Hi chapo, How the fuck do you find work when you have major gaps in your resume?

Short story: I went through a long fucked up period dealing with addiction and mental health issues. I'm fairly okay now mentally/psychically. But I'm having a real hard time finding work. Last time I had a "real" job was over five years ago, also around the time I graduated college. But I have nothing to put on my resume since then. I have zero networking connects, no one to put as a reference.

I need a job real bad but I don't know what to do. With no experience and no connects I feel like no one wants to hire me, but I can't fulfill those requirements without finding work that I can't get. I fucking hate it.

I'm also dogshit at doing interviews and I don't know how to explain long work absences without freaking out employers. What can I do?

P.S. I don't wanna say where I live for privacy reasons but I do not live in America.

  • RandyLahey [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Also consider putting down experience at some company that's gone under during covid so they can't check references

    Just whatever you do, make sure you account for the gap on the CV itself (even if it's really brief), don't just leave the time blank, cos if you're waiting until the interview to explain it you're gonna miss a bunch of interviews

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I've become weary of the defunct company on the resume. This is the "grandma's funeral when the paper is due" equivalent for a job search.

      If it were going to have a defunct company, I would probably have it be a company I founded and had it flop massively. I would have a WordPress site that looks like it was real. That way I could talk about what I learned, what went right, etc. Is it as good as full time work exp? No! But I think that there's a bunch of Toys-R-Us managers running around.

      I would probably rather do some volunteer work and embellish the FUCK out of it like this person does in their Tumblr. You make one friend who wants to see you succeed and bam! You got a good thing going.

      https://resumespeak.tumblr.com/

      • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        As an addendum, COVID wiping out a slew of small businesses may have aged this information. You could research local businesses going out of business and say that it was the impetus for your job search. You're in a large pool of people saying this for better or for worse.