Spotty work history! Help, please!

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Do you have one? Has it impeded finding work? What did you do about it?

I started working in 2010. I've kept the same job for the past year. I don't know what I really did but just hit a string of luck through job to job.

I don't know if "spotty" even begins to describe it.

I've had 33 jobs since the age of 15.

Left five by choice - three for better positions, two out of sheer unendurable stress.

The other 28 I was fired from.

My pattern: Take a new job, do very well, get along with my peers, turn out exemplary work for about 12 months. At that point, management would decide to change my schedule or responsibilities or ask me to do something with which my (then still undiagnosed) autism made it difficult or impossible for me to comply. For the next three to six months, anxiety and stress would affect both my attitude and performance. Somewhere around the 15 to 18 month mark, I would be fired. I would then apply for Unemployment, live on that for the next 8 months or so while I recuperated and calmed my frazzled nerves, then I'd go out and do it all over again.

On the upside, I did maintain a career within a specific industry and I loved what I did and was quite good at it, as long as I was left to my own devices. It was when superiors tried to micro-manage me that things would go to hell.

Downside, as technology made my job more and more obsolete, I had no other marketable skills and when I reached the age at which companies don't want you anymore because your age makes their Health Insurance rates go up, I was SOL. Fortunately, that was about the time I discovered my disability had a name and was diagnosed, otherwise I would have ended up homeless.

But "spotty," yes - I suppose that's as good a word as any.

I can't say how effective it is, but I've added my freelance writing to my resume. I got jobs here and there, mainly via oDesk.com, spread out over a period of years, so I just list Freelance Writer with the date of my first freelance writing job until the present. It's supposed to look like I was doing something in between traditional jobs, and if an employer checks on the actual dates of each writing job and mentions that my dates look misleading, I can dodge the accusation by saying that the resume would have been long and messy if I'd listed each freelance job separately.

"spotty" work history?


My periods of employment are practically abandoned ghosttowns which sporadically dot an apocalyptic wasteland!

"spotty" work history?


My periods of employment are practically abandoned ghosttowns which sporadically dot an apocalyptic wasteland!

Here, hear!

If you add to the fact that you are expected to go to work, no matter how sick you are, physically or mentally, as well as work until you drop dead, then are expected to get back up and start working again, it means good luck finding work, since you're viewed as a lazy bum.

My work history is pretty much nonexistant. I'm 38 and had a 2 week paper route when I was 19 and a 5 week cleaning job. I think I was 23 at the time but I'm not sure. I don't even remember enough info about the cleaning job to put it on a job application. Those jobs are so old my past work history would be blank if I filled out an application, not that I can even think of any place I could work.

Yeah, that's me. I've effectively been employed almost non-stop since late 2008 (with a long 8-month hiatus from mid-2011 to early 2012). They're all low-education manual labour jobs, menial tasks so to speak. None of the jobs relate to each other, except for my string of cleaning jobs. My resumé is almost never what an employer is looking for. But I carry on!

At least you stayed consistent! During the recession, a few of the positions only several months to them. Then I'd take a class here and there. But yeah, people seem baffled that I'm a food runner when I have a bachelors.

You think that's bad? Try delivering pizza with a master's degree! Talk about not having any kind of self-respect. I took the job just to shut everyone else in the family up.

*bump*

Anyone else that has insight?

i've held probably 40+ jobs in my life. i was able to cover some of that up through changing careers and some through basically lying about dates on my resume, but as i get older and older, it's gotten harder and harder to disguise my problems. it also gets more and more painful to get fired, to the point where i am hardly even willing to apply for jobs since i can't fool myself into thinking i actually have a chance at succeeding. combined with the very bad job market, it's hard for me to even get an interview anymore. and i used to be REALLY GOOD at landing interviews and acing them.

i can't even look at my resume anymore. i literally don't know what to put on it. i'm sure it's fixable and i can come up with a cover story (e.g. i was a full-time housewife raising kids and now i'm divorced and looking for work, and just leave off everything that happened in the last fifteen years); i'm just too mentally exhausted and emotionally demoralized to do the creative work to pull it off yet again.

the sad thing is, i have very employable skills and a lot of them. but between PTSD which is triggered by a authority figures and the social disabilities of AS, and the fact that virtually all my skills and experience are in fields that are just lousy for me to be in due to the social demands, i'm basically untouchable.

however i hate not working, and once i get out of this podunk town and settled someplace with more options, i will probably get my head out of my ass and look for a job better suited to my talents and pecularities. maybe telecommuting tech support as was suggested to me, or going back to walking dogs, or setting up my own business, or doing temp work. i'd really like to either be cooking or providing pet therapy. i think it would be good for me to start by volunteering somewhere and hopefully build my confidence.

so - upshot - the younger you are, the easier it is to smooth over gaps. but at the same time, i think it would pay off to be as selective as possible in the types of jobs you take and try to avoid moving around - not because you can't compensate for it, but because of the psychological toll it takes over time.

if there is a vocational rehabilitation program in your city, they may be able to coach you better on how to deal with this problem, or even hook you up with employers willing to work with your history.

You sound like me. I haven't had 40 jobs, but a LOT. And I agree, it takes a toll. I'm still trying to figure out what would be a good fit for me. People ask what I would LIKE to do, but I have to limit it to places I could fit in. And yeah, I might get interviewed here soon for voc rehab. I don't have a diagnosis though.

Yes and it has plus because it is a vicious circle -- only get offered jobs that no one else wants and then usually get fired because I don't 'pick up the work quickly enough'

I don't know if there is anything I can do about it. As someone said, the younger you are the more forgiving companies are about a 'less than perfect work history' but once you are over 35 it can render you unemployable.

I have an ex-GF with a master's degree and $70K in student loan debt that's a cashier at Walmart.

There are jobs out there with high turnover that will hire about anyone that can do the work. Including me.

Meat packing - hard, dirty, smelly, somewhat grotesque work for low pay. Ability to speak Spanish is helpful.

Rigging - hard, dirty, dangerous, long hours, extensive traveling.

Oilfield - hard, dirty, long hours, you'll live in your car.

Mining - hard, dirty, dangerous

Trucking - home maybe one or two days a month.

About 5 years ago I got on with a global I.T. company that was desperate for people with basic computer smarts to work for their low pay rate. It's a frustrating job and totally annoying job at times, but I've been there over 5 years now so I must be doing something right.

Last edited by auf_ehre on 18 Oct 2013, 1:27 am, edited 1 time in total.