I graduated with a bachelors in computer science around 4 years ago. Long story short, I was depressed, dysphoric, and suicidal throughout my college years and by the time I finished I didn’t want to do anything. I’ve been unemployed for the last 4 years but I’ve also transitioned, started taking better care of myself, and overall I feel much better.
Anyways, I need to get a job now. What kind of lies can I get away with on my resume to cover up the long period of unemployment? Should I pretend I started some sort of company and it failed? Pretend like I went on some backpacking journey in a foreign country? Do companies even check all this stuff?
I did do an internship at a big tech company several years ago, and I’m working on personal software projects so I can put that on my resume. Also, I’m in Amerikkka.
Sorry if this question has been asked here before
My genuine advice is don't lie about your technical skills. Go start a side project.
It doesn't matter what it is, write some code so you feel confident talking to certain patterns and libraries.
You can lie about what you've done. Don't lie about what you know.
counterpoint, everybody learns on the job
Generally, I disagree
Yeah? Ready to be effective day one? Quick explain these 50 acronyms being used stupidly here to try to look like they are smart and in the know. Next you're going to need to fill out a dozen service now tickets with forms written by the criminally insane. You're going to need to talk to one of the BSAs to get access to the right docs folders but you're going to have to know which of the 5 will waste your time and which will be awesome.
You could be an expert in all the stack tech but absolutely fail to be able to contribute because you can't learn those things in school.
You're learning on every job. If you're not, then you are failing.
I don't disagree that learning the administrative tasks or company culture is necessary at any job. I disagree that one can walk into an interview and say "don't worry if I don't seem technically proficient; I'll learn on the job". I also agree that one should learn more technical skills on the job.
I do think practically speaking, to do well in a technical interview, the best practice is actually building something with the tech. Even if it's a hello world.
As for being productive day one, I don't know what to tell you. I can be very productive in probably week one depending on a few factors but I'm 10+ years experienced in my field and have worked at probably 10 different companies over the past decade. I know what I'm doing and I've been through the onboarding process enough times to know the drill.