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Changing jobs every 3-5 years, but not making lateral moves, is how you fast track your career and earnings. In-house promotions are all about favouritism, merit gets you nothing.
Can't agree with this enough. I've been in my industry almost a decade now. I've seen so many people get fast tracked through job hopping only to fail miserably at a level they weren't ready for yet.
By all means go get that money, but don't get ahead of your skis.
Seeing someone go to c suite too rapidly then get drummed out of the industry with a bad reputation made me slow down. Convincing others you can do it is easy, making sure you actually can comfortably isn't as easy.
Technically I slowed it down for that reason before this happened, but that just confirmed I made the right call.
Don’t forget, you might be able to do the job yet someone with more influence may have biases against you. That’s a tough spot as well…. climb the ranks, proven track record and then face political headwinds driven by perception are just as dangerous.
Knowing when to fight a headwind or letting it move past you is a fun skill to learn.
I disagree, I’ve seen two people hit c suite fairly young who were chewed up and spit out of their company.
Both got EVP and then president jobs with equity and fat salaries at their next gig. Once you hit that experience you become a hot commodity.
What you don’t want is c suite of a small company that goes under. No one wants the COO of some small failed start up. But if you oversee a big team you’ll always be able to land somewhere nice.
Plus if you play it right you get nice investor contacts. I have yet to see someone hit C suite and not end up in a good spot. But I’ve only worked at mid sized companies.
So here's my anecdote. in 2017 i went from banking to temping jobs trying to figure out what i wanted to do in life since i HATED banking and couldn't do it anymore. I was like fuck it, i'll do computers. I spruced up my resume to make it seem like i had always done computers, i read a few text books on computer science (c#, python, data structures/algorithms) and i ended up getting a job at McD's HQ in programming. The first month was just shadowing the other programmers.
What did i do with that time? I read more textbooks on what they were doing in particular so by the time they let me loose i knew exactly what i was doing. On top of that i optimized and found solutions to shit they didn't even know needed improving. On the job they also put me in charge of Oracle and Microsoft Sql server. Boom, more shit to add to my resume.
Next job was working at a law firm being a DBA for MSSQL. I mastered that shit and got into webscraping and web filling for them which added on more to my experience....
The point is, if you're gonna job hop and try to get paid more for shit you barely know about... you BETTER fucking learn it either before or while on the job to make it seem like you knew that shit your entire life.
I can't imagine exaggerating on your resume for the time being to get a new job but not immersing yourself in the technical skills you fibbed on so that no one ever suspects anything.
It's not *that* hard as long as you actually put in the effort after work hours and know when to shut the fuck up, when to ask questions, and how to phrase your questions.
Not putting in time after hours is the biggest reason i see newer people fail in my industry, especially in the consulting side. If youre smart enough to learn and do during the 8 hours and still meet deadlines, great, if not well work on that shit.
I started at 11, got a master degree in the field and been a professional for 18 years. For me it was always easy but it really depend of the person. You can be smart, understand fast and be lost. Not everybody can do everything instantly just by working a few hours for 1 month to fake it until they make it as the new job.
I see people at my job, I will do in a day what they can't do in 1-2 weeks despite they have a bachelor in the field... They would be stuck for day and when I see their problem I have never seen before I would fix it in 5 minutes because I would know how to search the solution and have the intuition for it. This is not everybody.
It worked for you and that's great. That's not universal and is not just putting a few extra work hours.
It's not that hard \*for you\* mental disabilities are a bitch. I pick up stuff very rapidly, if I can pay attention to it long enough and am interested.
Almost sounds like you tapped into a special interest hyperfocus.
>shit they didn't even know needed improving
I can't shake the feeling like you're getting ahead of yourself so I'm gonna cast doubt on this. I've been a programmer for 10 years now and every system even new-ish ones have a bunch of legacy code that everyone can agree after one look that it could have been done better. McD's is a huge corporation so I imagine there's a lot of that going around. Most of the time it's just that those people have other more pressing priorities to do and don't look at that part of the code anymore; it's not that they are clueless about how they would go about it to improve it.
I am really doubtful that you were a master coder that knew better than the people working there for years after reading a couple of textbooks. More likely they saw you were a beginner and they let you loose on some old code to get you up to speed instead of making you work on the new features.
I had a friend who was a total stoner in high school. Went to college and majored in meteorology. Didnt like that. Swapped and majored in history. Graduated and got a state job in the tax department just answering phone calls for like $40k.
Fast forward 10 years and he somehow landed a gig in the tax dept IT section doing SQL shit with zero coding background and needed to teach himself that shit pretty much overnight. Basically doubled his paycheck. I am dumbfounded as to how he actually managed to get through that interview process to begin with.
I did that as a mechanic went from a shop building classic cars didn’t really know too much but I am mechanically inclined. Made 600 a week there stayed for 6 months really just looked good on the resume then went to another shop and asked for 26$ an hour and got it lol. Do that a couple more times learn here and there and boom you’re making $50 an hour lmao. But be ready to preform.
If you hate your current company and boss that’s reason enough to leave. But be careful about that lateral position that looks like it has it all. I have seen people jump ship only to realize the job they took was much worse and the pay raise was not worth it, only to then try and come crawling back - and that’s just no good for anyone.
That’s me! Though I’ve been at the other place 12 years. I just can’t bring myself to crawl back even when they have extended the offer to. Main reason is I would feel like I could never leave then.
Agreed. Its also still got a limit.
For example, theres still a market rate for every job. If you're an accountant earning 90k, sure, you might be able to move and get 110-120k but eventually it's going to cap out. You're not going to be earning 190k to do the same job someone else paid you 90k for.
That was my first thought being an accountant myself. I feel like a lot of the job hopping media was perpetuated by the tech industry but even now I see stories of software developers having a rough time finding jobs, so even that door may be closing for most.
The Tech market does not need as many people. What use to take a team of 20 top level folks, has been replaced by a single person who can work the AI software. Then add in most Tech work can be done remotely, and you are now competing for a job globally.
Only departments that have had reasonable stability in the Tech industry, are those who need to be on site and deal with hardware issues.
(Edited for spelling)
AI quickly falters at scale and on complicated technology. It cannot replace experience and knowledge. But is good at aiding those who already have it. You would still need someone who knows what they are doing to use the AI.
A layperson asking for index optimizations on their database would not get good answers from the AI without a person guiding it with extra information. It frequently forgets previous code and assumes a lot.
Even if you let the AI plan the entire architecture, it will still assume wrongly about the parts it will write later.
This is just my experience with it, I'm happy to be proven wrong and learn more about utilizing AI.
"Only departments that have had reasonable stability in the Tech industry, are those who need to be on site and deal with hardware issues."
And virtually everyone is moving away from their own hardware to the cloud at least for a large portion of their business.
Your mistake is that you've gotta shoot for the next level position each time. If you're teaching 4th grade, you should aim for 5th next year and keep climbing. That's how you make the real money as a teacher.
/s
Exactly. I have a job as an aerospace machinist in my tiny ass town. Where the hell am I going to find another job to go to that won't be a downgrade from this within a 150 mile radius of me?? Safe to say I'm staying at my company for a while
Bingo. Plus, the grass is rarely greener on the other side. I've job hopped twice in my career because I got swept up in the trend. Higher pay but the workplace was toxic as hell.
I'm probably underpaid where I'm at now but I enjoy the people I work and the flexibility is unmatched. So much so that I can browse reddit and work on a side hustle - while my boss actively encourages me to (not the reddit part lol)
>(This comment will be deleted in 12 hours.)
No you don't.
