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.
I appreciate all the advice people have given me. I've read every post here even if I haven't replied.
Among some of the other things people have suggested, I'm thinking of lying about building/troubleshooting PCs independently and being an event photographer. I think the latter would be the easiest to argue was no longer doable under covid and I have some knowledge of both things. I just don't know if I need to create some sort of online presence for both of those or how I would provide references. Do ya'll think those are good ideas?
I'm also thinking of making up a story about my grandmother being ill (she was actually quite ill) and looking after her, but maybe that'll sound weird? Do younger people look after their grandparents? Maybe I should make it about my parents instead...
Then maybe I can pick a place I have "worked" that's out of city/province or even in a different country - this one I'm going to need to do a bit of research on. Maybe a stupid question, but can employers look up your work history with a social insurance number? I know they can look up your criminal history and shit, don't know if they'll see my credit (it's bad) or history with disability services, etc.
I also took longer to long to finish a 4 year program at college because I was in a disability program that let me do half the course load. Should I lie and condense this into two years?
As someone else mentioned, I'd definitely avoid mentioning a sick grandma. If you stick with building PCs and photography (honestly, you could probably just mentioning building PCs), that should be good. Try and have as few "moving parts" in your story as possible.
I totally agree. Keep it simple when you lie. Elaborate lies fall apart easier.
Lying about PC builds and photography seems like a great idea. You can create a temporary persona during interviews pushing the idea that you're a real go-getter.
The grandparent thing is very overused nowadays. You can do it, but I think it might lower your chances. If you're gonna go through with it, maybe say it was your mom instead to make them feel more pity for you.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe a big perk about saying you tried to start your own freelancing business is that it's harder to look up with a social security number. Just make a nice glossy social media page or two and include it on linkedin and you should be ok for job interviews. I doubt they'll bother to look at your credit history unless they specifically say so on the job listing.
All you need to include for your education is the graduating year and the major (which you can also flub). No need to include how long it took to get it. Also, never tell them your age until they actually hire you.
I just found this thread and I have to say I'm very pleased that the top posts encouraged lying. As long as you don't go as far as say... lying about being a doctor or an architect, it's fine. Just make sure you keep track of your lies and keep up the persona for the first month or so of the job.
yeah this is right. Make up the fact that you freelanced doing something that you actually know how to do, then sell yourself on the business that you built as "business development." There's like a 1% chance that they investigate whether your business actually existed. Further, feel free to mention that you have customers from that time who would be happy to vouch for you, and then either use friends/family to pretend for you or ask around chapo dot chat, I'm sure plenty of us can help.
I'd only clarify that I'd stay away from any sort of sick family member talk. An employment lawyer did an AMA on here a few weeks ago and stated, pointed blank, every employer hates pregnant women. They don't want to hire people with sick families because you might miss work. I'd exaggerate the dates on the CV, and add a section about your freelancing company that you started [Year when your experience stops] to [Present], so it looks like you're currently employed.
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https://hexbear.net/post/49296
The way I would frame it is that you had no five year gap in employment. Put a few years worth of odd jobs on there (like the PC repair), that can’t really be verified. A gap of year or less is fine, just say you traveled on money you saved working those jobs if they ask. Maybe you taught English abroad. Commit to and internalize the story.
Also strongly recommend you structure your resume around skills/competencies and not jobs in chronological order.. That’s totally acceptable and even a preferred way of doing it for a lot of jobs. You should know your backstory in chronological order, but you don’t need to present it as such.