No-one wants to employ an entrepreneur. Should I lie?

Dear Aunty B,

After 10 successful years I have decided to shut my small business and get a job in the corporate arena to ride out the next two years.

But in the past four months since I have sent out my resume, no-one has shown any interest at all.

I have heard from various people in HR that corporates and government think people who run their own businesses are misfits, prone to personality problems. Is this true? And should I lie on my CV to get a job?

FB,
NSW

Dear FB,

Of course it’s true. Not fitting into drone-like corporate cultures is an entrepreneur’s specialty, which is why they create dynamic, fun, exciting cultures.

As for personality problems… hmmm. Well, we can be a bit demanding. Like, we prefer our sales people to sell solutions that solve problems, our marketing people to really understand our value proposition, our technology to work, our customer service staff to be friendly, helpful and efficient, our operations people to produce the best products and services day-in, day-out.

And I suppose entrepreneurs can be impatient. I mean we like tenders answered within an hour, clients problems solved ASAP, and our bills paid on time.

But would you classify being demanding and impatient personality problems?

I would think inertia, the desire for complacency, political back stabbing and fear of change are personality problems!

Should you lie? Of course not. But what you should do is emphasise the many jobs you have done for the past 10 years. Great manager of people, creator of new ideas, operations manager, chief kitchen cleaner… who says you have to say anything about owning a company?

Good luck – and do wait until after Christmas before you make the decision to abandon the post. By this time next year we will all be feeling a lot more positive.

Good luck,

Your Aunty B.