I graduated with a bachelors in computer science around 4 years ago. Long story short, I was depressed, dysphoric, and suicidal throughout my college years and by the time I finished I didn’t want to do anything. I’ve been unemployed for the last 4 years but I’ve also transitioned, started taking better care of myself, and overall I feel much better.
Anyways, I need to get a job now. What kind of lies can I get away with on my resume to cover up the long period of unemployment? Should I pretend I started some sort of company and it failed? Pretend like I went on some backpacking journey in a foreign country? Do companies even check all this stuff?
I did do an internship at a big tech company several years ago, and I’m working on personal software projects so I can put that on my resume. Also, I’m in Amerikkka.
Sorry if this question has been asked here before 
Say you were a full time caretaker for a family member. You’ll look responsible and kind.
Henry Kissinger’s caretaker
Guess I’ve been slacking off the past few days
My genuine advice is don’t lie about your technical skills. Go start a side project.
It doesn’t matter what it is, write some code so you feel confident talking to certain patterns and libraries.
You can lie about what you’ve done. Don’t lie about what you know.
counterpoint, everybody learns on the job
Generally, I disagree
Yeah? Ready to be effective day one? Quick explain these 50 acronyms being used stupidly here to try to look like they are smart and in the know. Next you’re going to need to fill out a dozen service now tickets with forms written by the criminally insane. You’re going to need to talk to one of the BSAs to get access to the right docs folders but you’re going to have to know which of the 5 will waste your time and which will be awesome.
You could be an expert in all the stack tech but absolutely fail to be able to contribute because you can’t learn those things in school.
You’re learning on every job. If you’re not, then you are failing.
I don’t disagree that learning the administrative tasks or company culture is necessary at any job. I disagree that one can walk into an interview and say “don’t worry if I don’t seem technically proficient; I’ll learn on the job”. I also agree that one should learn more technical skills on the job.
I do think practically speaking, to do well in a technical interview, the best practice is actually building something with the tech. Even if it’s a hello world.
As for being productive day one, I don’t know what to tell you. I can be very productive in probably week one depending on a few factors but I’m 10+ years experienced in my field and have worked at probably 10 different companies over the past decade. I know what I’m doing and I’ve been through the onboarding process enough times to know the drill.
If you’re applying to a university or government position, they will call all your references and check your transcripts.
For private sector jobs, lie about anything you can fake in the interview.
You weren’t unemployed. You were self-employed. Make up whatever the fuck you want for that self-employment as you’re the only person that can verify it anyway.
Pick a bankrupt company you “worked for”, they will have nobody to call.
most of us also worked there, so we can be OP’s references.
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Yea i worked at twitter, i was a senior poster
you can lie about anything and everything honestly
someone else said dont lie about your skills but i slightly disagree… dont say you have skills you dont have but absolutely gin up the skills you do have but arent great with
as far as job history just say you worked for some company that went out of business, like some startup that failed or something if you really need to they cant followup on anything then have a friend pretend to be your contact at that company
I think lying about your skills can put you in some hot water that makes it hard to be successful in your job. There’s every chance they have no idea what they need or downplay the workload required to do a task so it’s bullshit all the way down and they get what they deserve. But getting put on a task or a complicated piece of equipment without knowing what it does is a frustrating place to be. “Hey comrade, we need you to go to Turkey and speak to our Japanese client about their MRI malfunction :)”
if you are going to lie about speaking a language you only know three phrases in then no amount of advice here is going to help you
I was trying to do hyperbole - perchance make you laugh while illustrating a point. You’ve also probably embellished a lot to get highered on to repair million dollar medical equipment internationally as well.
For entry level stuff especially this works well. You can just say ‘oh we used a different workflow at my last company/in college’ and then cram the right way to do it.
I once asked a guy how he got his first job in IT and he said he created a dummy LLC that he claimed he had been the senior network admin at that company for 7~ years and listed a friend for his reference.
I heard that it’s pretty easy to start an LLC. But damn that’s crazy if he had no IT experience at all before that and was able to pull it off
I mean he definitely knew his stuff, just didn’t have the job experience to get people to look twice at his resume.
Unless you’re applying for some kind of job for the government, or a job that requires some kind of license, your resume is entirely on the honor system. I’d say you worked freelance/self employed doing something you’re experienced in. If they ask why you’re not doing that anymore just say things like “I miss working as part of a team” or “I really just want some stability”.
There might be repercussions if you get found out, so bear that in mind. Judge your level of risk vs the size of the lie. I wouldn’t lie if you need a license or certificate for the job. I wouldn’t lie if they pull tax records/credit reports during the application process. I wouldn’t lie if it would be immediately obvious you don’t know what you’re doing.
My rule is do not lie about anything you don’t think you could actually pull off if push comes to shove. That might sound like a limiting factor but once you realize most jobs are not as hard as they want you to believe it really does open the doors to anything you wanna do. Obviously don’t lie about being a nuclear scientist or something, but for most work this one has always served me right. It’s all about framing and picking the right words to make you stand out.
