This exactly

The vast majority of your CV is about getting you through the filters. If the job requires a Bachelors and you don’t have one? Then I have one less interview I need to do in between all my other responsibilities. And so forth.

Lie on stuff that don’t matter. If you say you did some gig/contract work with one of those sites, nobody cares. If you say you have a degree from a state uni? Nobody cares. Same with a lot of “capability” certs (less so the security or accreditation ones).

But if it is something that distinguishes you? Odds are the hiring committee have to actively make an argument for hiring you over someone else. So if you say you had a 4.0 GPA from MIT? Basically everyone knows someone who knows someone and so forth. If the alumni association (or even just the admin someone knew) doesn’t acknowledge your existence, it now marks you as a liar.

Same with anyone who claims they were a c-level or founded their own company or whatever. It reeks of bullshit to begin with (if you were a CTO you are not applying for an SSE position) but is also something that is easily verified and avoids us hiring you in favor of someone who is actually competent.

And the folk on that hiring committee also goof off on the internet and know all the “say you were a super high level person at a bankrupt company”. Except they also likely know people who worked there and it is really strange if nobody remembers that you were Head of Ops or whatever.

Heh, my genuine favorite interview ever was a REALLY good candidate who insisted they had Role XYZ at ABC Corp. And the guy down the hallway from me was literally that position. Three of us were on the interview portion and we all had the same “wait a moment…” response. Excused myself to go use the restroom, whispered to “stall for time” and then grabbed him to “sit in” and interrogate the fraud on their former job responsibilities and accomplishments. Was a blast.

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If I were OP? I would:

1. Say you took a few years off for medical reasons. no questions will be asked because they can’t be
2. At least run through a few udemy courses so that you can claim you were taking various courses during this period. Its also just generally good practice when job seeking.
3. Find whatever the popular gig/freelancer site is for your subset and claim you did various jobs on there to “stay fresh” but were limited in scope because of the aforementioned medical reasons.

And boom. You are likely still fucked if the filter checks for continuous employment but that should get you past any of the “sniff test” questions and let you actually focus on interviewing who you are, not what your paper says you are.