I graduated with a bachelors in computer science around 4 years ago. Long story short, I was depressed, dysphoric, and suicidal throughout my college years and by the time I finished I didn’t want to do anything. I’ve been unemployed for the last 4 years but I’ve also transitioned, started taking better care of myself, and overall I feel much better.

Anyways, I need to get a job now. What kind of lies can I get away with on my resume to cover up the long period of unemployment? Should I pretend I started some sort of company and it failed? Pretend like I went on some backpacking journey in a foreign country? Do companies even check all this stuff?

I did do an internship at a big tech company several years ago, and I’m working on personal software projects so I can put that on my resume. Also, I’m in Amerikkka.

Sorry if this question has been asked here before obama-sad

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      It’s also ok to admit you don’t know something, but you gotta find a way to turn it in your favor.

      Do you have any experience working with servers?

      I don’t have any formal experience with servers. My 2023 project was to create a little media server to host my parents’ DVD collection and family photos because they’re retired and traveling often. I’ve been learning on my own about how to set up a network, but it’s a bit challenging because other people live with me and I don’t want to make the connection unsecure by forwarding ports or exposing my IP without understanding why.

      Sometimes I ask online for advice, but I also want the solutions and results to be the industry standard until I gain more experience to experiment and judge whether it’s better to deviate.

      Reality: I’ve been watching movies on my computer and sometimes I wish I could watch them without internet so I looked up how to create a NAS then never bothered.

      Also very important: don’t sound like you’re trying to impress them. Just have a casual tone, take a little break, switch up your posture, laugh a little, feign some humbleness (e.g. “what do you call it… snap fingers, lean back a little ah, domains, I keep forgetting to join them with new devices”). Don’t just drone on about something because you’ll seem overly cautious and feigning confidence with your abilities - the truth is part of the interview is vibes based; do they think you’re a cool dude?

      What helped me stand out was preparing for the interview and just asking clarifying questions about a concept I may or may not understand and involving the employers in my answer; this would often deviate us from the question at hand which gives you a little more time to think and just seem curious - “I’ve been testing out new operating systems on - was it VMs or containers that didn’t emulate the entire computer? Oh containers? I keep getting the two mixed up because I have VMs on my more powerful computer and containers on weaker ones. But, I’ve been testing out new operating systems…”

      However, the more senior you are, the less likely these tactics will work.