Easy questions have easy answers, right?
I had a six year gap. I tried to found a startup with a buddy and it fell through. I had enough savings to spend time learning new technologies and leveling up my skills. It made me unemployable. It really sucked. Finally taking a temp gig for four months got the phone to start ringing.
Why not lie about it?
Bosses aren’t people, lying to them isn’t just right, it’s a duty.
No wonder why none of your bosses treated you well if you have this kind of thinking. You must be a pain to work with.
You have the relationship backwards.
That’s not a gap, you were working for the startup. Even if the company never put a product on the market, you were still working. Doesn’t matter if your didn’t even form an LLC. You should put it on your resume and proudly describe the work your did and challenges you faced when anyone asks about it.
The startup ended much earlier than the rest of the time that I spent learning new tech. It wouldn’t have been plausible to expand the startup time for a plethora of reasons. I did learn to use it on my resume from a similar online discussion.
“Yeah, I spent that time driving Uber/Doordash/whatever.”
No boss to confirm/deny, and it’s not like Uber is going to tell a random employer when one of their drivers were active.
Depending on your career, this might be worse than not doing anything
Why’s that?
Well, just a gap in the resume might mean you took yourself a sabbatical of sorts. But driving an uber means you were desperate for cash and needed a job, but wasn’t able to secure one in your main field. That’s sus.
“Those are line breaks. You see it’s easier to read if you break up blocks of text into paragraphs separated by a whole empty line.”
Just lie. There is absolutely nothing unethical about lying about timeframes on your resume.
Looking for a job after being made redundant, but still in good standing with your former coworker or manager? Just say you still work there.
Otherwise they’ll have way more leverage when it comes to salary negotiation.
My friend did this when he got made redundant, landed a well paying job, after months of being unemployed.
You have no reason to have a gap on your resume because you’ll be unfairly punished for it.
Just lie. It’s 100% ethical.
Yes, i was pursuing other opportunities that do not relate to this field so i did not include them
“Sorrry, I have an NDA”
NDAs generally prohibit you from stating that you are under NDA.
Better to be cryptic “I can’t really go into details due to my clearance”.
That doesn’t work either
They still want name of employer and dates
Lots of cleared applicants have probably applied there in the past
I am not at liberty to discuss this gap.
I could tell you but…
I’d go to prison and you’d have to sign some kind of NDA
I could tell you, but this unspeakable information is bound to turn even the most capable minds towards madness.
You were also probably wondering, what’s in the canister?
Ohh, juicy. Where do I sign?
OMG, reply threads are in rainbow colors. I just noticed.
Hah! I had the same reaction when I noticed. It’s neat.
Haha, as if anyone actually asks that. A gap gets you automatically rejected by the employment AI, long before humans see it.
Can someone confirm from* a recruitment standpoint.
What does one put on the resume then?
You use the other AI to fill it in on the resume.
lies
“The economy”
Those were the times I was taking time off to argue with the voices in my head that were telling me to kill again.
Did you win the argument?
That’s what the interviewer asked too. The voices didn’t like that question…
For like 3 months out of the 2 year gap, yeah
I have a one year gap in mine and I can’t remember anyone asking about it.
Will this actually work?
Not even remotely.
For the most part, yes. They only really ask the question because they automatically assume you were in jail if you have a gap over 2’ish weeks long. So they’re really just looking for some sort of explanation besides “I was just unemployed for no reason.” Because they assume “no reason” is really “I don’t want to admit that I was in jail.”
Lol who tf actually thinks that. Ive hired and never thought that
yeah thats a wild assumption, maybe ppl just have enough money to survive for a while and dont want to work while they pursue hobbies, why is that not allowed, nah mustve been in jail
maybe ppl just have enough money to survive for a while and dont want to work while they pursue hobbies
The issue is that this is exactly what employers are trying to avoid. They want a good little worker bee who will show up every day and complete their tasks as assigned for 25 years straight. They don’t want someone who will just randomly decide to quit and focus on their hobbies. They want stability and predictability, because hiring new workers is a massive expense.
