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.
Lie.
Seriously, find friends who will cover for you, make up your LinkedIn, and lie. Preferably just exaggerate, but if that doesn't work complete fabrication with a reliable reference works well too.
Do make sure you can do the actual job though.
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
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/
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.
This.
I was homeless for 2 years and got out by fabricating a landlord for rental history. Got a friend's mom to agree to vouch if they ever contacted. They never did and doesn't seem like they do often.
Lie, spend some time on coming up with a narrative, fill in the gap with a job, or going independent. This is capitalism, there are no points for being honest, and employers treat you like shit anyway.
Once you're in you're in is 100% true, not just of the company, but the workforce writ large. My last three jobs, steadily increasing from $65k to over 100k now, I didn't apply for, I was recruited. My boss gave me a $10k raise yesterday because he knows headhunters are out looking for my skills. And no, I'm not a programmer or even in IT.
where exactly does "in" start? I remember mentioning you had a very privileged upbringing earlier
I definitely never got a job due to family connections, my family disowned me when I came out and we didn't speak for ten years. I did get my BS for free.
I guess like my point is that growing up wealthy and having access to a quality education, health care and generally being away from poverty is an "in" to some.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory but like where does "in" actually start in your perspective? Or is that a little too broad of a question to answer?
Oh, I'm not arguing that I haven't had a huge head start. All I'm saying is that once you have a job it's easier to get another job.
Definitely second on the "just lie". I have lied about something to get most of the jobs I've had. Who cares. They are there to extract the most value out of you as possible and I'm there to extract the most paycheck out of them as possible for the least amount of work possible. Don't lie in a way they could look it up or anything, don't make up a job or something, but for a gap just lie. A family emergency, a backpacking trip to find yourself, tried to start your own business, etc. And the when they ask you follow-ups to that just lie about that too. They won't check and they won't ask again. Who cares.
but the punishment for lying on your resume is being fired from a job they otherwise wouldnt have hired you for!
:horror:
Bonus points if you fill it in with companies that are no longer around. Makes it way harder to check up on lol.
I guess I'm just not as moral of a person as most people because when it comes to employers I don't think twice about lying or cheating. There's just certain entities I have no moral instinct for.
Never think twice of lying or cheating when it comes to getting a job, they’ll never think twice to do the same
It’s helpful to realize that lying is only immoral in certain circumstances, this is not one of them.
I don't have moral qualms about lying to employers, I just feel like I'll be bad at lying or mess up in some way and I'm not entirely sure I can find multiple people to lie for references.
You don't need multiple people. You need multiple email addresses.
Anyway, trying and fucking it up is no different to never being considered for the job in the first place. Lying will come with practice.
Do people do reference checks via email these days? I could probably even register a cheap domain for a fake company and use that if I was gonna go that route.
i just say i did contract work sporadically, babysitting or home refurbishing, just whatever floats your boat. as for why i did spotty work, why it was to care for my dear ailing father as he was in at home hospice. none of that is necessarily a lie for me (well, besides the "dear" part i guess), but i embellish a bit.
i dunno if it's the best tactic but it's mine for explaining my depression joblessness
Yeah, I was thinking of something like that... I fucking suck at lying though. How did you deal with references?
friends or family i ask nicely to lie for me. my buddy with 0 children told me he'd tell anyone who called that i was an excellent worker who was great with his kids.
Seconding this, I've explained a year-long gap with "caring for ailing family member." I've papered over longer gaps by saying I worked at a place that's now out of business (to be fair, I actually did work there, but I got very creative with dates).
Literally just make something up to fill the gap, have your friend/mother be the reference. No big deal companies never check and they lie to you like everyday.
Slightly paranoid question, but they never ask for any recent pay stubs to prove you're still working at the company you actually quit from years ago?
Even better than that, you can say "My current employer doesn't know I am looking for other jobs and won't look kindly at it. Please do not contact them."
I only had to provide a pay stub after my company couldn't get into contact with my previous employer. But on the form for the background check it literally had an option for "do not contact this employer" so if I had any foresight that that would be a headache I would have just ticked that box.
Make up a company that you started and failed. They love failed capitalists. I generally don't have to account for the two year gap in mine where I did nothing but drugs and orgies because it was more than ten years ago, but that used to be my go to; small food delivery start-up that was purchased by grubhub for our software. Now I'm a senior manager with a billion dollar company who just got a $10k raise out of the blue yesterday because my boss knows recruiters are out looking for people with my background and skills. Also, look for jobs in warehouses, but not Amazon. I just raised the starting rates as well as the existing rates of pay for all 11 distribution centers I'm responsible for because I ran comps in every market and we were falling below the 60th percentile in wages,
How much effort did you have to put into making a fake company? Did you make the company relevant to the type of work you were looking for? I have an feeling that people in my field would recognize a fake company, so maybe I should do something more tangentially related.
