A politician's résumé is something like a uniform jacket with a medal on it: completely useless in battle, but impressive when telling about war. When someone enters the stage in a highly decorated manner, it jingles tellingly. Then people know that someone important is coming. For example Annalena Baerbock. She is in trouble because her résumé made her more important than she is, and she is, after all, the Greens' candidate for Chancellor. Baerbock had to correct information after journalists found inconsistencies. Not huge things, but several small ones. For example, Baerbock had written that she had worked as an office manager for a MEP in Brussels. "Brussels" is now missing from the résumé. Baerbock commented: "That was crap."
Everyone builds crap at one point or another. But anyone can see it on a politician's résumé. For this reason alone, most of them pay careful attention to what it says about them. And what not.
Politicians publish their résumés as naturally as teenagers publish their selfies. They put them on the Internet, have them printed in handbooks and on flyers for the voters. The Bundestag documents the résumés of all MPs who wish to do so on its website. There are many. Some information is mandatory, for example the profession. The Bundestag administration regularly calculates whether there are more lawyers and fewer skilled workers. There is an interesting passage in the foreword to this statistic. It's about scientific criticism of the concept of a profession and what the profession says about someone. The sociologist Ulrich Beck is quoted. He sees that people in our society are radically individualized and that their biography is produced, staged,would have to cobble together. This would result in handicraft biographies.
Many members of the Bundestag create their biographies according to the same unwritten instructions. And at the same time try to stand out from the crowd. But what if you do what everyone is doing? Most clearly by doing it better than others, but easiest by simply doing more. As a result, politicians like to list as completely as possible where they are involved, from the Bundestag committee to the table tennis club at home. This becomes particularly clear in a reference work that contains the short résumés of all members of the Bundestag, the furrier. It is primarily for people who have to do with politicians professionally, and for politicians themselves. What should be in the furrier, the MPs decide for themselves. When someone new moves into the Bundestag, the editors contact him,and can be updated twice a year. That almost always also means: abbreviated.