Do you think I have ruined my chances at a career

[hopelesslyunemployable]

When I got my first job out of university after a couple of months I accidentally (but without sorrow) reported them to HMRC. I’m pretty sure they suspect it was me. I left because they promised to put me on the payroll after a trial and then never did, I contacted HMRC to see what I should do about my tax, when I asked them if I should phone HMRC to ask about it they’d said “No! Don’t contact them!!” Which made me think the setup was super dodgy and I was uncomfortable there so I quit.

I never bothered applying for more jobs, felt paranoid that this company would talk to all the local employers and tell them I was a narc and not to hire me. Maybe that’s just paranoia or maybe they would do that, but hopefully even if they would they can’t know or be on good terms with everyone right?

It’s been 5 years since then and I’ve not had a job since (and I can hardly use that company as a reference). Did I ruin my chances for life?

No. They've probably forgotten. I would suggest doing some kind of voluntary work on the field that interests you to get a more up - to - date reference too. Good luck :)

Well I doubt they’ve forgotten because a whole investigation was done and they got fined a large amount of money. It wasn’t just the payroll thing that they were doing wrong either.

But yeah,I don’t think I should assume this tars me for life.

Tbh I’d also like a bit of reassurance I did the right thing. I felt bad for the other people who worked there but I thought the company was in the wrong and I don’t regret my actions but I’m worried feeling that way makes me a bad person.

What skills have you got? What have you been doing for the past five years & could you get references that way?

If you are in touch with a personal tutor from uni, they can write a reference - most people in their first jobs will use someone from university.

What have you been doing for the past five years?

I think it’s very odd that you’ve just not got another job for five years because of this. What have you been doing? Yes you did the right thing but I don’t see how this has prevented you applying for other jobs at all?

I honestly did nothing for a couple of years (like did some coursera courses and stuff but no work) and then had my kids and looked after them.

It didn’t prevent me applying but I just felt down about my prospects and didn’t bother because I assumed I’d fail.

This is a very strange reaction to this scenario. There’s no reason at all they would have told anyone else, this wouldn’t have caused you any career problems, though now being out of work for 5 years might well do

I’m quite an anxious person and my husband said it’s ok I can be a housewife if I can’t get a job so I just went with it.

Do you want to work now? And do you have an idea of what you want to do?

A lot of people start secondary careers or change careers later in life, but they do normally have some work experience or academic record behind them.

Yeah I want to work I feel frustrated by just looking after babies all day. I’ve started constantly micromanaging my husbands career and he’s getting frustrated with it. I think I need to do something where I can achieve tangible things where I know I’m of value.

In that job I was porting a program from windows to macOS. I enjoyed it and was good at it. I’d happily do something like that again. Until I screwed it up they seemed astounded by how quickly I achieved the very stages of what we were doing.

Well, put together your CV and start applying for jobs. It might take a while, so don’t get disheartened.

Have a think of any professional or personal references you can use, including from university.

What is your degree in? Could you refresh your skills on a course, ideally with some work experience?

My degree is in computer science. There’s lots of relevant online courses I could do I’d say. I could probably pay for certificates for some of the coursera courses I’ve already done too.

Not sure how I’d go about looking for work experience. I could definitely set aside some time to work on some open source stuff though.

I would imagine your skills would be quite valuable to the voluntary sector. That could give you work experience and a reference.

Or you could try an agency and see if they could find you something.

I imagine letting slip to potential employers that you've already had your kids would work in your favour.

Thanks I’ll look into that. Never imagine you could volunteer that sort of thing.

So have you ever had a real job?

5 years out of work is going to be damaging. Focus on companies with return to work schemes aimed at women. All of the Big 4 have them.

Cherries, those schemes are great but focus on women who had a career in consultancy previously and then took a career break.

I think volunteer work and starting from the bottom is the way to go.

greendale17 if “proper” means not retail and after uni no but I feel like that’s obvious from what I said and you’re just rubbing it in.

Seriously? Depending on where you live you should easily be able to get a decent job with a computer science degree, the 5 years off will work against you but if you feel your skills are fresh from taking online courses, just give things ago and apply for things.

And yes, do some open source stuff if you can. There are also various online sites (upwork - not sure if just US?) where you can get online contract jobs - you could try that to build up your skills?

Your situation is not much different from anyone having a break to start a family. And you can just indicate that happened straight after qualifying, if you don’t want to mention that job. Some companies are much more interested in aptitude than recent qualifications.

Have a really good look at companies that advertise jobs in your field, see what they want and set about fitting your application to that. I don’t know it, but would LinkedIn be useful to you here? Make yourself phone a few departments to see if they are recruiting and introduce yourself. Get a one off careers advice session with the national careers service.

So you are under 30?
Just start from scratch. Look at the kind of starter job you would like. What quals do you need? Get them and start. Youve got 40 years of working life ahead of you!

There are loads of charities that'd be glad to have someone techy come in and have a look at their systems, streamline processes, see if you can design anything that would make their lives easier. Might be quite basic stuff you end up doing compared to your level of specialist knowledge, but it gets you some recent experience, a reference and contacts. Seriously, just have a look at charities operating in your area and contact them. One of them will have use for your services!

I would suggest putting your CV onto LinkedIn and look on some recruitment agency sites and apply for some computer related jobs. Only you know what technical skills you have to offer. You need to put the time and effort into applying and tailor each application to each job. I think that the only thing that you will struggle with are your references. You sound like you have some skills that employers would be interested in. However, you will be up against people who will be applying with experience and other transferable skills. Sometimes it is a numbers game, where you have to apply for lots of jobs.