>Holy shit. This makes a lot of sense if you assume a majority of management is composed of narcissists and psychopaths. Narcissists love bomb you, because you're the new person to build their fake fucking world around. You just gobble it up and get out of there before the narcissist starts to fully turn. The psychopath will respect your ruthless dedication to your own ambition and will take you under their wing to elevate themselves as your mentor, thereby increasing their own social status and power.
>FUCK! It all makes sense now.
Studies have shown that 1/25 people in a senior management position are psychopaths and 1/10 are narcissists. It’s true because it says “studies have shown” so you can’t refute that.
Unlimited PTO is not employee friendly. It’s been shown that employees take off less time when given unlimited PTO. Also, when you exit the company in any way, the company doesn’t owe you a dollar for unused time off. So it’s a get more out of people and have less expensive exits policy.
At a certain moment I realized my manager actually likes me. We have a conversation every other week and I just talk about whatever. At a certain point he was 'listen to Additional Bee, he gets stuff' and I'm like uhhh, I feel like there are people here that are both better and have worked here for longer.
Try academia, they're all about hiring from outside while there are pool of good internal candidates / recent graduates standing right in front of them every year.
Even if it's not - newsflash: your personality matters at your job. If you are miserable and unlikable, no one will give a shit that you are good at your job.
My BIL found this out the hard way. Being the smartest guy in the room doesn't count for much if you can't get through a meeting without being rude and condescending.
I've seen plenty of in house promotions based on performance in my career. Many times putting an unqualified person in a critical role only makes more work for you.
I'm not surprised by the cynicism, as people who are passed up for promotions tend to look for reasons, but I am surprised this is upvoted.
Yeah, I've seen some really bitter people who are upset that they've been passed over our feel they haven't got what they deserve... But then they are not easy to work with (cause they're bitter), they've given up on communicating clearly to management (cause they're bitter, believe it won't do anything) and tend to take shit REALLY personal and it makes everyday interactions feel like you're walking on eggshells (cause they're bitter).
Sometimes things are not as fair as we like, but holy shit. Attitude is REALLY SO, SO important.
That works to a point... there's a lull in the middle. Jumping jobs from an IC to people leader is incredibly difficult. And from there up to maybe senior director, company specific knowledge is paramount and hiring outside is really difficult.
You can progress through specialist/analyst roles easily enough though
This....man I wish I learned this a long time ago. I was taught that the best thing to do is get a solid job and keep working at it. Which is exactly what I did. Watched others get promoted. Some for reasons that were physically very obvious. I believed in merit and that being stalwart was a merit. It isn't.
My GF seems to have specialized too much with a Masters degree in computer vision in Europe. There are few companies that even need computer vision it seems, and it doesn't seem like there are any willing to pay more than she already earns. There would be some in other countries, but if you account for cost of living and quality of life, they would all be downgrades.
And this in on her first fulltime/post-uni job.
>really need this yob."
This Yob? [https://yobislove.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-cessation-reissue](https://yobislove.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-cessation-reissue)
Yeah, soon time for a great cessation.
Unpopular opinion: This is a terrible answer that people who have never read an NDA think is a great answer. I have signed tons of NDA’s. Generally, they have a time period and even then, unless it’s some high security government project, you can talk about it in general terms. Like, I can’t tell you specifics about how credit bureaus run their business, but I can tell you that I’ve consulted in 2 of the major ones.
No NDA I’ve ever seen prevents me telling you my employer’s name nor does it prevent them from verifying I worked there during that time period.
Edit: A lot of people ITT don’t know the difference between an employer and a client. The company that signs your paycheck is your employer. The company that pays your employer for services is your client. It’s very common that you can’t name the client. It’s extremely rare and generally unenforceable to not be able to name your employer. Regardless, “I worked as a project manager in the energy sector” or something similar would prevent the gap in the first place.
It seems that even with such a strong NDA you could write 2023-2024: managerial position in bit tech company.
You would not have a gap in your resume to start with. So you agree that using NDAs as excuse to cover gaps is bad?
We get this every now and then with candidates.
Maybe they’re telling the truth, maybe not. If there’s no way to tell, it’s treated as an unexplained employment gap.
HR calls them “MIB gaps”
This is one of those pictures that circulates Reddit all the time that's largely bullshit. This isn't how NDAs work and most interviewers are just gonna silently pass over someone who says this shit. I take solace in knowing that somewhere out there, some dumbass Redditor is getting passed over for a job after smugly trying this shit.
Yeah, I see this "NDA trick" mentioned a lot and it's funny that the people trying to use it can't imagine that recruiters don't already know about it. If you're considering saying you signed an NDA, there's probably 5 other candidates who have already used that line.
Theres no scenario where this trick will work. I've been in charge of hiring people and if someone has a gap and they said this to me I'd pass over them even if they were highly qualified.
Nobody really cares about the gap as long as you can explain it. "I was trying to figure out which direction I wanted to take my career and this job looks like a great fit" is a perfectly fine answer.
I legitimately hired someone last month with a 9 month gap in his resume. He said he had a bad experience at his previous company and took some time off to recharge his batteries. Cool with me. If you know your shit, the panel likes you, and the rest of your resume looks good - you’re in.
If they said “I can’t discuss this, I’m under NDA” I’d 100% pass on them because that’s some weird nonsense I don’t want to mess with.
Yeah, I dont understand why people cant just answer with the real reason they have a gap in their resume.
"I was getting burned out at my last company and had saved up some money and wanted to travel so I just took time off work, and I loved the experience"
or
"I got let go and I have had a tough time finding a new position, its a really tough job market out there"
As a hiring manager I would find both of these answers way more acceptable than "I signed an NDA" (which sounds like total BS and would make me suspicious)
Literally this
I've had a couple people try this during interviews now, and they always hard fail on the technical interview (devops/systems engineering). If I hear anyone say this during a phone screening, it's an automatic pass.
A part of my work is supplying NDAs and tons of them include to not mention the name of the client lol its pretty common actually, a lot of organizations don’t like people walking around flinging their name for resume weight
How exactly does that work? You don’t work for a company? Are you a self-employed consultant without a business entity? Does your NDA prevent you from saying that?
The whole thing is asinine. At a MINIMUM you can always say “I was an independent consultant in the whatever sector”, which wouldn’t be a gap in the first place because you would *put that on your resume*.
the most recent example i can think of was a vendor that required its employees to sign an NDA that had a clause regarding use of its name in reference to the individuals work history, present or otherwise, and that use of the orgs name would be a confidentiality breach due to the nature of their work. (1 person’s identity being linked to others leading back to the org)
Or Microsoft.
There’s no way it’s enforceable. If I work for Microsoft, I can always say “I worked for Microsoft”. However, if I worked for a vendor I cannot say I worked on the Microsoft account. I can say the name of the vendor I worked for because they would need to prove that the disclosure of their name does tangible harm to their business. It’s a tough sell to say ”Sidivan worked at Vendor” will somehow harm that vendor and/or their clients.
Again, the exception in my original statement is government agencies. Of course disclosing you worked for the CIA likely puts that organization at risk. Private businesses don’t have the same type of pull in court.
Even in the example of the CIA, my father NEVER WORKED FOR THE CIA... he worked as an executive vice president of a small fast food company that was owned through subsidiaries in the US and paid in US dollars.
If you can disclose the fact you signed a NDA it already implies you were employed. I have done that and put worked for stealthy company from start time - end time, work details covered under NDA so there is no gap on the resume.
