Employment Gap, Need Help!

TurnItAround

Hello guys and girls I'm new here. Long story short I'm terrible with my finances, in the hole about £12/13k and lost my job in May.

Now I have been accepted for a job however the vetting process is a killer for me and I dread it, heres why...

Around 2014 I left my retail job with a bit of money I saved to work on eBay, I was quite young and didn't really have a clue what I was doing, just copying my older brother and thought I'd give it a go as I had nothing to lose. Now the problem is, I never actually signed up as self-employed. not because I want to dodge taxes or something but I was just really clueless, I was buying and selling and then drinking with friends or playing games, I had no idea and my brother said you don't have to sign up yet. Being careless as I am, I just didn't go back to fixing this issue.

Now the problem is I put in my application that I was self employed from 2014-2017 and my new employer is asking for proof of this. What shall I say? My plan was to call them directly and just tell them I had no clue what I was doing etc and wasn't sure whether to put it as a career gap or as self employed.

Please any help would be very much appreciated!

[Deleted User]

My advice is be open and honest.

CakeCrusader

Be open and honest, but how much did you earn? There's no need to register with HMRC if you earned under 1k a year, do you have income/expenditure records?

TurnItAround

1k a year?

I logged back into my ebay and basically since my first sale in Feb 2014 until I got banned I made £10,906.79 overall sales, thats not after fee deduction, postage etc.

Would this low amount help me in some way?

tiger_eyes

Can you submit this eBay record as proof of your self-employment?

TurnItAround

I'm not really sure, it's not really a record just total earnings on bottom of one of the pages. I didn't keep track of anything all I have is paypal transfers from ebay to my bank account in this time period.

Money_maker

I would call this more of a hobby, by the time you've taken off the cost of the goods and divided it up into 3 years, you would have made pocket money.

TBagpuss

I would say to them that you were below the tax threshold so don't have proof by way of formal books or tax returns. Explain that you were buying and selling things online and ask them what evidence they would accept.

You can say that you have evidence of your grossd turnover by way of ebay records

TurnItAround

Money_maker wrote: »

I would call this more of a hobby, by the time you've taken off the cost of the goods and divided it up into 3 years, you would have made pocket money.

Yes I know that but how do I explain this to them?

TBagpuss wrote: »

I would say to them that you were below the tax threshold so don't have proof by way of formal books or tax returns. Explain that you were buying and selling things online and ask them what evidence they would accept.

You can say that you have evidence of your grossd turnover by way of ebay records

Thanks for the reply, is it actually below the tax threshold? I'm currently in the process of sending them back some documents they asked me to sign and in that email I was going to just straight up say that I didn't know whether I should put it down to self employed or career break in the options because I technically did have intentions of being self employed but at the time I had no clue about what I was doing and my earnings were basically non existent...

If I say something along these lines will it be a problem?

elsien

Depending on the job role, are they asking because you need to be financially vetted, or because there's a 3 year gap in your job history and they want to check you didn't spend 3 years lying around in bed/in a foreign prison.

If the latter, do not say you spent 3 years without a clue what you were doing, as that does not reflect well on your competencies/initiative. Ditto a 3 year career break if you didn't really do anything useful in that time.

What else were you doing in that time, and what were you living on?
I'd say something along the lines of giving self employment a chance, but discovering it wasn't financially viable. Then add in anything that makes it look as if you didn't spend 3 years dossing around and getting drunk.

TurnItAround

It's to check if I haven't been laying around in a foreign prison I guess. I also told them I didn't have a clue what I was doing in the time and attempted to be self employed...regretting the wording after reading your post.

Also for the first 1-2 years I was regularly working trying to be self ermployed, no expenses as I was living at parents and to be honest at that time in my life I was just going out drinking with friends/girlfriends basically and they will see that if I have to show them my bank statements.

Sounds bad but from now on I'm thinking to edit my CV and just say I was working elsewhere in those 3 years as it's becoming such a big problem, I've gotten so many opportunities and this has ruined it. Just doesn't seem worth the hassle and the jobs I'm applying for aren't that high status I'm in civil service field. They just ask referees basic questions and that's it.

I know it sounds bad or whatever but I'm so desperate for work, I really need a job as my financial situation is getting worse and worse.