Dangerous because HR people and recruiters tend to switch companies and even industries constantly, and because any given company is obligated to keep your resu

Dangerous because HR people and recruiters tend to switch companies and even industries constantly, and because any given company is obligated to keep your resume on file for a certain number of years -- inclusive of any remarks made by HR or the hiring manager about it. If you want to risk being essentially blacklisted for lying on your resume, I guess your risk tolerance is higher than mine. I get the argument about the risk's being mitigated over time by the downside of being unemployed for 6+n months. Mathematically, sure, this starts making sense after awhile. But it seems much less risky just to invent (or hey, attempt to start) a fictitious company than to lie about having been employed by a real one, defunct or otherwise.