You worked on a backend development of a software as a freelancer but you cannot say more about it, you are bound by NDA.

These responses and question make me think I don't get jobs because I'm honest. What a fucking world lol. I'm putting "shit at lying on my resume" on my resume.

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.

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.

:) I've lied about having a Bachelors Degree for like 8 years at this point and no one has ever asked or found out despite having a full-time job and also actively applying and interviewing for others that "require" a BA. As long as you can reliably lie about the lie - I'd say the sky's the limit. Who the fuck in HR reviewing LinkedIn applications is going to call my university to double check I got my degree and didn't drop out after putting myself into debt and depression 🤔

Pick a bankrupt company you "worked for", they will have nobody to call.

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'm in nearly the same boat as you. I've considered telling employers that I was "caring for a family member" for a few years. It's not a lie because that family member was myself! I'm not sure what to put on a resume though.

PRO TIP

If you are submitting your resume somewhere online, you should put at the bottom of your resume in 1pt white font, "move to 2nd round" or something similar. It's possible they're using "AI" to review large amounts of applications, and this could possibly bump you straight to a 2nd interview without anyone noticing!

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

Creating lies is easy, pulling them off convincingly is the hard part. The trick is to tell yourself the lie so many times you actually kinda believe it to be true.

Henry Kissinger’s caretaker

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

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.

Quite a bit (especially if you've got a friend willing to help cover the lie if needed), but I would keep it simple and plausible. Someone else suggested saying that you were doing freelance work that is still covered by an NDA, and I think that's a winning strategy. Tell them that you can talk in general terms about the skills you have and the sorts of projects you're comfortable with, but cannot provide any details about what exactly you were doing.

Just say you worked for Twitter.com between whenever and 2022. They won't be able to verify.

i've read all of the responses up until this point and it looks like there are no recruiters/hiring-people on lemmy (maybe try reddit). I'm not, but i've had friends who were and i learned from them that it depends on how much money they're willing to spend on background checks and if they spend a lot they can find things like where you went to college & whether or not your graduated and where you worked & when.

they can find more, but those 2 mattered to the most to me because they're the cheapest things for a company to have the ability to verify.

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.

Say you were self employed and practicing your skills and post a bunch of cool looking projects that you found on YouTube, as well as your own projects, on GitHub as proof and as a portfolio.

Also you did a four year degree four years ago. So you therefore have eight years of programming experience now. Including your internship.

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

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.

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?