Am I basically unemployable now?

[FiredFromACannon]

When I was 17 I took a job at a small company and after 11 months I was fired, I didn’t do anything wrong, the boss said I made too many typing errors (although none were ever brought to my attention) and I found out later he had sacked previous secretaries after 11 months, presumably so they didn’t get employment rights. This was over 20 years ago.

I applied for 2 jobs recently and at the end of both applications there was a tick box “have you ever been dismissed from employment?” No box to put the circumstances or explain it was over 20 years ago. As the super honest person I am I ticked them assuming I’d be able to explain later in the interview process, today I received 2 automated rejections.

Criminal records drop off your record after a certain time but one cunty boss when I was 17 and I’m marked for life!

Thanks for all the replies! I guess I ticked he’s because I was worried if they found out later then I would’ve lied on the application and might end up getting fired again! I think I really am too honest for my own good sometimes.

You'll be fine. As an employer myself, I'm not remotely interested in a job you did for a short while at 17 years old, especially if you have an great employment history after that. Leave it out and forget about it.

Why on earth would you tick yes! I was a HR advisor for 15 years, hired and fired many many staff. I wouldn't care in the slightest what you did 20 years ago when you were 17!
Not one person on this planet has any time or desire to fact check reasons people left jobs 20 years ago, give your references, include relevant work history, completely leave off anything from over 15-20 years ago unless it's fully relevant and stop being so honest to your detriment.

Don’t mention that job.

How on earth do you think they would find out? Just leave it off your resume altogether, it was 20 years ago.

A lot of companies use algorithms to filter. Just tick “no” and move on.

Honesty does not always pay. Sometimes you have to be practical. The chances are that the company no longer exists. Or if they do, that they have not kept records of your employment for such a short time and so many years ago.

Some years ago a friend of mine came out of prison and looked for work temping to build up office experience. There was a question on the application form about any criminal convictions. The conviction she had did not refer to her former employment so she thought she would have an opportunity to explain. However the agency would not employ her. Next day she signed on at another agency and did not tick the box. She combined agency work when she subsequently attended uni and got a good degree. She therefore gained excellent references from the agency, various employers and her tutors. No one in the ensuing years was ever interested in what she had done before getting a degree.

I would agree that it’s very unlikely that a future employer would find out about this. You could do a bit of research - Is the company still running? If so, are the key figures still there? Or, after 20 years, are they retired or even dead?
Also, I wonder whether any current management would still have access to records from the time you were there (I’m not sure but I think there might be a requirement to destroy or dispose of them securely after a certain length of time).

For GDPR compliance, I think companies cannot keep your records beyond a certain amount of years.

A few years ago I was trying to recreate my CV after a decade of being self employed and I wrote to several employers and of those that were still in operation, none had retained any of my details.

This is true. It can, however cause issues with future employers. Most banks, for example require full histories with no gaps.

Many years ago I worked in the admin department in a sixth form college. The college were written to by the bank and asked to confirm details of a student that had attended nearly 20 years prior in the 1980s.

We couldn’t as records weren’t kept that long, nothing was digitised back then and there were no staff employed who would have been there.

Students DM rang up in tears nearly, saying they wouldn’t get the job without us being able to confirm dates. Some employers are very inflexible, despite them (presumably) having to abide by the same rules.

Yup this

That sounds like self sabatage, did you actually want the job?

I would tick no. I've technically been fired from a job after a week of work- I wouldn't be mentioning it on a cv of job application.

what is the worst that could happen if you leave that crap job off your resume and say No to the question? You get scolded and not hired.

Do you really think any employer will be calling a 20+ year old job reference? No they will not unless you're applying for a position that needs military level clearance.

Stop answering Yes and don't give it another thought. Good luck on the job hunt its demoralizing in the best circumstances, try not to let this bother you.

Just don't include it or put it and say the company no longer exists .. fake name/address

Just to be clear it’s not on my CV and I wouldn’t ever give them as a reference, I don’t even know if the company still exists! I was just worried if I said no and it somehow came up at a later date that would be worse than not answering the question honestly. I don’t know how it would come up though, I guess only if someone I worked with there also worked at the new company but that’s fairly unlikely and I’ve changed my surname since then so would they even know I was the same person!

Tip

Your government NI file will have the details of paid employment.

i was sacked from 3 jobs
no one else knows,
one includes a paper round when i was 17

As an employer I’d be more than happy for somebody to tick yes. It’s a discussion, it’s honest and probably to my advantage. Lots of occasions were people are sacked because of insecure colleagues or managers not liking the most competent person in the room. If you ticked yes and I was interviewing you I can assure you for me you’d be a preferred candidate

I would take this to mean ‘as an adult over 18’. No one cares about jobs you did as a teenager - college age. I wouldn’t declare it - unless you did something illegal

Ok, now what have you learned?

Even if they didn’t, it was 20 years ago and you were a teenager. Literally nobody cares! Hopefully this thread has reassured you that you were over thinking this one

I was sacked from multiple jobs at 16/17, I don't think I ever put them on my CV!

This might be the problem then - if you are ticking yes but don’t include that job on your cv, surely it looks like you were sacked from a more recent job?

if you feel the need to be honest, include the job as well. Personally though, I’d say “no” and leave it off.

good luck!

There’s no way I’d include it on my CV, I don’t want to draw attention to it, it’s only because it was a direct yes or no question that I felt I should be honest, but actually now I see that the way they’re asking the question without any option to elaborate, it’s clearly for a algorithm to screen people out, so they’re putting me in a position where I either lie or rule myself out from jobs with big companies.