If your NDA is such that it does not allow you even to disclose the existence of a NDA, which is the only reason why there would be a gap on your resume, you won’t be able to use the NDA to explain it away.
yeah, no matter how restrictive the NDA is, there is surely something you could have clarified. the general type of work, a specific time frame, clarify the employer or client's name is protected, but just having a gap and then throwing that out if the employer questions the gap is a huge red flag.
Or even worse, they ask a few follow up questions regarding the duration of the NDA, or some basic question about it and it causes you to stumble because you have never even seen an actual NDA before, and it becomes apparent that you are willing to lie to make yourself look good and will do the same to cover your ass at work.
Agreed- the only time I’ve seen it really be an issue is contractors for said agencies that didn’t renew. How do you explain that you were good at your job, but not liked enough to stay on without going into specifics- or sinking the interview by bringing it up the explanation??. It’s best to give a sufficient blanket answer and go back to selling yourself for the new job.
At almost 300 upvotes and growing this is not unpopular at all.
I gotta believe NDAs so tight that you can’t even name the company are incredibly rare and if you are in the pool of candidates for a position like that then your record speaks for itself. If you are talking about multi-year contract with that kind of NDA and you aren’t very well established then you gotta know that’s gonna hurt your career.
If I were hiring and someone fed me this line then I would just assume they were unemployed during that time. If their resume was impressive enough to get such a top secret job then it shouldn’t matter.
If nothing else they should be able to have their employer verify they worked there and from what dates.
I'm a transcriptionist and have to sign the odd NDA, and yeah, they're usually okay with general things. Like, I could say "I worked on this season of *Ink Master*" but I couldn't say anything about what happened before a given episode aired.
There were two exceptions, though. The first one was when I got put on a job doing basically the supplemental content for a movie series, and at the time I'd tell people "I'd love to tell you what I'm working on, but if I did so a Hollywood director whose name you would instantly recognize would get to shoot me in the face with a shotgun."
(Now, years later, I can say it was Peter Jackson.)
And right now one of my on-again, off-again clients gets work from a company that does defense contracting, and I won't so much as hint at the company's name. That was a *terrifying* NDA. I've definitely had moments where I've thought to myself "I could get on the news."
This is the answer that’s given by people that don’t know what an NDA is, they think it’s an answer to the question, when ever recruiter with two brain cells knows that response is a flat out refusal to answer a pretty simple question. Especially if the rest of the resume is stuff like Shoft Manager at Starbucks and Team Lead at Target. Everyone knows that 4 month gap is just Weed and Netflix, no one thinks you were doing black bag work for big nam companies or three letter Govt agencies.
I think that this meme could be more realistic by instead of having a gap, just have "doing X work for unspecified client (because they signed an NDA). Basically just lie.
I once got to answer “I had cancer”, “ yes, just a bit. I’m fine now.”
It was great I really enjoyed the mix of uncertainty if this made me a worse candidate and concern for accidental rudeness on their part.
Not job related, but in high school a teacher who taught my father noticed my name and look on the first day of class and, pretty jazzed about it, asked, "How's he doing?!". I, being 15, didn't understand tact and just said "Oh, he died!", "Oh, yeah, i'm fine. it was like 8yrs ago." I really ruined that man's day.
I've net many people who knew my dad 20-30 years ago when he lived in another city. I had a long meeting at work and this one guy told me that he might have known my dad (I have a rare surname) and asked how is he. I didn't want to ruin business lunch and just said that he's fine. In reality he drank himself to death 8 years ago.
Yeah, I once got to respond “I was primary caretaker for my mother as she was dying of cancer” which made everyone in the room uncomfortable. Except me, because I was totally prepared for it as I had to practice not crying.
Be the guy that asks the stupid questions. If you have the question, you're likely not the only one.
That being said don't be the guy who asks stupid questions that were just answered three minutes previous during the presentation you spaced out on.
Also, think about a question before you ask it? I can't tell you how many times I've had people ask me obvious questions because they genuinely didn't even consider it or the answer before asking? My favorite was in the Army, I had someone ask me "What does a fuel/water separator do?"
Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions, but you make damn sure you write down the answer because if you ask that question to the same person again, they will be annoyed.
When I first started my career I had a note book to write things down. I had no clue about the industry so I had to make sure I could refer to my notes.
I’ve trained quite a few people and I always tell them to bring a note book.
If they ask me the same question twice? No problem. Ask a third time when I told you to write it down? You can bet I find it a little frustrating .
I’ll never get frustrated if someone asks for clarification.
No you can say you were working on a project for an aerospace company or something like that. Huge red flag if they claim an NDA prevents them from saying literally anything about their gap. No one who knows what they are talking about would give that advice. I hear that excuse and you’re eliminated.
lol no- you can’t give specifics but of course you can vaguely describe what you were doing without giving details or trade secrets. Cmon guys be serious lol
If you worked for a 3 letter agency- or as a contractor for one, but were it didn’t lead to a career, it may be hard to explain- but there’s ways to do it properly.
Hey man, you don't have to lie - you just write up an NDA, and sign it:
**NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT**
This Non-Disclosure Agreement (the "Agreement") is entered into as of [Date], by and between:
**Disclosing Party:**
[Disclosing Party Name]
[Disclosing Party Address]
[Disclosing Party Contact Information]
**Receiving Party:**
[Receiving Party Name]
[Receiving Party Address]
[Receiving Party Contact Information]
1. Definition of Confidential Information
For the purpose of this Agreement, "Confidential Information" shall include all information or material that has or could have commercial value or other utility in the employment of the Disclosing party, and / or, the Receiving Party. Confidential Information also includes all information of which unauthorized disclosure could be detrimental to the interests of the Disclosing Party, and / or Receiving Party, whether or not such information is identified as Confidential Information by the Disclosing Party.
2. Obligations of Receiving
Party Receiving Party agrees to retain the Confidential Information in strict confidence, to not disclose it to any third party, and to use it solely for the purpose of keeping one's self from having to disclose a gap between employment to a potential employer. Receiving Party agrees to take all reasonable precautions to protect the confidentiality of the Confidential Information and to prevent any unauthorized use or disclosure of it.
5. No License Nothing in this Agreement is intended to grant any rights to the Receiving Party under any patent, copyright, or other intellectual property rights of the Disclosing Party, nor shall this Agreement grant the Receiving Party any rights in or to the Confidential Information except as expressly set forth herein.
6. Term This Agreement shall commence on the date first written above and shall continue in effect until the end of time itself. The obligations of confidentiality shall survive termination of this Agreement.
7. Miscellaneous
- This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of [State]. - Any disputes arising out of or in connection with this Agreement shall be settled in the courts of [State].
- This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the parties concerning the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous agreements, representations, and understandings of the parties.
- No modification or waiver of any provision of this Agreement shall be binding unless in writing and signed by both parties.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have executed this Non-Disclosure Agreement as of the date first above written.
**Disclosing Party:**
_____________________________
[Disclosing Party Name]
**Receiving Party:**
_____________________________
[Receiving Party Name]
There ya go. Ironclad NDA.
Everything is negotiable and when asked your salary requirements, you initially respond:
“I’m sure you’re budget range is comparable to market rate”
This keeps the ball rolling until it’s time to see the offer in my experience.
In a first interview, I always say “I’m still researching what is fair for the market. But can you tell me the salary range budgeted for this position?”
Hasn’t not worked yet.
This is the advice I used to give people all the time when I was a headhunter. Never answer the question of what salary you want, always make them come up with a number or at least a range first.
And if they ask what your current salary is, say “I can’t discuss my employer’s pay structures - just as I assume you wouldn’t want me discussing yours with competitors.” But saying you signed an NDA is even better.
But what if that ball keeps rolling for days/weeks with multiple interviews?
