Hi all,Can someone please help me with below -If I have a job that lasted for few months and I show it as a gap in employment; is there any way for that to be found out during a background check?Can these agencies find out if you actually worked or not during a period? If yes, how would they know?

While I agree it is embarrassing having 'Hooters' on your CV, even if it is just a stop gap, one should always be honest in applications. You might be fine though, roll the dice and see...

I'd second the opinion of Anon123. Being honest is the best policy, just invest some time in thinking of solid responses to the questions you'd expect to be asked about why you've only worked for this organisation for a short time, etc.Gaps in the CV timeline are something that recruiters tend to focus in on, so just having a period of time unaccounted for is unlikely to get you through; at which point you're into the realms of lying outright or coming clean.It's been covered here before, but being deceitful in your application to a firm is grounds for immediate dismissal - so if you did secure a job through deception you'd then be living under the cloud of being found out for years to come.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Thanks Anon and Tony.While I understand the need for being honest and I am not saying I am going to be deceitful, but I am just trying to weigh in the options at this time.One of them is trying to find out if there is a way in which a background check agency can verify if I actually worked from period x to y if I claim that I didnt.Does anyone know ?

Forget the background check for a minute. What exactly are you going to say in the interview when you are asked the inevitable question "So Mr Someone - what did you exactly do between May and December 2003?"....If you say you did nothing - you come across as an idle cretin, if you say you built wells in Peru or did a sponsored cycle-ride across China, they will ask you why you didn't mention this before - and then dismiss you for being a lying, idle cretin. If you tell the truth and say you were a catalogue model for "Just 4 Boys" then they might stifle a laugh (or possibly find you more alluring) but they won't dismiss you... either during the interview process or later on...Now back to the background check. Basically your question is "can a background check agency really check my background?" I would suggest they can, they do and they will. Otherwise you would think their own integrity would be compromised... Unless you were stripping for tips in a Bradford boozer, you will probably have NI contributions, pension contributions, P45s - there will be an audit trail. And for a gap in the employment history - they MAY just concentrate on this...

You're either a liar or you're not, It doesn't depend on being caught.Hey - if you do lie enough to get the job, why not "weigh up the options" for stealing the photocopier paper and selling it down the market for some extra cash. If you can get away with it, you might also "weigh up the options" for stealing the credit for one of your new colleagues efforts in order to get promoted.We all know what you are and we're all hoping you don't turn up at our place of business.

It’s very simple: can you afford to take the risk that they do find out that you were employed in that period OR that someone somewhere later flags it up (the agency might not be able to pick it up but it’s a very small world and you could never be sure that you or someone else in your new employer might not bump into a former colleague who spills the beans)? That depends on whether you have actually lied (on the CV or in interview) and/or actively misled people, or simply failed to mention something. Re the latter point: if you “failed to mention” something that happened earlier in 2011 then they might reasonably view that as pretty dodgy and cause them to re-evaluate their offer or your employment. If it was, say, five or more years ago and involved a short move that simply didn’t work out then you might be justified in explaining that you didn’t believe it was important to raise it.