In 2018-2020 I had a job with a mid-size natural gas company doing project related work. The job itself wasn’t terrible, but the culture was not healthy in most ways imaginable. I was hired by an amazing man who passed away shortly after I came on board, I then had two other managers during my tenure there, neither of whom particularly wanted the job, or me as an employee. I started looking for a job after the first year, employer caught wind and fired me 2 days before bonuses were issued.
None of that particularly matters to the question at hand, but color helps.
When I go on interviews, I do very well and get advanced through the process. The problem seems to occur when it comes to checking my work history background, things go dead silent and I GENERALLY do not receive so much as a screw you after communication seems to flow prior to them calling my old managers. However, twice now I’ve had the interviewing managers reach out to fill me in on what is being said by previous employers about me and it’s frankly unwarranted bad mouthing as if they are doing everything possible to keep me from getting jobs in the same industry. Claiming I wouldn’t show up to work, that I was on drugs (have never failed a drug test or been under the influence of anything at work), and that the work I turned in was unacceptable.
Question: Is it frowned upon to completely omit this job history from my resume and explain the gap in my resume as a dead end job that I never should have taken? In the industry I’m applying to, references are pretty important and there’s really nothing I can do to prevent them from calling this person if they truly want to – but I feel as if I could minimize the damage somehow? I typically gloss over the aforementioned role in interviews anyhow as I don’t want to dwell on negative experience, but at the end of the day my time there always seems to come back and bite me.
EDIT: there is only 1 manager who has ever said anything negative about me during these checks, but it’s clearly impactful enough to make the difference.