Because ppl expect/get more benefits and pay overtime
I thought it was worse to retain ppl long term and thats why they are constsntly firing ppl?
It’s almost never actually a good business decision in the long-term to lose an employee, unless that employee is actually causing losses. All the layoffs of the past 50ish years from corporate downsizing is thanks to the business philosophy of Jack Welch. When you stop paying a large group of people, it looks good in the next quarterly meeting because you can point at the money you’re saving. The bad part is that now the business A) has lost that productivity, and B) will likely need to spend more money hiring a replacement worker who won’t be as competent.
Man, you must live a privileged life if it didn’t even cross your mind that l
What if a small gap on their resume means jail?? What the fuck are you on about
Chill dude. I’m saying that there are jobs that employ pp
No NDA on earth prohibits giving a vague idea of what the duties and industry were. You may not be able to say the specific projects you worked on, or maybe even the name of the employer under extreme circumstances, but that would be like MI5 level rare, and those folks aren’t out applying for the jobs you are.
The real trick is having an LLC so you can just point to that and say you were consulting or self-employed during that time. Or have a friend with one.
A buddy of mine had an LLC and I hired him to write my cover letter. He then had me fill some review about my experience with his company for some position he was applying for. I never lied, but the whole thing just felt so weird. But at the same time, that’s just normal. It’s not like he wasn’t capable of the work or something. He did a good job on my cover letter. He was a good grant writer before that. I just have that lingering Christian guilt that’s like “omg you’re doing something wrong! This is your conscience! Behave!”
Wouldn’t any criminal record be public record? Couldn’t they just look it up?
You can have criminal records sealed, depending on what it is, etc.
Also, in many jurisdictions you can’t look up criminal history older than a certain number of years
I also just think it’s human nature to see something like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 and say “where are 8nand 9?” It’s not necessarily an accusation or something. I’m not saying that never happens, some places and interviewers are awful. But I think a lot of people are just making sure there isn’t a typo or something.
I had a 6 month gap and I said I was taking a sabbatical (which was the truth). No one batted an eye.
I give 'em the old “caring for a sick or dying family member.” Look sad that they brought it up. That usually shuts them up.
I believe this is the best answer.
2 weeks is barely enough to get an interview. Who thinks jail? lmao
HR plebs
It depends on the context if you say you had an NDA and can’t elaborate at all on the details that’s a clear red flag as most NDAs you can at least give the context of what it is about I.e. specific job processes, witnesses an event, etc.
If you say you worked for X company but can’t talk about the details of your work because of an NDA then that’s fine but they might call your old employer to verify you did really work there.
I can’t tell you, I signed an NDA
Oh. I’m bookmarking this. Great idea.
Yes. I created the document in Google docs, and you opened it in Word.
This is on you then. Providing finished documents in an editable format just feels wrong to me
I created it in Word and opened it in Teams by accident once.
Teams embedded Office is the worst. Like, can you not, and would it hurt to be ⅔ less bloated by doing so?
That’s why you should provide PDF of you resume.
Nah just give them the
.texsource and let them deal with it.And let them figure out the bajillion packages it needs to render correctly
i have never been asked this question and i actively remove positions that aren’t relevant to the job i send that particular resume to
Went Karouac on everyone’s ass!
I was told one way is: I singed a nda and I’m not allowed to answer that
You’d still be asked to provide start and end dates and place of employment if your work was confidential. If the NDA prohibits you from disclosing your employment entirely, it will typically include a restriction against disclosing the existence of the NDA itself.
“I legally cannot tell you what I was doing from 20xx-20xx”
I’d still ask follow-up questions. Was it in the public or private sector? What branch or industry? Were you in a leadership role, part of a team, or working as an individual contributor? What skills did you develop during that employment that would be beneficial to your employment in this role?
“I cannot answer any of those except the last one, which is that I learned how to avoid questions like these”
Was singeing the NDA the reason you didn’t keep that job?
My refusal to answer is proof that I’m trustworthy :3