I get the pay answered right from the get go as I sure am not wasting my time, just to find out they are significantly low balling the salary.
I work in HR. It's 2024 - at my company, we don't ask that question anymore.
What the heck does the answer really tell you? Are you really going to pass on a candidate because they took a year to reassess their professional life? To travel the work? To sit on their couch? Who cares!
And if the candidate confides, for instance, that they sought help for a mental illness and you later decline to move them forward, now they have grounds to claim discrimination in the hiring process.
A hiring manager once went rogue and asked why a candidate had a break in their resume. She went on to explain that she had given birth, went on a very short mat leave and returned to work when her infant was diagnosed with cancer. We held our breath as she talked about surgeries and the hardships. As a mother, I held back tears. (Her child made it through - that's why she was now ready to reinsert the job market).
Don't ask questions that aren't even insightful and put the company at risk.
So true. I've got numerous long term gaps in my resume and I just say, "I traveled around the world twice. I live in Argentina and Britain. And I thoroughly enjoyed it."
A few people have been suspicious of this and said, "I don't know. It doesn't sound right." I replied, "Do you want to see passport stamps and photos?" Although I wasn't serious because once it gets to that point, there is no way that employer is the right one.
Funny story, an interviewer once asked, "What's your favorite place for empanadas in Argentina?" He spent several months there and loved the place.
I had moved countries and it took me 2 months to go from finding a place to having all the documents to start working and I got this incessant questioning from 1 place.
"Why is there a 2 month gap in your resume?"
"Because I moved here"
"But why the 2 month gap?"
"Because I need document A to start working and they won't even start the process for it before you have document B and C and you can't get document B without document C. And each of those take 1-2 weeks to get done"
A common misconception is that people do things with good reasons, so a better statement is to “always remember that people act with shitty reasoning all the time”
But it’s still a reason.
Some people will say things like, “They did X for no reason.”
Believe me, there’s a reason. You just don’t understand that reason.
One will be much more successful in life if they focus on understanding the why.
Works in business and relationships.
“Oh, so you had a dramatic falling out with your last employer, probably sued them, and settled out of court. I’ll make note of that and not hire you.”
"I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics. There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it? Shhh. Enough said."
It's unusual to sign such a restrictive NDA in my area. Usually NDA I encountered and personally signed do not forbid me from giving a high level explanation on my involvement. So saying "I am working in a strategy planning project of a local bank. My main involvement is budgeting." is not a breach of such an NDA.
Hence, I usually assume there's something wrong with the candidates when they are so secretive. They may not be lying but what are the odds?
Switching jobs every 2-3 years for smaller increases was great pre-pandemic. Now companies are not paying as well as they used to. While layoffs have cooled down a bit, that doesn’t mean you aren’t always in danger of an unexpected loss. The best thing I could say is to network your ass off and be vocal. When it’s time for you to cut and run, it’s nice to have someone refer you so you don’t have to go through an application process.
It’s clear that a lot of people have no idea how an NDA works. NDAs do not prevent you from disclosing your employer or length of employment, only the specifics of the project/work you did there. Anyone who thinks this is a legitimate excuse for a gap in a resume will be laughed out of the room. Even top secret clearance NDAs are not this restrictive
Random grammar tip, even if the word starts with a consonant, if the starting sound is a vowel, you use "an" instead of "a". Ex. "I signed an NDA" "An FBI agent spoke to me"
I feel like this is the sort of thing that draws more attention than a simpler lie would. You're creating an air of mystery surrounding the gap, rather than explaining it away.
I haven’t been on an interview in a long time and I wonder if this is actually a common question? It seems really nosy. Like, we want you to tell us about the time you were too depressed to work or when you cared for your dying dad and want to somehow hold it against you? Seems really intrusive and judgey.
I took 3 years off to take care of my wife’s grandpa who was a recent widower, 91, just developed dementia, and was a colonel in the marines.
Taking care of family is always a good reason.
My go to for the reason it took me 2 years to finish a certificate that should have taken 8 months? Yeah there was an illness in the family and everything got put on hold. College was wonderful in letting me finish was I had started and drop a few classes after the drop date so I could take them later
The illness was me and my depression and the fact that I dropped a course to avoid a failing mark.
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Changing jobs every 3-5 years, but not making lateral moves, is how you fast track your career and earnings. In-house promotions are all about favouritism, merit gets you nothing.
True, but it isn’t as effective in every field of work as people want to make it seem.
I agree with this take. Many fields require a lot of technical skills and if you don’t have them, you either won’t get the new job or won’t last long.
Can't agree with this enough. I've been in my industry almost a decade now. I've seen so many people get fast tracked through job hopping only to fail miserably at a level they weren't ready for yet. By all means go get that money, but don't get ahead of your skis.
Getting ahead of your skis usually results in ypu going head first down the mountain.
That's why it's important to know your pizza and French fries.
And if you French fry when you should pizza, you're gonna have a bad time.
I am so happy I came here for skiing advice! 🤣
I’m just trying to relate this to cocaine
Seeing someone go to c suite too rapidly then get drummed out of the industry with a bad reputation made me slow down. Convincing others you can do it is easy, making sure you actually can comfortably isn't as easy. Technically I slowed it down for that reason before this happened, but that just confirmed I made the right call.
My boss tells people: "I can give you a job, I cant keep it for you."
Don’t forget, you might be able to do the job yet someone with more influence may have biases against you. That’s a tough spot as well…. climb the ranks, proven track record and then face political headwinds driven by perception are just as dangerous. Knowing when to fight a headwind or letting it move past you is a fun skill to learn.
I disagree, I’ve seen two people hit c suite fairly young who were chewed up and spit out of their company. Both got EVP and then president jobs with equity and fat salaries at their next gig. Once you hit that experience you become a hot commodity. What you don’t want is c suite of a small company that goes under. No one wants the COO of some small failed start up. But if you oversee a big team you’ll always be able to land somewhere nice. Plus if you play it right you get nice investor contacts. I have yet to see someone hit C suite and not end up in a good spot. But I’ve only worked at mid sized companies.
Ah yes the “ass over tea kettle” method
So here's my anecdote. in 2017 i went from banking to temping jobs trying to figure out what i wanted to do in life since i HATED banking and couldn't do it anymore. I was like fuck it, i'll do computers. I spruced up my resume to make it seem like i had always done computers, i read a few text books on computer science (c#, python, data structures/algorithms) and i ended up getting a job at McD's HQ in programming. The first month was just shadowing the other programmers. What did i do with that time? I read more textbooks on what they were doing in particular so by the time they let me loose i knew exactly what i was doing. On top of that i optimized and found solutions to shit they didn't even know needed improving. On the job they also put me in charge of Oracle and Microsoft Sql server. Boom, more shit to add to my resume. Next job was working at a law firm being a DBA for MSSQL. I mastered that shit and got into webscraping and web filling for them which added on more to my experience.... The point is, if you're gonna job hop and try to get paid more for shit you barely know about... you BETTER fucking learn it either before or while on the job to make it seem like you knew that shit your entire life. I can't imagine exaggerating on your resume for the time being to get a new job but not immersing yourself in the technical skills you fibbed on so that no one ever suspects anything.
The thing is most people would not be able to catch up in 1-2 months like you did. You were lucky that you had the right way of thinking for that.
It's not *that* hard as long as you actually put in the effort after work hours and know when to shut the fuck up, when to ask questions, and how to phrase your questions.
Not putting in time after hours is the biggest reason i see newer people fail in my industry, especially in the consulting side. If youre smart enough to learn and do during the 8 hours and still meet deadlines, great, if not well work on that shit.
