Reemul
1661
Over here in the UK employers tend to research that stuff and if you earn and it shows on bank statements etc they see it and if you havent declared it they at times sack you or failure you probation as they say you lied. Not sure how it works elsewhere.
Reemul
1662
Well I just had my last meeting with HR this morning, confirmed I get paid on Friday and from Monday am offically unemployed, I also have to wait until 29th June to get me severance pay.
Been off for nearly 4 week so far and finding it very strange, seems I am busier than ever how I managed time for work I dont know. No one around at times it feels lonely, luckily this last week I have a new friend in Geralt and co.
I have no particular expertise, but I’d probably just put a category of Freelance / Contract <Role>, and list all relevant activities in the intervening time without necessarily even spelling out what duration any specific position was. If there’s only 1 job in there, it might be a little sketchy, but I figure it keeps your resume current up to the present day, and you can explain the details in person where you can explain the cultural fit, etc. issues.
I know I’m literally the last person in the known universe you want to take career advice from considering my current situation, but here is food for thought. If you paid taxes there or anywhere else, any HR person can see it. They can see how long you were there. You give them permission to check on you like this. So my advice is to get in front of it. People understand a place not being a good fit. They won’t understand anything they perceive to be dishonest. If you need to go that far back, list it. Far better for them to hear it from you. The days of just not putting places where you screw up or get fired (which isn’t you of course) are long gone.
Hey Tim, for what it’s worth I have put all my short duration contract stuff on my resume and I’ve never gotten any grief about it. I think in our field it’s pretty normal to have some short duration contracts, it just works out that way sometimes and you don’t need to explain unless they should ask for more details.
So it looks like put it on there. Okay, that’s what I’ll do. This is what my wife suggested, but naturally I thought: WTF does she know? lol, thanks, guys, much appreciated.
nKoan
1667
I’ve seen people put ‘Independent Contractor’ in that spot and lump all of them together (assuming there is more than one). I would probably recommend as everyone else does, putting it on the resume.
JeffL
1668
I’m always curious when I see a large gap in work experience on the resume. Personally, I don’t believe in that “only the last 10 years” guideline. It’s fine to list short term roles and describe them.
And if you only worked somewhere 3 months and then left, I HIGHLY recommend you do NOT leave it out. If the company does a good job of checking out your references, etc. and they find a 3 month job you didn’t list, the default assumption will be that something shady/bad happened there. Anything that you leave out can raise suspicions. Much better to list it and say in the resume something like “I decided to leave after 3 months, even though they liked my work, as I felt it was not a good fit for my skills and career desires.” Be prepared to have a reference, of course.
There are too many examples out there of people getting fired for improprieties, etc. and leaving that job off the resume because they want to hide that; I’ve seen several of those, and thus get very suspicious if we find a job they left off.
FWIW
What sort of checks can a company do today. Can they see where and when you worked? How much you earned?
I’m generally curious but would be mostly interested if anyone knows how it works in the UK.
Reemul
1670
A majour bank I used to supply for had an external company that verified everything.
They check all education, all employment, any gaps meant bank statements, confirmed all unknown income, criminal checks home and abroad and everything else you could think off.
The reports we used to scan to their systems were hundreds of pages long detailing everything you could think of. Any discrepancies then you could and did lose your job.
I had seen people fired for putting down a B grade instead of a C grade, missing out jobs, too much illness and so on. It was quite scary at times what they seemed to find out and how.
What happens when you work for a tiny place that no longer exists/company no longer exists?
I’m really reluctant to put co-workers on any sort of social media.
JeffL
1672
Our searches aren’t hundreds of pages long but catch most of the basics. We spend a lot of time on references, and we understand the flaws inherent in that (e.g. a person only lists references they know will give them a good review, etc.). There’s an art to finding, checking, and interviewing references. ;) If someone worked for a company that is not longer in existence we’d like to have at least one or two references from people who worked there.
For most companies, it’s more spot checking than exhaustive private investigator type reports. Depends on the business of course. But if you are caught lying, that is pretty much a deal killer. Remember there are usually a lot of candidates vying for a job. For me, personally, if a candidate lies to me on the resume and in the interview, it is a red flag: do I want to hire someone I can’t trust? What else did they lie about that I didn’t catch?
I hired a guy about 4 years ago. He came right out and told me during the phone interview, I lost my job at company X because I did something stupid, described what it was (was not a morals or integrity or legal issue,) and he said, even though he would have preferred forgiveness and a second chance, he couldn’t blame them for letting him go- his mistake cost the company a major customer. Everything else in his references, resume, interview, etc. indicated a very strong, motivated, pro-active person. It was also clear he learned a major lesson from his mistake. I hired him and he is doing great.
Had he lied to me and said something like, oh, I left company X because I just didn’t fit their company or something like that, and then we discovered the truth, never would have hired him.
Bottom line: assume the company will know the truth.
rowe33
1673
It’s amazing that companies will check the hell out of regular applicants but somehow CEOs and the like slip through with fake Masters degrees, fake credentials, etc.
Not all companies check carefully (heck, I suspect the majority don’t for most positions). I highly doubt that any company in which the CEO had an issue ran detailed checks on their other employees, but not the CEO. In other words, it’s likely cross-company variance, not nonsensical variance within a company.
Alternatively/additionally, if the CEO has been there since the beginning, company policies may have changed in the interim as the company grew, resulting more careful checks now, than when the CEO was hired.
JeffL
1675
I worked for a company that did a detailed reference check on most employees, yet after I left there was a scandal because it appears the CIO lied about his educational history and did not, in fact, have the degrees he claimed to have.
I think the difference in CEOs is how they are “hired.” While a guy working in IT or the lab or in marketing will go through a standard procedure of submitting a resume to the hiring manager and HR, then they will go through their process, lots of interviews, etc., often a CEO is “chosen” by a few people on the board of directors or the previous CEO if he just retired, etc. and then that person may be recruited hard. And there may be a mentality that if the person you’re trying to hire is already the CEO of, say, GE, they have already been vetted and they are a known quantity.
Well, here’s hoping this is the break I need! Got a call for a Contracts Administrator interview for this Wednesday. This is literally likely to be my last time up at bat, so we’ll see how it goes. Pay isn’t awesome, but would allow me to exist, pay my bills and have a few bucks left over. Crossing everything I have to cross!
Absolute best of luck to ya, divorced. If anyone deserves a spot of good luck, it’s you!
Go get 'em Divorced! Seize the day, we are pulling for you here, that’s for sure!
Clanan
1679
Woo good luck divorced! My family will be praying for you.
Editer
1680
Tons of positive energy coming your way, Divorced. Hope it all goes well!
