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.

  • TillieNeuen [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The bar for hiring on with temp agencies is pretty low, at least in the US. I'm too chickenshit to lie like others here are suggesting, so this would be my route. If you're a native English speaker, you can also look for one of those companies where you teach kids English online. From what I've heard, it can be hard to get sessions, but are you technically employed? Why yes, you are! I assume there's a bigger market for native English speakers than for other languages simply because it's such a lingua franca, but there's no harm in looking for similar work in whatever your native language is, if not English.