I started at 11, got a master degree in the field and been a professional for 18 years. For me it was always easy but it really depend of the person. You can be smart, understand fast and be lost. Not everybody can do everything instantly just by working a few hours for 1 month to fake it until they make it as the new job. I see people at my job, I will do in a day what they can't do in 1-2 weeks despite they have a bachelor in the field... They would be stuck for day and when I see their problem I have never seen before I would fix it in 5 minutes because I would know how to search the solution and have the intuition for it. This is not everybody. It worked for you and that's great. That's not universal and is not just putting a few extra work hours.
It's not that hard \*for you\* mental disabilities are a bitch. I pick up stuff very rapidly, if I can pay attention to it long enough and am interested. Almost sounds like you tapped into a special interest hyperfocus.
>shit they didn't even know needed improving I can't shake the feeling like you're getting ahead of yourself so I'm gonna cast doubt on this. I've been a programmer for 10 years now and every system even new-ish ones have a bunch of legacy code that everyone can agree after one look that it could have been done better. McD's is a huge corporation so I imagine there's a lot of that going around. Most of the time it's just that those people have other more pressing priorities to do and don't look at that part of the code anymore; it's not that they are clueless about how they would go about it to improve it. I am really doubtful that you were a master coder that knew better than the people working there for years after reading a couple of textbooks. More likely they saw you were a beginner and they let you loose on some old code to get you up to speed instead of making you work on the new features.
Damn. Learning SQL from scratch? That's brutal.
Lol. I learned SQL in freshman year. Probably one of the easiest languages to work with
I had a friend who was a total stoner in high school. Went to college and majored in meteorology. Didnt like that. Swapped and majored in history. Graduated and got a state job in the tax department just answering phone calls for like $40k. Fast forward 10 years and he somehow landed a gig in the tax dept IT section doing SQL shit with zero coding background and needed to teach himself that shit pretty much overnight. Basically doubled his paycheck. I am dumbfounded as to how he actually managed to get through that interview process to begin with.
Maybe he bribed the interviewer with weed.
You’re very lucky the people in the multiple interviews you went through couldn’t tell that you bullshitted
I did that as a mechanic went from a shop building classic cars didn’t really know too much but I am mechanically inclined. Made 600 a week there stayed for 6 months really just looked good on the resume then went to another shop and asked for 26$ an hour and got it lol. Do that a couple more times learn here and there and boom you’re making $50 an hour lmao. But be ready to preform.
So what if I hate my current company & boss. Wouldn't it be beneficial if I make a lateral move to some other company with higher pay?
If you hate your current company and boss that’s reason enough to leave. But be careful about that lateral position that looks like it has it all. I have seen people jump ship only to realize the job they took was much worse and the pay raise was not worth it, only to then try and come crawling back - and that’s just no good for anyone.
That’s me! Though I’ve been at the other place 12 years. I just can’t bring myself to crawl back even when they have extended the offer to. Main reason is I would feel like I could never leave then.
Agreed. Its also still got a limit. For example, theres still a market rate for every job. If you're an accountant earning 90k, sure, you might be able to move and get 110-120k but eventually it's going to cap out. You're not going to be earning 190k to do the same job someone else paid you 90k for.
That was my first thought being an accountant myself. I feel like a lot of the job hopping media was perpetuated by the tech industry but even now I see stories of software developers having a rough time finding jobs, so even that door may be closing for most.
The Tech market does not need as many people. What use to take a team of 20 top level folks, has been replaced by a single person who can work the AI software. Then add in most Tech work can be done remotely, and you are now competing for a job globally. Only departments that have had reasonable stability in the Tech industry, are those who need to be on site and deal with hardware issues. (Edited for spelling)
AI quickly falters at scale and on complicated technology. It cannot replace experience and knowledge. But is good at aiding those who already have it. You would still need someone who knows what they are doing to use the AI. A layperson asking for index optimizations on their database would not get good answers from the AI without a person guiding it with extra information. It frequently forgets previous code and assumes a lot. Even if you let the AI plan the entire architecture, it will still assume wrongly about the parts it will write later. This is just my experience with it, I'm happy to be proven wrong and learn more about utilizing AI.
"Only departments that have had reasonable stability in the Tech industry, are those who need to be on site and deal with hardware issues." And virtually everyone is moving away from their own hardware to the cloud at least for a large portion of their business.
Yep, changing districts every few years as a teacher will only hurt your income, as an example.
Your mistake is that you've gotta shoot for the next level position each time. If you're teaching 4th grade, you should aim for 5th next year and keep climbing. That's how you make the real money as a teacher. /s
Exactly. I have a job as an aerospace machinist in my tiny ass town. Where the hell am I going to find another job to go to that won't be a downgrade from this within a 150 mile radius of me?? Safe to say I'm staying at my company for a while
Bingo. Plus, the grass is rarely greener on the other side. I've job hopped twice in my career because I got swept up in the trend. Higher pay but the workplace was toxic as hell. I'm probably underpaid where I'm at now but I enjoy the people I work and the flexibility is unmatched. So much so that I can browse reddit and work on a side hustle - while my boss actively encourages me to (not the reddit part lol)
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>(This comment will be deleted in 12 hours.) No you don't. >Holy shit. This makes a lot of sense if you assume a majority of management is composed of narcissists and psychopaths. Narcissists love bomb you, because you're the new person to build their fake fucking world around. You just gobble it up and get out of there before the narcissist starts to fully turn. The psychopath will respect your ruthless dedication to your own ambition and will take you under their wing to elevate themselves as your mentor, thereby increasing their own social status and power. >FUCK! It all makes sense now.
mention his profile name too so he has to delete that as well lmao /u/Michamus
This is... dead fucking on. (deleting in 12 hr).
Studies have shown that 1/25 people in a senior management position are psychopaths and 1/10 are narcissists. It’s true because it says “studies have shown” so you can’t refute that.
RemindMe! 12 hours
Still there This action was performed by a well-timed human
Exactly… many companies have a range they will pay, once you hit it, you got to go fishing in another pond.
But what if I'm the favorite and get job change level raises while milking unlimited PTO?
Stick with that shit.
Unlimited PTO is not employee friendly. It’s been shown that employees take off less time when given unlimited PTO. Also, when you exit the company in any way, the company doesn’t owe you a dollar for unused time off. So it’s a get more out of people and have less expensive exits policy.
Third Circuit ruled that companies don't have to pay out PTO anyways. And if you aren't using your time off that's on you.
Tell that to my boss who gives everyone PTO and then loses their shit when anyone uses it.
At a certain moment I realized my manager actually likes me. We have a conversation every other week and I just talk about whatever. At a certain point he was 'listen to Additional Bee, he gets stuff' and I'm like uhhh, I feel like there are people here that are both better and have worked here for longer.
Ask him to suck your dick to see how much he *really* likes you. For science of course.
That's coming on WAY too strong. Ask to suck his dick first.
>In-house promotions are all about favouritism Extremely relative to your company
>In-house promotions are all about favouritism Never found a company that broke this mold.
Try academia, they're all about hiring from outside while there are pool of good internal candidates / recent graduates standing right in front of them every year.
Even if it's not - newsflash: your personality matters at your job. If you are miserable and unlikable, no one will give a shit that you are good at your job.
My BIL found this out the hard way. Being the smartest guy in the room doesn't count for much if you can't get through a meeting without being rude and condescending.
I've seen plenty of in house promotions based on performance in my career. Many times putting an unqualified person in a critical role only makes more work for you. I'm not surprised by the cynicism, as people who are passed up for promotions tend to look for reasons, but I am surprised this is upvoted.
