Long term unemployed... need advice.

jcow

I am long term unemployed almost 7 years. I have done some FAS courses in this time, I have A+ and network+ certs. I am sick of being unemployed and am not seeing many internships i can apply for in my area. I will keep applying for some in Dublin if relevant ones come up.

Having lack of work experience is my Achilles heel. Only option is to lie on my cv to fill the gaps.

Any help appreciated.

Pee Fortyfive

jcow wrote: »

I am long term unemployed almost 7 years. I have done some FAS courses in this time, I have A+ and network+ certs. I am sick of being unemployed and am not seeing many internships i can apply for in my area. I will keep applying for some in Dublin if relevant ones come up.

Having lack of work experience is my Achilles heel. Only option is to lie on my cv to fill the gaps.

Any help appreciated.

Don't think you can fill in the gaps with fictitious employment as they will expect you to provide references for them. Unless you can get a friend or someone you know to convincingly act as the referee for anything that you put down. You could try volunteering for a while, there might not be experience available directly related to your field, but at least you would be able to get a reference from them as regards reliability and application. Have a look at this:

http://www.volunteer.ie/i-want-to-volunteer/what-can-you-do/types-of-volunteering

You could also fill the gaps with courses that you haven't actually done, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't put ones down that are directly related to the filed you want to get into, but you could say that doing these other courses was worthwhile for general education and helping you decide what you were really interested in ( i.e. the courses that you did actually do) and it would also fill out your CV a bit. I doubt they'll ever ask for evidence of these other courses, and you'll have the evidence for the courses you actually did.

You might also think about contacting companies directly offering to work for free in exchange for experience. It'll be **** while you are doing it, but will show initiative and would look good on your CV and give you that experience you are looking for. You might need to do a lot of applications before even being successful with working for free as a lot of companies wouldn't want to invest time in you. But if you landed just one it would do your long-term prospects no end of good.

I'm sure you're sick of people telling you to keep on hanging in there and it'll turn out alright, but that is what you need to do. Remember, you only need to get one job (paid or unpaid) to get yourself back in the game. Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince/princess. The very best of luck to you - and keep the chin up.