County District Attorney's Office in 1987, where she apparently didn't list her summer job at McDonald's. 

Where did Harris work?

The McDonald's on Central Avenue in Alameda. 

What is McDonald's saying? 

McDonald's hadn't officially responded as of Monday morning, when this story was published.

But by the afternoon, the company shared a statement with the Associated Press regarding Trump's visit to a Pennsylvania location on Sunday where he worked the fry station.

"Upon learning of the former president’s request, we approached it through the lens of one of our core values: we open our doors to everyone," the company said. "McDonald’s does not endorse candidates for elected office and that remains true in this race for the next president. We are not red or blue – we are golden."

McDonald’s said it has "been a fixture of conversation this election cycle" even though it hasn’t sought that attention. 

The company said it is proud of "Harris’s fond memories working under the arches" and noted the often-cited figure that 1 in 8 Americans work at McDonald’s at some point.

"While we and our franchisees don’t have records for all positions dating back to the early ‘80s, what makes ‘1 in 8’ so powerful is the shared experience so many Americans have had," McDonald’s said.

What is Trump saying?

Trump manned the fry station at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday, telling the audience that he's "now worked [at McDonald's] for 15 minutes more than Kamala." He has provided no evidence to show that she didn't work there. 

The McDonald's visit came as he’s tried to counter Harris’ accounts on the campaign of working at the fast-food chain while in college, an experience that Trump has claimed — without offering evidence — never happened.

What is Harris saying?

Harris first mentioned working at McDonald's about five years ago in Las Vegas. "I worked at McDonald's. I did the french fries and I did the ice cream," she told striking workers in 2019. "If we want to talk about these Golden Arches being a symbol for the best of America, well, the arches are falling short." She also told actress Drew Barrymore about working at McDonald's in April. 

Harris spokesman Joseph Costello said the former president’s McDonald’s visit "showed exactly what we would see in a second Trump term: exploiting working people for his own personal gain."

"Trump doesn’t understand what it’s like to work for a living, no matter how many staged photo ops he does, and his entire second term plan is to give himself, his wealthy buddies, and giant corporations another massive tax cut," Costello said in a statement.

In an interview last month on MSNBC, the vice president pushed back on Trump’s claims, saying she did work at the fast-food chain four decades ago when she was in college.

"Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family," she said. "I worked there as a student."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.