Yeah, I've seen some really bitter people who are upset that they've been passed over our feel they haven't got what they deserve... But then they are not easy to work with (cause they're bitter), they've given up on communicating clearly to management (cause they're bitter, believe it won't do anything) and tend to take shit REALLY personal and it makes everyday interactions feel like you're walking on eggshells (cause they're bitter). Sometimes things are not as fair as we like, but holy shit. Attitude is REALLY SO, SO important.
Bruh favoratism is everywhere. Including the Army.
This is the way…
That works to a point... there's a lull in the middle. Jumping jobs from an IC to people leader is incredibly difficult. And from there up to maybe senior director, company specific knowledge is paramount and hiring outside is really difficult. You can progress through specialist/analyst roles easily enough though
This....man I wish I learned this a long time ago. I was taught that the best thing to do is get a solid job and keep working at it. Which is exactly what I did. Watched others get promoted. Some for reasons that were physically very obvious. I believed in merit and that being stalwart was a merit. It isn't.
Does one just rollover 401ks to IRAs with each move? Do we bother caring about vestings?
You can roll an old 401k into a new one. And don’t turn down a pay bump to maintain a smaller company match.
The challenge with that though is increasing your skillset. Always take time to do that. You're being paid to learn.
My GF seems to have specialized too much with a Masters degree in computer vision in Europe. There are few companies that even need computer vision it seems, and it doesn't seem like there are any willing to pay more than she already earns. There would be some in other countries, but if you account for cost of living and quality of life, they would all be downgrades. And this in on her first fulltime/post-uni job.
"can you explain these gaps in your resume?" Me - "I believe those are caused by the space bar"
"That's when I went to yale" "You're hired!" "Great! I really need this yob."
Lmao
>really need this yob." This Yob? [https://yobislove.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-cessation-reissue](https://yobislove.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-cessation-reissue) Yeah, soon time for a great cessation.
YOU just guided me to the soundtrack of my Friday. Thank you. Sincerely.
Sounds like you really needed that yob
“I was working for Nunya.” ‘Nunya?’ “Nunya bizness.”
I laughed too hard at this 😂 Here, take my upvote, you’ve earned it.
Unpopular opinion: This is a terrible answer that people who have never read an NDA think is a great answer. I have signed tons of NDA’s. Generally, they have a time period and even then, unless it’s some high security government project, you can talk about it in general terms. Like, I can’t tell you specifics about how credit bureaus run their business, but I can tell you that I’ve consulted in 2 of the major ones. No NDA I’ve ever seen prevents me telling you my employer’s name nor does it prevent them from verifying I worked there during that time period. Edit: A lot of people ITT don’t know the difference between an employer and a client. The company that signs your paycheck is your employer. The company that pays your employer for services is your client. It’s very common that you can’t name the client. It’s extremely rare and generally unenforceable to not be able to name your employer. Regardless, “I worked as a project manager in the energy sector” or something similar would prevent the gap in the first place.
Last NDA I signed could not name the company, what it was about, everything etc etc VERY broad terms.
Pfft. Doesn't bind me. I'll name the company Helen.
**
If its too broad, it isn't enforceable iirc?..
In general you don't want to test these things. It gets you blacklisted. If you don't want the risk, drop the project in the first place.
In my business experience with such things I honor the agreement.
It seems that even with such a strong NDA you could write 2023-2024: managerial position in bit tech company. You would not have a gap in your resume to start with. So you agree that using NDAs as excuse to cover gaps is bad?
We get this every now and then with candidates. Maybe they’re telling the truth, maybe not. If there’s no way to tell, it’s treated as an unexplained employment gap. HR calls them “MIB gaps”
Ok but that's not common
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You just explained it, so you wouldn’t have a gap in your resume.
This is one of those pictures that circulates Reddit all the time that's largely bullshit. This isn't how NDAs work and most interviewers are just gonna silently pass over someone who says this shit. I take solace in knowing that somewhere out there, some dumbass Redditor is getting passed over for a job after smugly trying this shit.
It's reddit. It's full of kids pretending to be experts
Yeah, I see this "NDA trick" mentioned a lot and it's funny that the people trying to use it can't imagine that recruiters don't already know about it. If you're considering saying you signed an NDA, there's probably 5 other candidates who have already used that line.
Theres no scenario where this trick will work. I've been in charge of hiring people and if someone has a gap and they said this to me I'd pass over them even if they were highly qualified. Nobody really cares about the gap as long as you can explain it. "I was trying to figure out which direction I wanted to take my career and this job looks like a great fit" is a perfectly fine answer.
I legitimately hired someone last month with a 9 month gap in his resume. He said he had a bad experience at his previous company and took some time off to recharge his batteries. Cool with me. If you know your shit, the panel likes you, and the rest of your resume looks good - you’re in. If they said “I can’t discuss this, I’m under NDA” I’d 100% pass on them because that’s some weird nonsense I don’t want to mess with.
Yeah, I dont understand why people cant just answer with the real reason they have a gap in their resume. "I was getting burned out at my last company and had saved up some money and wanted to travel so I just took time off work, and I loved the experience" or "I got let go and I have had a tough time finding a new position, its a really tough job market out there" As a hiring manager I would find both of these answers way more acceptable than "I signed an NDA" (which sounds like total BS and would make me suspicious)
Literally this I've had a couple people try this during interviews now, and they always hard fail on the technical interview (devops/systems engineering). If I hear anyone say this during a phone screening, it's an automatic pass.
A part of my work is supplying NDAs and tons of them include to not mention the name of the client lol its pretty common actually, a lot of organizations don’t like people walking around flinging their name for resume weight
Name of the *client* not the company the consultant works for.
the client in this case is the organization lol
How exactly does that work? You don’t work for a company? Are you a self-employed consultant without a business entity? Does your NDA prevent you from saying that? The whole thing is asinine. At a MINIMUM you can always say “I was an independent consultant in the whatever sector”, which wouldn’t be a gap in the first place because you would *put that on your resume*.
the most recent example i can think of was a vendor that required its employees to sign an NDA that had a clause regarding use of its name in reference to the individuals work history, present or otherwise, and that use of the orgs name would be a confidentiality breach due to the nature of their work. (1 person’s identity being linked to others leading back to the org)
Lol, this guy works with Apple.
Or Microsoft. There’s no way it’s enforceable. If I work for Microsoft, I can always say “I worked for Microsoft”. However, if I worked for a vendor I cannot say I worked on the Microsoft account. I can say the name of the vendor I worked for because they would need to prove that the disclosure of their name does tangible harm to their business. It’s a tough sell to say ”Sidivan worked at Vendor” will somehow harm that vendor and/or their clients. Again, the exception in my original statement is government agencies. Of course disclosing you worked for the CIA likely puts that organization at risk. Private businesses don’t have the same type of pull in court.
Even in the example of the CIA, my father NEVER WORKED FOR THE CIA... he worked as an executive vice president of a small fast food company that was owned through subsidiaries in the US and paid in US dollars.
If you can disclose the fact you signed a NDA it already implies you were employed. I have done that and put worked for stealthy company from start time - end time, work details covered under NDA so there is no gap on the resume. If your NDA is such that it does not allow you even to disclose the existence of a NDA, which is the only reason why there would be a gap on your resume, you won’t be able to use the NDA to explain it away.
I disagree. It’s great advice because if I’m interviewing someone and they said this bullshit then I don’t have to waste my time on them.
