zlacker

A friend of mine finally had his record cleared of incidents from when he was 19-20. He took courses to learn to program but even now it's still hard for him to get a job because people want to know about the huge gap in his employment history from when nobody would hire him.

>>bright+(OP)
Your friend just needs to say he was doing consultant work for himself during these periods.

>>joshba+a1
And he can, honestly, say that he sucks at getting clients for his consulting, but that he is good at coding.

>>tomjen+a5
"I can't discuss who my other clients are with you, but I'd be happy to talk to you about the challenges I faced."

Proceed to bullshit.

>>bright+(OP)
"Incidents"?

You mean his crimes? No need to abstract reality.

>>bright+(OP)
"Personal crisis."

I was a homemaker for a lot of years. I also happened to be too sick to hold down a job during that time, but homemaker sounds so much better on a resume.

Find a preferably true and accurate description that is palatable to employers. Then realize it is tough all over at the moment. LOTS of people are having trouble getting hired at all.

>>Mz+Yj
Do you mind if I ask if you're a woman? IIRC there's pretty substantial hiring discrimination against men who claim to be homemakers (because it's less common so people assume that they're lying). The other side of the coin obviously being that women with kids are discriminated against in hiring due to assumptions that they'll be distracted by their family obligations.

>>banned+oj
Doesn't "had his record cleared" make it obvious that we're talking about his crimes? This seems needlessly pedantic.

>>wutbro+Uw
Yes, I am a woman. No need to ask: It is listed in my profile.

Also: I did not suggest a man call himself a homemaker. So, I am not sure what the point of your comment is.

>>Mz+3y
> Also: I did not suggest a man call himself a homemaker. So, I am not sure what the point of your comment is.

Uh, I'm not sure where this hostility is coming from. Just because someone responds to your comment doesn't mean they're disagreeing with you. I was just adding the context for anyone who sees your comment and interprets it narrowly as thinking that putting 'homemaker' on their resume gap is a useful way to explain it away without understanding the pitfall for 50% of the workforce.

>>wutbro+IV
I don't see why you are calling that hostility. You could have made the point you made here without implying I was suggesting that some man should go with that framing.

I am quite open about my gender. Lots of people recognize that I am female. Those that don't can easily determine my gender by clicking into my profile. I have zero reason to believe people will interpret my remark to mean that men should call themselves homemakers.

>>bright+(OP)
Do people care about that if he does freelance work? Or has he mostly looked for employment? And if so, why not freelance?

At least in my neck of the woods (Western Europe) it's (relatively) easy to find programming work as a contractor/freelancer, and as far as I can tell employment history doesn't matter, at least not in the 'web' space of programming.