What About That Gap On Your Resume?

Okay you guys! We've got ten minutes for Q & A. Have you got some career and job-search questions for me? If you've got a question, just walk up to the two microphones that you see in the aisles and I'll answer your questions before we wrap up. Yes! What's your question?

I have a serious gap in my resume. Actually, I have two of them. What do I do about them? Employers are going to look at those gaps and say "No thanks," right?

Here's the thing about gaps in your employment history. They can be very significant impediments to you in a job search, or they can be trivial. Should I run down the resume-gap story, you guys?

(Audience members nod and smile).

Okay -- here's the story on resume gaps. You've just heard me talk for one hour about the Whole Person Job Search, which is a non-traditional approach to job-hunting. You heard about Human-Voiced Resumes and Pain Letters, and about reaching your hiring manager directly instead of pitching applications into the void.

You heard me talk about growing your mojo and realizing that you're not just a bundle of skills and certifications. You're a person with a story and a history of making good things happen at your past jobs, and we want to bring all of that across when you reach out to a hiring manager. Who's your hiring manager again, you guys?

AUDIENCE: The manager of the department we want to work in!

That's right. This is a shift in mindset for a lot of folks. We have to stop thinking about going through HR and filling out forms online. That's useless. The Black Hole recruiting system is broken. Keyword searching is the worst way ever invented to hire someone.

You've got someone behind that Black Hole who is in pain, and losing sleep. That's your hiring manager. That's the person who will be your boss in the new job.

Obviously, they don't list your hiring manager's name or title in the job ad. You have to figure that part out. You've heard me talk about that process today, and if you want to know more, listen to our podcasts, watch my videos and read the eight million articles I've written about this stuff. Take a step! Try something new.

When you send a Pain Letter with your Human-Voiced Resume directly to your hiring manager at his or her desk, you're going to be talking about him or her, not about yourself. You're going to talk in the Pain Letter about pain.

That's how Pain Letters got their name! You're going to suggest to your hiring manager a/k/a possible next boss that you know something about the pain he or she is dealing with.

Guess what? That's a completely different frame than that manager is used to. Your resume gap will be very insignificant compared to the power you bring to alleviate the pain your manager is experiencing.

There's always pain - otherwise there wouldn't be a job opening! Even if there is no posted job ad, there's pain. If you have any kind of business or any kind of organization, you have problems.

The method you choose to pursue your job search has a huge impact on the degree to which your resume gap or gaps, if there's more than one, will affect your job search. When you choose the Whole Person Job Search method and ignore the Black Hole recruiting sites, no one is going to stress about your resume gaps.

They're going to be excited to talk with you about your experience solving the very same kind of pain they're struggling with.

Beyond that, there are other things you can do to minimize the impact of any gaps on your resume. Let's say you've decided to step outside the traditional job-search box and send a Pain Letter. Already, your resume gap is less significant.

Hiring managers have pain. They can't afford to care about your resume gap, which is not a big deal in any case.

They can't afford to care how old you are or whether you have the certifications they specified in the weenie job ad. They were feeling powerful during the ten minutes that it took them to construct that job ad, sitting in a conference room in HR.

They aren't feeling powerful now, struggling under the pain and wondering when it will end. You show up with the morphine -- game changer!

Did I just say 'game changer?' See how culture affects us? I've never played sports, but I still say 'game changer.'

Anyone have a Tic Tac? I have to change my mouth chemicals now. (Takes Tic Tac from nice lady in green blouse.) Thank you!

So the first thing to shift if you're worried about resume gaps is your job-search methodology. The second thing to work on is your mojo, and you'll boost your job-search mojo level by telling your story to someone.

Tell it to your spouse or your cat. Tell your story in a journal. Get your story out there, because when you tell it, you'll remember things. The reason for your resume gap or gaps is a very sound and solid reason.

Liz, what makes people who screen resumes so fearful about resume gaps? Why is it such a black mark to some resume screeners just to take a few years out of the paid workforce?

We've been talking about fear and trust this morning. Fear is rampant in corporate and institutional life. We spend a lot of time and energy pushing the fear away. One of the ways we do that, when we feel fearful, is by trying to make ourselves feel better by judging other people.

The reason some fearful people who screen resumes look down on anyone with a resume gap is that they get to say "Oh, look at this person! They stopped working for a while, how awful! How unprofessional!"

When fearful people judge other folks, they feel superior. They feel correct and upright. That's a fear reaction.

Their logic doesn't make sense. Taking a break from the paid workforce is perfectly fine and respectable.

We work because we have to, because we have to pay bills, and also because our work can grow our flame. Sometimes things crop up in our lives that are more important than a paycheck. Babies are a great example. A lot of parents choose to stay home with their kids, and who can blame them?

If you have the opportunity to do it, why the heck wouldn't you? That's a luxury and a brave choice, since you might have to deal with weenie thinking and resistance when you get ready to come back into the workforce. You can feel proud about those choices you've made.

Maybe you were trying as hard as you could to get a job, but there just weren't any jobs around. Maybe you were out there job-hunting every day for eighteen months and there was just nothing available. A weenie resume screener might say "Why didn't you take a minimum-wage job?"

That person isn't thinking straight. They are in pure judgment mode. A minimum-wage job might not even cover your gas or bus fare to get to work. It wouldn't be worth taking if you have any other source of income, because you need to keep your days available for your job-hunt and for the other things you have to do.

Fearful people like to judge. You can't let those people rule your emotional state or the forward momentum of your job search. If someone is so short-sighted that they can't see why you'd take time off work to be with your family members or if they can't understand that even a dedicated job-seeker might not find a good job after months of searching, you don't need that person!

You don't have time for him or her. You have to slam that door. If you get a bad reaction to your resume, the resume with a gap in it -- slam the door and walk away.

On the resume document itself, there are some things you can do. If your gap is just a few months long, just wallpaper it over. Use years instead of months to describe your tenure at each job. So if you took a break from work between March and June 2014, just put "2014 - present" as the dates for your current job and the gap melts away.

If you traveled during your resume gap, just label it "Sabbatical/travel" and let it go. Don't describe it unless you want to go into the details. It's your life. If you helped your cousin launch a business, use the label "Consulting." We are all consultants. You can consult retroactively. Maybe you didn't realize it was consulting at the time you were doing it.

But I didn't get paid for the advice I gave during my employment gap!

So what? That's okay. Whether you were paid or not has nothing to do with anything.

Look you guys, we have to shake the toxic lemonade out of our veins. It's a new day. We can't be afraid that someone is going to demand to see your paystubs and your bank statements. You can't run your career that way.

We are adults. We don't need to skulk around in fear of people who have no power over us apart from the tiny, puny, insignificant power of a paycheck.

This is a muscle-building exercise. It starts from inside you. Little by little you're going to realize that you've got everything you need to have the career and the life you want. Nothing and no one is in your way except your own fearful brain.

This is why we started the Human Workplace movement. That was two years ago this week and there are half a million of us now, reinventing work for people.

We saw the epidemic of fear among working people. We saw how freaked out people get about a tiny thing like a gap in a resume, or their age, or their waistline or the fact that they don't have all the latest certifications. We saw how easily people lose their mojo.

The Godzilla machine is big but we are bigger. You are brilliant and talented and have nothing to fear. Step out and try something new, and let the people who don't like it jump in a lake or live a long and happy life without you. They can't help you anyway.

Godzilla is getting old and tired, but we are full of energy. It is time to claim our power and bring ourselves to work all the way -- don't you agree?

AUDIENCE: RIGHT ON!