What if you said you were "consulting"? You could spend a day and set up a decent website. Even if you don't have any clients, when they ask how it's going just say you prefer to work in a collaborative environ with highly skilled colleagues instead of solo so you can focus on your core competency. A similar tactic worked a champ last time I was on the job hunt.
This is very true and widespread and some headhunters told me that even one month of unemployment may be enough to eliminate you as a candidate. It actually a much smarter choice to 'pad' your resume and close any gaps and run the very small risk of getting caught than actually having a gap.
This time may be different. Jobs may still come back for the younger crowd eventually. Many older job seekers cannot wait for recovery - that is the sad truth!
You can always get a commission-only sales job and technically be employed. You just may not have a pay check, o rmuch of one.
Most don't realise that we've had steady job destruction for the last 10 years. Things won't get better until we tax the crappy goods coming in from China. Bring some of those jobs back to the US.
Better go to the secretary of states office too and start an actual company even if your revenue is going to be zero. If you say you own XYZ, Inc. and it don't show up on the SOS listings you're busted. It only costs a couple hundred bucks to keep an Inc in good standing. Tax prep is pretty easy to when all the fields are zero
The real problem I have with this is that the company is blatantly trying to steal good employees from competitors. That's unethical behavior.
The question is, what does an employer stand to gain by limiting its options for new hires to people who are currently employed?