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Have been laid for a while and no one wants to touch me with a ten foot pole. Resume and work experience are great. Everyone I've talked to thinks it's my long unemployment. Rarely do I get an interview.
Moralizing aside, which way to go:
1. Move up the dates to make it look like I got laid off a couple of months ago? or
2. Say I'm still working at my employer?
If an employer decides to call my former employer, then I'm done with that situation obviously. But not all will call. And that's the point. If I get 20x as many interviews by lying but 80% call my former employer, well we're doing much better than by being honest.
And in the end, while it is technically lying, the reality is that I did do that work for years. I'm not lying about having a certain job/title/experience; I'm lying about when it ended.
Agreed with STT. Your next employer just wants to see how you've spent your time. Give it a name, a category, and show how it links to what you've done or can do for your next employer.
It's annoying. I've had employers who wouldn't consider outstanding candidates because of a huge employment gap. They'd say, "What have they been doing?" I'd argue they should interview them to find out. Since I don't work everywhere, it's unlikely you have someone like me championing your resume. As a result, you absolutely must provide an explanation for the employment gap on your resume because most hiring managers assume the worst.
You need to spell out exactly what you have been doing. If you were a SAHM, caring for an aging parent, ect., you need to include that. Forget about discrimination. They simply want to know, want an explanation, and it needs to be on the resume because they won't call to ask for the explanation. When I returned to the workforce after being a SAHM, I literally had "homemaker" at the top of my chronological employment history---formatted exactly like the other employment and showing the duties and skills that I did while being a homemaker that were relevant to the work world.
Include if you've been going to school, taking a few classes, volunteering, caring for a sick relative, etc. I don't care what you've been doing. You need to include something so the hiring manager isn't left asking "What has s/he been doing?"
It really is bizarre this whole perception thing by employers. They want people who can help them do x, y, z, and have skills that are a, b, c. But not only that...they want to see exactly what else you've been doing even if it has nothing to do with their needs or wants.
It's like some test if you are 'worthy' of their attention...based not on your skills per se nor on their needs either, but on your ability to be constantly busy and in motion and justify your existence outside of a standard full-time job.
There's also this strange assumption that if you haven't used those skills right up to the day they meet you, it's as if all your knowledge has seeped out of your brain. You are not an aggregate of all you bring to the table, you are only as good as what you did in the last 11 months and up until 1 hr ago and it better be "worthy" and "relevant" because Gawd help you if you've had, you know, a life involving anything other than work, work, and more work, preferably for their exact competitor.
I really hate Corp America. I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns.
When I first got laid off I did an info interview w/an acquaintance. This woman has been with the same co (large tech co) her entire 15 yrs of working. She has progressed up the chain in her area, which is customer support/call center. Not my area, but the co was at one time of some interest to me.
ANYWAY, she has a bias against people who have moved around/been in other jobs, gotten laid off, etc. Her reasoning? She said, "I'm a monogamous person. I don't believe in leaving...not in my marriage, and not in my work."
I was dumbstruck at her viewpoint and naivete.
I asked her, "what if you got laid off?" She couldn't imagine such a thing and has never faced that.
She is a Director-level at that company and this is the attitude any job hunter has to contend with if they are interviewed by her.
Seriously WTF!!??
Gee, I'm so sorry the companies I've worked for over the past 20+ years haven't been "monogamous" and have occasionally closed their doors or laid me off. It's high tech. It's a risky business environment and you don't call the shots if you don't own the company.
And I'm sorry it happened this time. I made a long term commitment, stayed almost 7 years, but they broke up with me! And now (according to her) I'm S.O.L.
Had I not had this very conversation with her I would not have believed it if someone else related it to me. And yet...I heard it with my own 2 ears.
And this, ladies and gents, is the attitude of someone who is considered a 'leader' in her multi-billion$ global corporation.
I'll add to your rant, lottamoxie. I had one manager who discriminated against people who once owned their own businesses. She didn't trust them. She assumed they would be difficult to manage. She assumed they would steal the business contacts. She assumed they would only be there temporarily until they could venture out onto their own again. Her opinion wasn't based on experience, it was all just based on assumptions. Nuts!
What are we gonna do?
How can this have happened to our country?
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