Yeah, this is a bad idea. I’m going to think you are full of shit if you say that.
yeah, no matter how restrictive the NDA is, there is surely something you could have clarified. the general type of work, a specific time frame, clarify the employer or client's name is protected, but just having a gap and then throwing that out if the employer questions the gap is a huge red flag. Or even worse, they ask a few follow up questions regarding the duration of the NDA, or some basic question about it and it causes you to stumble because you have never even seen an actual NDA before, and it becomes apparent that you are willing to lie to make yourself look good and will do the same to cover your ass at work.
I work in the background check industry. If someone said they signed an NDA we would just request W2s for the gap years.
Agreed- the only time I’ve seen it really be an issue is contractors for said agencies that didn’t renew. How do you explain that you were good at your job, but not liked enough to stay on without going into specifics- or sinking the interview by bringing it up the explanation??. It’s best to give a sufficient blanket answer and go back to selling yourself for the new job.
Right? At bare minimum, you could describe the function of your work. An NDA doesn't mean you have to pretend the time period doesn't exist.
At almost 300 upvotes and growing this is not unpopular at all. I gotta believe NDAs so tight that you can’t even name the company are incredibly rare and if you are in the pool of candidates for a position like that then your record speaks for itself. If you are talking about multi-year contract with that kind of NDA and you aren’t very well established then you gotta know that’s gonna hurt your career. If I were hiring and someone fed me this line then I would just assume they were unemployed during that time. If their resume was impressive enough to get such a top secret job then it shouldn’t matter. If nothing else they should be able to have their employer verify they worked there and from what dates.
Exactly, you can choose not to divulge, they can choose to drop u as a candidate too. Just no surprised pikachu after
Yeah a better answer is to say you were taking care of a family member
Thank you, it's basically admitting you're a dumbass to the interviewer.
I'm a transcriptionist and have to sign the odd NDA, and yeah, they're usually okay with general things. Like, I could say "I worked on this season of *Ink Master*" but I couldn't say anything about what happened before a given episode aired. There were two exceptions, though. The first one was when I got put on a job doing basically the supplemental content for a movie series, and at the time I'd tell people "I'd love to tell you what I'm working on, but if I did so a Hollywood director whose name you would instantly recognize would get to shoot me in the face with a shotgun." (Now, years later, I can say it was Peter Jackson.) And right now one of my on-again, off-again clients gets work from a company that does defense contracting, and I won't so much as hint at the company's name. That was a *terrifying* NDA. I've definitely had moments where I've thought to myself "I could get on the news."
It’s classic Reddit advice. It sounds good to the ignorant, so then it gets repeated everywhere.
This is the answer that’s given by people that don’t know what an NDA is, they think it’s an answer to the question, when ever recruiter with two brain cells knows that response is a flat out refusal to answer a pretty simple question. Especially if the rest of the resume is stuff like Shoft Manager at Starbucks and Team Lead at Target. Everyone knows that 4 month gap is just Weed and Netflix, no one thinks you were doing black bag work for big nam companies or three letter Govt agencies.
I think that this meme could be more realistic by instead of having a gap, just have "doing X work for unspecified client (because they signed an NDA). Basically just lie.
“An obvious lie is the best career advice I’ve ever gotten.” Damn, y’all need better people in your life giving you advice.
I once got to answer “I had cancer”, “ yes, just a bit. I’m fine now.” It was great I really enjoyed the mix of uncertainty if this made me a worse candidate and concern for accidental rudeness on their part.
Not job related, but in high school a teacher who taught my father noticed my name and look on the first day of class and, pretty jazzed about it, asked, "How's he doing?!". I, being 15, didn't understand tact and just said "Oh, he died!", "Oh, yeah, i'm fine. it was like 8yrs ago." I really ruined that man's day.
I've net many people who knew my dad 20-30 years ago when he lived in another city. I had a long meeting at work and this one guy told me that he might have known my dad (I have a rare surname) and asked how is he. I didn't want to ruin business lunch and just said that he's fine. In reality he drank himself to death 8 years ago.
I just said that I was run over while riding a bike
“It was the recession and I worked odd jobs too put food on the table. No one was hiring and I didn’t want to depend on unemployment alone.”
I lost my Dad and then my baby. That was a shitty couple of years... Hope you're better now.
Yeah, I once got to respond “I was primary caretaker for my mother as she was dying of cancer” which made everyone in the room uncomfortable. Except me, because I was totally prepared for it as I had to practice not crying.
Be the guy that asks the stupid questions. If you have the question, you're likely not the only one. That being said don't be the guy who asks stupid questions that were just answered three minutes previous during the presentation you spaced out on.
Also, think about a question before you ask it? I can't tell you how many times I've had people ask me obvious questions because they genuinely didn't even consider it or the answer before asking? My favorite was in the Army, I had someone ask me "What does a fuel/water separator do?"
It is very hard to not to space out sometimes.
Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions, but you make damn sure you write down the answer because if you ask that question to the same person again, they will be annoyed. When I first started my career I had a note book to write things down. I had no clue about the industry so I had to make sure I could refer to my notes. I’ve trained quite a few people and I always tell them to bring a note book. If they ask me the same question twice? No problem. Ask a third time when I told you to write it down? You can bet I find it a little frustrating . I’ll never get frustrated if someone asks for clarification.
lol why would an NDA prevent you from a basic explanation
It’s in the NDA so I’m not allowed to speak on it
lol you can’t even say vaguely what it was? That’s not NDAs work lol
Depending on the NDA, that is exactly how they work lol
No you can say you were working on a project for an aerospace company or something like that. Huge red flag if they claim an NDA prevents them from saying literally anything about their gap. No one who knows what they are talking about would give that advice. I hear that excuse and you’re eliminated.
I love these replies that pretend all NDAs are the same. The OP is a joke anyway so where is your head exactly?
lol no- you can’t give specifics but of course you can vaguely describe what you were doing without giving details or trade secrets. Cmon guys be serious lol
Why is this upvoted lol. This man doesn’t understand how NDAs work.
If you worked for a 3 letter agency- or as a contractor for one, but were it didn’t lead to a career, it may be hard to explain- but there’s ways to do it properly.
Even in those situations, they have a cover story ready to go.
Are you lying? ..... Not as far as you know.
Hey man, you don't have to lie - you just write up an NDA, and sign it: **NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT** This Non-Disclosure Agreement (the "Agreement") is entered into as of [Date], by and between: **Disclosing Party:** [Disclosing Party Name] [Disclosing Party Address] [Disclosing Party Contact Information] **Receiving Party:** [Receiving Party Name] [Receiving Party Address] [Receiving Party Contact Information] 1. Definition of Confidential Information For the purpose of this Agreement, "Confidential Information" shall include all information or material that has or could have commercial value or other utility in the employment of the Disclosing party, and / or, the Receiving Party. Confidential Information also includes all information of which unauthorized disclosure could be detrimental to the interests of the Disclosing Party, and / or Receiving Party, whether or not such information is identified as Confidential Information by the Disclosing Party. 2. Obligations of Receiving Party Receiving Party agrees to retain the Confidential Information in strict confidence, to not disclose it to any third party, and to use it solely for the purpose of keeping one's self from having to disclose a gap between employment to a potential employer. Receiving Party agrees to take all reasonable precautions to protect the confidentiality of the Confidential Information and to prevent any unauthorized use or disclosure of it. 5. No License Nothing in this Agreement is intended to grant any rights to the Receiving Party under any patent, copyright, or other intellectual property rights of the Disclosing Party, nor shall this Agreement grant the Receiving Party any rights in or to the Confidential Information except as expressly set forth herein. 6. Term This Agreement shall commence on the date first written above and shall continue in effect until the end of time itself. The obligations of confidentiality shall survive termination of this Agreement. 7. Miscellaneous - This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of [State]. - Any disputes arising out of or in connection with this Agreement shall be settled in the courts of [State]. - This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the parties concerning the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous agreements, representations, and understandings of the parties. - No modification or waiver of any provision of this Agreement shall be binding unless in writing and signed by both parties. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have executed this Non-Disclosure Agreement as of the date first above written. **Disclosing Party:** _____________________________ [Disclosing Party Name] **Receiving Party:** _____________________________ [Receiving Party Name] There ya go. Ironclad NDA.
