I know this is true for most employers, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to be confident that there’s no way for any company to know. I’ve heard more than one report of companies that sell that sort of information to certain partners.

On the other hand, having a one year gap without any work raises its own red flags. Need a good reason to have large swaths of not working.

Omit jobs held less than 2 years? In this economy? They’re all less than 2 years! Props to those who’ve held jobs for several years because you must be comfortable. Most people shopping aren’t comfortable and changing jobs has gotten me more money than any in-house raise ever did.

Can confirm. Worked nearly a dozen years for the same company straight out of high school, and have not had a single employer since verify my work history or references. This is to say, that my first employer with whom I had a good rapport and good reviews, has not received a single phone call or e-mail in this regard. I still talk with & see them on a semi-regular basis, and asked them - not one, not one single effort has been made to contact them and verify the contents of my resume concerning my time spent in their employ.

Me @ Human Resources departments everywhere:

a couple thoughts:

• I usually have a section called “Relevant Work” and another called “Other” where I say “Additional experience with [list my non-relevant jobs]”
• if you are taking time off from working, try to do something educational at the same time. classwork at a local university / community college is great, or do online classes or even a bunch of tutorials and/or an open-source/volunteer project. then you can say: “I always wanted to learn about (that topic) so I took some time off to really study it.” it’s most beneificial if it’s work-related, but it doesn’t have to be.
• present yourself in the best light, but do not outright lie on your resume because that might come back to bite you.

YSK we’re a 50 person company and we absolutely verfify employment. What a dumb fucking post. I know plenty of other places that do.

Did not read very well…

I know for a fact that none of my references have ever been contacted for a reference. I have my old university professor is one of my contacts because at the time I was applying for jobs I didn’t have any other possible references I’d had no prior work experience.

Anyway I never got round to actually be removing his name and a few years ago he contacted me to tell me he was retiring (I don’t know why he felt the need to tell me this), I asked him if anybody had ever asked him to provide a reference and he said no one had ever contacted him about it for me, or anyone else who’d put him down.

Nothing hurts your resume more than having 3 or 4 jobs in a span of 2 years because it shows you are unreliable.

Yeah having no jobs for a span of 2 years would hurt your application more…

Nothing hurts your resume more than having 3 or 4 jobs in a span of 2 years because it shows you are unreliable.

I’d like to add that if you put start/end dates on your work history you should prepare talking points for any gaps this may leave when omitting jobs.

Most employers in my experience want the detail of what you were doing. They don’t like 2 year blanks.

Having multiple jobs in a few years doesn’t show you are unreliable at all. There could be a number of reasons (short contracts, change of ownership, company closing, moving house, having kids, conditions changing) that forced your move.

I’ve got jobs in the past because my CV showed I was able and willing to take jobs when opportunities came my way.

Good advice, but it depends. Some people don’t want to show a gap in their resume, for any reason. It all depends on the story you want to tell. If you think the experience is directly relevant to the story you are looking to tell, put it in.

Did you do some temp work in your field for few months between full-time gigs? Probably best to include that, especially if you learned or applied relevant skills. Did you end up working in a different field to make ends meet instead? Probably best to leave that out, unless you can relate that unrelated experience to what you want to do now.

This also depends on the country and the industry. For many American jobs these days, your previous employer might be opening themselves up to a lawsuit if they said anything bad about you, so many companies now will at most identify the duration of your employment and your job title but nothing else.

The point is not that a former employee would necessarily win a lawsuit, but they could bring one and the legal bills alone would be significant, therefore many company lawyers will say to just shut the hell up when asked any questions about performance.

You might be surprised… https://employees.theworknumber.com/

Many employers report your employment info to data brokers. Request your data and see for yourself.

Just get the dates right, down to the month. Beyond that, you can make just about everything else up and since most employers don’t want to foot the bill for actual due diligence, your interview performance is what matters next-most.

Change your job titles to whatever fits the job you’re aiming to get now(remember you’ll actually need to interview for and do the job if you get it, so consider inflating only about 1 level of seniority upward).

You can add unverifiable resume items to explain gaps, such as a side gig or volunteer experience or family event.

You can make up 90% of the bullet points under each experience item too, which will increase net job search performance by 28% on average and 122% of hiring managers won’t read them or will read them and not ask about them anyway.

If you think companies are going to keep your data and blacklist you, then you just need to formally request your complete PII file under applicable data privacy laws such as GDPR or CCPA. If they did keep your data, the same laws can be used to make them delete it entirely (assuming you’re not also their customer, in which case they’ll have permissible reasons to keep it until you discontinue your subscription).