Dealing with gaps in your work history

During the last recession, two things happened to me – one banal and one life-changing. The banal was that I lost my job. It wasn’t a great job – the pay was low and the career prospects slim to none – but it led me to my life-changing realisation: I was fed up earning a pittance in a cold, damp city and I wanted to get out and see the world. If I’d been more clued-up then, I might have thought about how a gap on my CV was going to look to a future employer. But in my innocence I thought that everyone would consider it the positive, life-changing experience that it undoubtedly was. Fortunately, I never worked for an employer who disagreed, but if you have gaps in your work history, here are four things to consider.

1. Is the gap that important?

Not many people have a completely linear career, where each job marks a different step up the career ladder. People lose their jobs, get ill, go travelling, take time out to look after parents or children, or simply decide not to work for an employer for a while and do something else instead. If you’ve only had a few months out of employment, you might not need to do any “explaining”. But if your gaps are more frequent, or for longer periods of time, or if you’re applying for a job where continuity is prized, then you’ll need to think about how to deal with the gaps.

2. Don’t try to hide the gaps

Some hiring managers and recruiters hate functional resumes/ CVs, as they believe that by grouping experience into skills areas and not including work dates means a candidate is trying to conceal gaps in work history. To avoid giving the impression that you have something to hide, consider writing either a chronological CV or a hybrid CV, where you still organise your skills into groups but then add dates and titles held in a Professional Experience section afterwards.

3. Work the gaps to your advantage.

You might not have been behind a desk eight hours a day, but what else did you do with your time? Within reason, pretty much anything can be portrayed in such a way that it highlights the sort of skills and experiences that employers like to see.

Did you learn something? (Have you got certificates to prove it?)
Did you research anything? (How has it made you more knowledgeable in your field or for the job you are applying for?)
Did you perfect your skills doing something? (What did you do and how will it be useful?)
Did you do any voluntary work? (And how was your contribution important to the overall goal?)
Did you freelance or do any consulting work? (What were your particular accomplishments in these projects?)

As with everything you put on your CV / resume, make sure that what you write is targeted towards the particular job you are applying for.

4. Don’t feel you have to explain everything.

Given that your CV should not extend to more than two pages (some people say that one page is optimum) and that you have on average ten to twenty seconds to make an impression, you don’t need to include absolutely everything. Leaving out small employment gaps is fine, as you can always explain them in the interview. Likewise, if your employment gaps were some time ago, potential employers are unlikely to be concerned if you can show a subsequently consistent work history.

Photo credit: Image by Kevin Dooley under Creative Commons license.