If you’re willing to really, really lie: You were a sick relative’s full time caretaker during that time. You are not comfortable discussing the details, but they passed (and thus your future employer does not have to worry about you needing more time off to care for them) and you are looking to turn your skills into a more stable career now. Couple that with the lie about being under NDA for your freelance work, they won’t ask shit
They’re still going to ask what you did for the NDA job. They’re expecting something like “I developed a web app for a client’s product that he plans on commercializing soon,” not “I was working on the new X-KNF high altitude surveillance system from DARPA. Specifically, I was developing the T-06 module on the lens.”
The classic is to say you worked at a large, now-defunct company. It has to be large enough so that if the interviewer randomly knows somebody actually from there, you can reasonably claim never to have met them. Maybe say that you did “network services” for Bed, Bath and Beyond, a job which doesn’t exist anymore since they got bought out and closed all their brick and mortar locations?
Just list a business that went under as a place where you worked
For example, you were an assistant manager at K-Mart back in 2018
Just talk a lot about how you managed to keep cool under difficult circumstances and rose to the challenge of keeping things running
Management types love that stuff
Wonder how many senior software engineers at twitter are gonna appear in 3 months time lol
twitter’s gonna die that soon?
Google “businesses that shut down in [your area]”. Most of them will be retail, but if you don’t need CS experiences, just put that in.
Just say you worked for Twitter.com between whenever and 2022. They won’t be able to verify.
Hell yeah 🫡
I would say you can lie about anything your employer isn’t going to bother to check. But those items aren’t what you really want to highlight anyway.
I dropped out of college my senior year and fucked around for a few months. Ended up getting a job at a small IT firm, after shopping my resume with “4 years at University” and then a list of my more notable classes.
But I also spent six months volunteering at an adult literacy non-profit and some time campaigning for a city councilman. These were the people I put as contacts on my resume, and they were the ones who gave me the glowing reviews that got me an entry level mediocre job.
When I changed jobs five years later, I’d gone back and finished my degree. I put '06 as my graduation date, because I didn’t want to explain the gulf between when I started and finished. But, again, the thing that really sold me was testimonial from a few ex-coworkers and the “5 years experience” they could easily verify.
Lie about whatever will get you into that first interview, but make sure you’ve got something shiny you can show off that’s real. That (plus looking professional and savvy at the actual face-to-face) is what ultimately gets you an offer.
This exactly
The vast majority of your CV is about getting you through the filters. If the job requires a Bachelors and you don’t have one? Then I have one less interview I need to do in between all my other responsibilities. And so forth.
Lie on stuff that don’t matter. If you say you did some gig/contract work with one of those sites, nobody cares. If you say you have a degree from a state uni? Nobody cares. Same with a lot of “capability” certs (less so the security or accreditation ones).
But if it is something that distinguishes you? Odds are the hiring committee have to actively make an argument for hiring you over someone else. So if you say you had a 4.0 GPA from MIT? Basically everyone knows someone who knows someone and so forth. If the alumni association (or even just the admin someone knew) doesn’t acknowledge your existence, it now marks you as a liar.
Same with anyone who claims they were a c-level or founded their own company or whatever. It reeks of bullshit to begin with (if you were a CTO you are not applying for an SSE position) but is also something that is easily verified and avoids us hiring you in favor of someone who is actually competent.
And the folk on that hiring committee also goof off on the internet and know all the “say you were a super high level person at a bankrupt company”. Except they also likely know people who worked there and it is really strange if nobody remembers that you were Head of Ops or whatever.
Heh, my genuine favorite interview ever was a REALLY good candidate who insisted they had Role XYZ at ABC Corp. And the guy down the hallway from me was literally that position. Three of us were on the interview portion and we all had the same “wait a moment…” response. Excused myself to go use the restroom, whispered to “stall for time” and then grabbed him to “sit in” and interrogate the fraud on their former job responsibilities and accomplishments. Was a blast.
If I were OP? I would:
- Say you took a few years off for medical reasons. no questions will be asked because they can’t be
- At least run through a few udemy courses so that you can claim you were taking various courses during this period. Its also just generally good practice when job seeking.
- Find whatever the popular gig/freelancer site is for your subset and claim you did various jobs on there to “stay fresh” but were limited in scope because of the aforementioned medical reasons.
And boom. You are likely still fucked if the filter checks for continuous employment but that should get you past any of the “sniff test” questions and let you actually focus on interviewing who you are, not what your paper says you are.
At least run through a few udemy courses so that you can claim you were taking various courses during this period. Its also just generally good practice when job seeking.
This reminds me of the scene from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul where the lawyers demand a dollar before advising them on criminal activities.
The transaction makes you a client. If anyone asks, it’s the truth. They didn’t ask if you were ethical or a criminal or whatever, just whether he’s your lawyer, and the honest truth is yes, he is because I went through the process of hiring him.
In other words, comfort yourself and be confident through technicalities. Most people will be able to smell bullshit if you’ve NEVER engaged in the activity you’re lying about because you have zero truths to latch to. Good lies always have some truth to them.