There were already some good tipps here. In addition, I don't know if social security tracks when you're in the country but if they don't you can say you did work and travel in Europe.
If you need a work certificate, we have probably some Europeans here who can that in the name of some local restaurants or some. If they went bankrupt during covid they couldn't even call them.
I've never heard of a work certificate, is it just a plain text document or something more fancy?
Oh damn, I wouldn't even know where to start to make a RoE type document from another country.
If you have a beater, pizza delivery is a solid gig. Cash on hand at the end of the night, free pizza, usually pretty alright hours, etc. Just be wary or wear and tear. Get oil changes often and try and save up while you can.
Short term: Get a shitty job that takes anyone with a warm body just to get some experience on your resume. The holidays are around the corner, and warehouses and couriers are going to be fucking destroyed - you're now an asset to them! Will they fire you after the holidays? Absolutely, but now you have experience and a little bit of money! String a couple of these together and boom, no more resume gap.
Long term: Make up a "company" that's really just you and an excuse to teach yourself a new skill. Make a logo for it and a twitter/instagram account (facebook I'd avoid since you have to link your account), schedule semi-regular posts, and then document yourself learning the new skill. Create the company on LinkedIn so it looks more legit. Give yourself a job title that doesn't mean anything, like "Project Manager" or "Senior Digital Consultant". Congratulations, you now have a really good-looking resume item, a new skill, and you can say that you have some experience with social media management and logo design! You are now qualified for a menial office job with a salary and benefits.
As for contacts/networking, you don't necessarily need it if you can cold email. Never apply directly to the position - you'll get filtered out by the algorithms. Instead:
- Take a job listing that you're interested in, and use LinkedIn/Google to find who the hiring manager is
- Find their work email address
- Send them an overconfident yet bashful email with a catchy subject line talking about how perfect you'd be for the job
- Repeat 50 or so times
For pure networking, you can also work the angle of "I'm interested in your field and just want a quick chat" to get them on the phone - worst case you'll get info about whatever industry you're targeting, best case you'll get a lead on a job.
That long term plan sounds like a great idea but also kind of complicated. Should I look at other, existing companies to use as a template or is there some kinda guide out there? Also don't know how I'll explain what I did as "project manager."
Very good advice though thanks!
It doesn't need to be a "project manager" title necessarily - when I did this it was to teach myself Python, so I gave myself the title "lead programmer". It might help to give yourself a bullshit title related to whatever you're trying to learn, just so there are fewer questions. If you're angling for an office job it helps to teach yourself some computer skill - GIS, Excel, website management, etc, you'll be the "Head Programmer" or "Lead Analyst" or "GIS Specialist", or something like that. And these skills are typically best learned through projects anyway, so you wouldn't be lying with a title like "Project Manager".
As for explaining what you did, tell them what you did! Don't necessarily tell them that you're the person behind the whole thing on your resume (though in person that can sometimes, not always, be a positive - it "shows initiative"!) But you can put:
- Produced x amount of content, lead manager on y projects
- [A line explaining the actual skill you developed]
- Additional brand identity management & social media experience
- Etc
And then have something to back that up!
It's worth noting that this applies to salaried office jobs only - for menial labor, just lie and say you have 2-3 years of experience. It'll get you in the door, and at smaller companies they barely look at resumes, they just need warm bodies.
I already have some computer skills, I'll try to brainstorm some ideas about fake companies/websites I could make and "jobs" I can have. It sounds like a lot of work though, I'd have to make fake social media profiles, fake linkedin profiles, etc. Did you find that you had to put in a lot of work to make your company look real or was it just enough to have a website and maybe a defunct twitter account or something?
Don't think of it as a fake company, you're not really pretending you're not the person behind the whole thing, you're just not being particularly upfront about it on your resume. It feels fake because you're making it all up, but you're doing the work for real, and all companies and job titles are made up anyway! You're just picking your own title, really.
As for the social media stuff, once a month, take a day to schedule 5-6 posts on linkedin/twitter/insta/etc, and make a blog post about what you've been doing for the past month. The posts don't have to be in-depth - you can an article related to the field with a brief sentence and honestly that's enough. Knock it all out in the morning on the first of the month, work on the skill the rest of the month, and suddenly you have professional experience after a couple months. It takes maybe a day of dedicated work to set it all up. I didn't even need a website, just the social media was enough, but if you have web design skills and can set up a website that's a major plus.
