Career gaps – why you shouldn’t be embarrassed and how to explain yours
Meg Burton
☆ Leadership & Career Coach ☆ EMCC Senior Practitioner ☆ CV Writer & BACVW Member ☆ Leadership Facilitator ☆ Outplacement Specialist helping you to shape your future career ☆
After the turbulence of the past couple of years, more people than ever now have gaps on their CVs, so this article covers my view about why you shouldn’t be embarrassed about a career gap, and how to explain yours when applying for a new role.
Career gaps – a diversity of reasons
Traditionally people would think about maternity leave as being the main reason for someone having a gap in their career. But as?parental leave?has been expanded to include paternity and adoption leave, more and more people take a break when their family expands.
But having children isn’t the only reason that people have a gap on their CV. Other caring responsibilities (caring for ageing parents, for example) might mean someone has stepped out of the workforce for a while. Your own mental or physical health might have prompted you to give up work for a while.?Grown up gap years?have become more common. And the pandemic has created a whole swathe of people who were made redundant and now have a gap on their CV while they searched for their next role.
None of these reasons is anything to be ashamed about.
A change in attitude to gaps in career histories
When I was training to work in HR I went on a course where we were taught how to forensically assess a CV, find the gaps, and interrogate the candidate about why they hadn’t been in work during that time.
Thankfully this approach to breaks in employment is pretty old hat these days, with the vast majority of companies accepting that there are myriad legitimate reasons why someone wouldn’t be working for a period of time.
As society accepts that we don’t all have to start work at 18 or 21 and retire 40+ years later, so attitudes to the flexibility of work have moved on.
What really matters if you’ve had a career break for any reason, is how you explain and, if you can, capitalise on it.
Making the most of your career break
If you’re unfortunate enough to have been stuck in a long job search, finding a way to keep your professional skills up to date while you look will demonstrate your commitment to your career. This could be doing some reading or online learning to keep you connected during your break, or working on developing new skills for example. You’ll be able to tell recruiters about this when you secure an interview.
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Any kind of career break could come with opportunities to develop?transferrable skills. Maybe you volunteered for a charity or joined the PTA – reflect on what skills you have acquired or developed as a result which might come in handy back in the office. If you went travelling or cared for relatives for example, think about what you gained from these experiences.
How to explain
When applying for new roles, your covering letter is the perfect place to explain any spaces on your CV and position why you think this role is a perfect opportunity to get you back into the workplace. If the application is just online, be ready to answer questions at interview as it’s more than likely to come up, so practice talking about it with others so it feels comfortable and you feel confident to discuss it
I encourage people to clearly show their career gap on their CV and LinkedIn with an overview of what they were doing during this time. Sometimes it can be easier to use years only instead of months depending on the duration of the gap.
It’s important not to be embarrassed about it taking some time to find a new role. The job market has been incredibly tough in many sectors during Covid, and although the needle now seems to be swinging the other way, with employers crying out for good candidates, it’s still important you don’t apologise for any gap created by a situation out of your control – redundancy.
It’s also okay to say you left a job quickly as it didn’t work for you. Showing your commitment to finding the right role in the right organisation should be a positive, and you’ll need to explain factual what it was that made you leave after a short amount of time.
For me, honesty is the best policy, together with your ability to position that you are now ready and enthusiastic about a return to the workplace. What will be telling is the reaction of the recruiter when you explain your situation. If they empathise then you might have found a good organisational fit for you. If they make you feel bad or uncomfortable about taking a break, you might need to consider whether you share enough values for you to be able to thrive within that organisation.
Resources for returners
If you’ve had a long career break and are ready to return to the workforce, check out the?Returnships podcast, which features examples of people getting back into work. There are also plenty of websites with information about returning to work, such as?this one?which lists opportunities for women returning to the workforce as well as this handy book ‘She’s Back’ by Lisa Unwin.
You might want to read my blog containing?six ways to beat the return to work demons?too.
If you need support to feel confident in why you shouldn’t be embarrassed about a career gap and how to explain yours, try my?job search and preparation support?– contact me by email to find out more.
Photo by?Suad Kamardeen?on?Unsplash
Ending trauma on a global scale one family at a time and it starts with healing ourselves! ??
2 年Very valuable article, thanks for sharing!
Coaching leaders to thrive through transition
2 年Great article Meg. In my experience of coaching people, and from my lived experience, gaps almost always indicate a period of challenge and triumph in people's lives. Taking a break from work (whether through choice or not) is a sign of resilience, courage, and flexibility. Those of us who have had gaps in our CV are often more rounded employees when we next enter employment, than we might otherwise have been without that break.