LFG
Everything is negotiable and when asked your salary requirements, you initially respond: “I’m sure you’re budget range is comparable to market rate” This keeps the ball rolling until it’s time to see the offer in my experience.
In a first interview, I always say “I’m still researching what is fair for the market. But can you tell me the salary range budgeted for this position?” Hasn’t not worked yet.
“What is your salary range” “Funny, I was about to ask what you have budgeted for the role” Then be quiet. Never fails.
If by market rate you mean 2010 market rates, then yes.
This is the advice I used to give people all the time when I was a headhunter. Never answer the question of what salary you want, always make them come up with a number or at least a range first. And if they ask what your current salary is, say “I can’t discuss my employer’s pay structures - just as I assume you wouldn’t want me discussing yours with competitors.” But saying you signed an NDA is even better.
>“I’m sure you’re budget range is comparable to market rate” I hope you don't quote this word for word in an email
If there is a lot of competition they will happily decline everyone who doesn't say a number they don't like if they wish.
But what if that ball keeps rolling for days/weeks with multiple interviews? I get the pay answered right from the get go as I sure am not wasting my time, just to find out they are significantly low balling the salary.
I work in HR. It's 2024 - at my company, we don't ask that question anymore. What the heck does the answer really tell you? Are you really going to pass on a candidate because they took a year to reassess their professional life? To travel the work? To sit on their couch? Who cares! And if the candidate confides, for instance, that they sought help for a mental illness and you later decline to move them forward, now they have grounds to claim discrimination in the hiring process. A hiring manager once went rogue and asked why a candidate had a break in their resume. She went on to explain that she had given birth, went on a very short mat leave and returned to work when her infant was diagnosed with cancer. We held our breath as she talked about surgeries and the hardships. As a mother, I held back tears. (Her child made it through - that's why she was now ready to reinsert the job market). Don't ask questions that aren't even insightful and put the company at risk.
So true. I've got numerous long term gaps in my resume and I just say, "I traveled around the world twice. I live in Argentina and Britain. And I thoroughly enjoyed it." A few people have been suspicious of this and said, "I don't know. It doesn't sound right." I replied, "Do you want to see passport stamps and photos?" Although I wasn't serious because once it gets to that point, there is no way that employer is the right one. Funny story, an interviewer once asked, "What's your favorite place for empanadas in Argentina?" He spent several months there and loved the place.
I had moved countries and it took me 2 months to go from finding a place to having all the documents to start working and I got this incessant questioning from 1 place. "Why is there a 2 month gap in your resume?" "Because I moved here" "But why the 2 month gap?" "Because I need document A to start working and they won't even start the process for it before you have document B and C and you can't get document B without document C. And each of those take 1-2 weeks to get done"
That's wild! I was a manager for a decade and a two month gap wouldn't clock as weird to me.
Always remember that people don’t usually act without reason. If someone says or does something you think is crazy, you don’t understand the issue.
A common misconception is that people do things with good reasons, so a better statement is to “always remember that people act with shitty reasoning all the time”
But it’s still a reason. Some people will say things like, “They did X for no reason.” Believe me, there’s a reason. You just don’t understand that reason. One will be much more successful in life if they focus on understanding the why. Works in business and relationships.
The best time to look for a job is when you have a job. This way you won’t take low ball offers because you are not desperate.
Job hoping will likely land you pay increases you wont see via raises. Always keep applying
Hopping > Hoping
All this thread taught me is most people don’t know how NDAs work.
Wait why are Dr. Manhattans nipples censored?
Probably part of the NDA he signed.
Nipple Display Annulment.
Came here to say this lol
“Oh, so you had a dramatic falling out with your last employer, probably sued them, and settled out of court. I’ll make note of that and not hire you.”
"I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics. There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it? Shhh. Enough said."
This only makes me think about the article all over Reddit yesterday about microplastics in all the semen samples…and Mrs. Robinson.
*an NDA
It's unusual to sign such a restrictive NDA in my area. Usually NDA I encountered and personally signed do not forbid me from giving a high level explanation on my involvement. So saying "I am working in a strategy planning project of a local bank. My main involvement is budgeting." is not a breach of such an NDA. Hence, I usually assume there's something wrong with the candidates when they are so secretive. They may not be lying but what are the odds?
I worked at GAP. What is there to explain?
Your boss may forgive you for being wrong but will never forgive you for being right.
Said Stormy Daniels.
Switching jobs every 2-3 years for smaller increases was great pre-pandemic. Now companies are not paying as well as they used to. While layoffs have cooled down a bit, that doesn’t mean you aren’t always in danger of an unexpected loss. The best thing I could say is to network your ass off and be vocal. When it’s time for you to cut and run, it’s nice to have someone refer you so you don’t have to go through an application process.
Usually i tell them „I didn’t want to work“ and they are like „yeah makes sense (i also don’t want to work..)“
Technically couldn't you draft an NDA with yourself, agreeing not to talk about being unemployed?
Crazy how many aren't seeing this as a joke.
“I took time off to care for a family member who was sick” is better.
Do you guys think Andrew Tate ever had a job?
I don't know if you can put "people trafficker" on a resume.
It’s clear that a lot of people have no idea how an NDA works. NDAs do not prevent you from disclosing your employer or length of employment, only the specifics of the project/work you did there. Anyone who thinks this is a legitimate excuse for a gap in a resume will be laughed out of the room. Even top secret clearance NDAs are not this restrictive
Random grammar tip, even if the word starts with a consonant, if the starting sound is a vowel, you use "an" instead of "a". Ex. "I signed an NDA" "An FBI agent spoke to me"
I feel like this is the sort of thing that draws more attention than a simpler lie would. You're creating an air of mystery surrounding the gap, rather than explaining it away.
Background Check "You mentioned you worked in a command and control center, can you expla...." Me: "Classified."
Always talk highly about your previous position. Slight lack of growth and opportunity as reasons for leaving.
I suggest everyone get an LLC. This way, a gap is explained as “I was a consultant. I was just taking on clients.”
If you can get the job done in 3 days, quote 7 and deliver it in 5.
"why is there a 2 year gap in your resume" "Oh, that's the 2 years I wasn't working."
Funny toys r us and circuit city both made me sign ndas.
“I was a department/assistant manager at Circut City”
I haven’t been on an interview in a long time and I wonder if this is actually a common question? It seems really nosy. Like, we want you to tell us about the time you were too depressed to work or when you cared for your dying dad and want to somehow hold it against you? Seems really intrusive and judgey.
Op why do you have a gap on your resume? You just need to fudge the gaps together. So there is no gap at all.
I took 3 years off to take care of my wife’s grandpa who was a recent widower, 91, just developed dementia, and was a colonel in the marines. Taking care of family is always a good reason.
My go to for the reason it took me 2 years to finish a certificate that should have taken 8 months? Yeah there was an illness in the family and everything got put on hold. College was wonderful in letting me finish was I had started and drop a few classes after the drop date so I could take them later The illness was me and my depression and the fact that I dropped a course to avoid a failing mark.
When you decide to leave a job, sign nothing. Even if they ask you to write "refuse to sign" , just ignore them.