How to fake employment

Don't be embarrassed to admit that you're unemployed. After all, you're definitely in good company.

But just in case someone asks you that dreaded, "So, what do you do?" question, here are several helpful ways you can fake employment:

1. Volunteering. Once you are officially a "Volunteer", you can start reclaiming your identity and picking up the pieces of your battered ego. And you now have a purpose in life other than couch/channel-surfing all day. Best of all, by volunteering for a good cause, you are (hopefully) contributing to society and making the world a better place, one day of unemployment at a time.

2. Negatively paid Unpaid internship. Prestigious unpaid internships are actually very competitive and hard to land these day. But have no fear: you can easily buy your way into an unpaid internship at a national, Fortune 500 company. A 10-15 week internship in the industry of your choice will cost you around 4 figures, including living expenses. If nothing else, you should get at least get a big name added to your resume. Sadly, I was one of those lost souls desperate enough to pay for an internship. (#1 from the previous post addresses this.) Email me for more details.

3. Classes. Take classes at a local college or university. You know the drill already (register, pay tuition and fee$, show up to class).

4. Part-time/temp job. Congrats! With a part-time/temp job, you are no longer unemployed. (Even if it doesn't feel like it because of your minimum-wage earnings and enormous amount of $tudent loan$.)



I've tried all but one of the above suggestions. Unfortunately, none of my opportunities led to a full-time job. Sigh.

I intentionally left off PAID internships from the list. Paid internships are great; they are generally your best bet for getting a full-time offer. As a paid intern, you are officially an employee of the firm. Other people will actually try to teach you things and help you learn, grow, and succeed. Paid interns usually have a much better chance of being hired by the company than temps do. Many interns get hired after 10 weeks, but temps can slave away for years before officially being invited to join the company.

When you are a temp: 1) the firm emphasizes repeatedly that you are NOT one of their employees, and 2) all the extremely tedious filing/data-entry tasks that no one else wants to do (not even the secretaries) gets pushed onto you. Obviously, some temps get to do more than just filing and data-entry. Or so I've heard.