I really desperately need a job right now and I'm not even getting interviews at fast food places.
It's really starting to look like I'm going to have to just lie my way into having a better resume. I have no moral problem with this, but I'm worried I'll be asked to verify things. I did some volunteer work for a library when I was in high school one summer. This was like five years ago. Would I have any problem if I extended that couple months out to a couple years?
Mostly I'm worried they'll call the library themselves to verify. It seems unlikely to me that they would still have a record of this, but I'm not sure.
If you have friends, list their contact as a reference and say they were your former supervisor at some volunteering organization. Let your friend know ahead of time and see if they’re willing to play along.
Closed businesses are also a good idea. I would recommend google some local news stories about restaurants or shops or some warehouse going bankrupt a few years ago. Maybe something from 2020. Like
“[your city/neighborhood]” AND “local shop” OR “local store” OR “local restaurant” AND “permanently closed” AND “pandemic”Example: https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/news/business/lafayette-businesses-that-permanently-closed-during-coronavirus-pandemic-what-we-know/article_d35f42ca-a10a-11ea-a486-8701f2c37c2e.html
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2020/05/06/35-popular-restaurants-that-wont-reopen-after-the-pandemic/
Thanks a lot for the help. I took your advice and found a good one to say I worked for. A restaurant that closed down due to covid, and it's located near the university I did a couple semesters at before I dropped out.
Their website no longer exists, the phone number listed on the Yelp page is disconnected, and I couldn't find anything about it on LinkedIn. Now I'm just trying to figure out what job title to give myself.
Shift Supervisor could work, if you’d like to combine some managerial experience with filling in on the floor. Depends on what position you’re applying for. Host, bartender, assistant manager, regional manager. Whatever fits better in the application but maybe just pick one so if you give out a number your friend knows what to say.
Here's a neat trick, get a friend/partner, school them on what to say, and say they're the reference in question. Make sure they know a call might be coming just in case.
I genuinely don't think 99% of fast food managers give two shits about verifying your volunteer work. Do you know of any restaurants in your area that have closed? Say you worked there for a few years. I worked at an Italian restaurant years ago for a few months that went out of business, that few months became a few years on my resume.
Considering this. Is there really no way for them to figure that out? I don't know about any specific restaurants that closed, but I could ask around. Might it better if the place wasn't local?
You could look online for say, Mexican restaurants and sometimes they'll still be listed with "This location has closed" somewhere in the reviews. Unless they knew someone that worked there I really don't think they could check. No one is going to ask for your tax returns from a previous restaurant job.
Definitely a step above this idea but I once asked a guy how he had gotten hired as a network admin, he told me he'd created a dummy LLC and included one of his friends as an employee there and gave them the friends number, then claimed that he'd been working as a senior network admin at that business for the past several years.
There is always the chance that they could do a background check to look at your employment history but I really don't think that's common for the types of positions you're looking at. Outside of lying about an arrest record, primarily theft, I just don't think they really care to spend the extra money on an in-depth report.
Granted this was over a decade ago but I've been hired at large companies that would absolutely have the resources to check into these kinds of things and just omitted jobs where I was fired in my employment history. I have a friend that got fired once when they did a background check months after she'd been working there because she had a DUI that she didn't disclose.
I've only ever been asked for a reference once in my life otheriwse I've gotten away with lying through my teeth at every job interview.
What's the opportunity cost if you weren't going to get the job anyways?
People lie their asses off on resumes, unless the previous work you did is extremely specific to the job you're applying for, they probably won't give a shit.
The opportunity cost is getting blacklisted from being hired there forever. For most people that's a laughable thing to worry about, but my options are so limited by me not being able to drive that I really need to make sure that doesn't happen at a place close to where I live.
for that long ago, and those jobs, I'd just put "contact details on request" or similar, then tee something up for a friend to give you a good reference
"hey i need proof you did this"
"sure just call my old [boss, overseer etc]"
it's not really your old [boss, overseer etc]You don't need a resume to get interviews for food service work of any kind except maybe like cooking
You're probably failing some personality test bullshit on some application and need to work on lying better on those multiple choice parts so that the machine thinks you're a good worker drone
I don't think that's the case. I've applied to about 20 fast food positions now and only a few of them had a personality test. And I'm pretty confident I answered those competently.
Get 2 friends to register for one of those apps that give you a second phone number, like Google voice, Talkatone, etc. Or buy them each a burner phone.
Then make up two past jobs and list those numbers as your supervisor. If you're worried about getting caught, make them out of your area and say you just moved back. If the friends are not comfortable bullshitting, they can just say, "Our company policy says we can only verify dates of employment". Which is really a thing some employers do. Or just not answer the call. A reference with a phone number that never picks up is better than no reference at all.
I've done this twice, and only one job even bothered to call. Most shit job workplaces don't call references, they just assume it will be a good reference.
Lying is fine yeah.
I'm not even getting interviews at fast food places.
Depending on where you live, they have to pay people over a certain age more. So scummy work like Fast Food will pick a high schooler over you because it's cheaper. It's not about your resume, they do not care.
My advice would be to ignore all the usual bullshit about work that's supposedly easy to find because everyone hears that advice and they get flooded with applications. Try applying for something that's less obvious to look for on a job search website. Lots of bullshit white collar work in the "Administration and Office Support" category that people don't jump immediately for and only requires you to know how to open pdf and use excel where people really aren't looking for much in the way of qualifications. If turning into a mole person glued to a computer isn't your thing there are plenty of more niche physical labor jobs too.
The thing is I can't drive, so I'm very limited in what I can actually apply to. I haven't found anything like that on indeed within a 45 minute bus ride that I have the qualifications for.
The thing is I can't drive
i'd bet you anything this is what's fucking you.
"do you have reliable transportation?" i.e "do you drive and own a car" is a big one for a lot of places
Maybe it'll fuck me when I get an actual interview, but I answer yes to the reliable transportation question on applications. I'm never specifically asked if I have a car.
this is why i'm not a gambling woman. in that case i can't imagine what could be going wrong, to the point where i'm inclined to think it's something related to the businesses and not necessarily something you can control for. i've heard anecdotally that a lot of places are advertising that they're hiring but are not actually doing so. maybe that's happening where you live?
well at any rate, i wish you good luck finding something. idk if it's a possibility for you but online call center gigs might be a viable route?
Thanks for the help. I'm also having trouble figuring out why exactly this is happening. I have no arrest record, literally nothing comes up when I google my name other than social media pages belonging to people with the same surname.
In the OP I said I believe it's something about my resume, but a ton of people have told me you don't need a resume for fast food. So I've tried applying to a few fast food places without any resume at all and still no bites. It's getting maddening and I have no idea what to do.
Call center work is something I want to do even less than fast food, but it's starting to look like that's all that's left to try before a literal back breaking manual labor job
Can't drive either. Yeah it fucks you, a huge number of jobs list a license as a requirement even if there is no reason that'd ever be the case. If you can it's probably the biggest thing for boost employability and if you can't, there's always lying.
45 minutes seems... optimistic though. Especially if you don't live near the center of a city. I've never had a commute less than an hour by public transport except when I've been WFH (like now).
You cant look too smart or youre going to leave soon with a fast food job
