How To Address A Gap In Your Resume

When seeking a new job, the first impression you give usually comes from your resume. It’s the first information hiring managers and recruiters see if you are applying for a role, and even if you are head-hunted via LinkedIn or other networking sites and job boards, it will be their first port of call.

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Unfortunately, employment gaps happen to the best of us. With the upheaval of recent years due to the pandemic and economic issues, you’re likely to have gaps in your resume. One job ended, and it took a while to find a new one. Layoffs resulted in a redundancy. You took time out due to ill health or to care for a family member. You had a baby and weren’t granted enough maternity or paternity leave.

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There are myriad reasons you may have a gap between roles. Effectively addressing gaps in employment in your resume ensures they don’t harm your chances of landing your next role. The gut response to a gap is often to try and hide or gloss over it, yet gaps can be transformed into positive contributions to your resume if you know how to do it.

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Be Honest About Your Employment Gaps

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Whatever the reason for the gap in your resume, the first thing to remember is that honesty really is the best policy. Trying to hide a gap, cover it up, or lie about it seldom works. You’re betting that nobody will check your references; whoever is considering you has no contacts wherever you’re claiming you worked during that period. In short, you’re risking your credibility for no good reason.

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As we said, employment gaps can happen to anyone. They’re not automatically a mark against you. Misrepresenting yourself, however, most certainly is.

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Use Your Unemployed Time Constructively

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You may not have a time machine to change how you spent gaps between employment in the past, but if you’re currently in a gap, there are ways to improve how that looks. First, try to spend the time between roles constructively working towards employing to work. This is easily done by working on your professional development during any breaks in employment. That might mean training in relevant skills, earning industry-relevant certifications, volunteering in a relevant role, furthering your education, or actively participating in professional associations. By doing this, you’re not only putting a positive spin on those employment gaps; it will genuinely benefit your career prospects in the future.

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Does The Gap Need To Be Included?

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Bear with us because this will seem contradictory after we said to be transparent. But resumes are evolving entities. Just as how you represent your education radically alters between high school and completing postgraduate studies, so do the roles you include on your resume shift over time. Working early jobs as a college student, barista, barmaid, or whatever you did for beer money is a far cry from roles you hold a decade or more later with years of experience under your belt.

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When your career has been short-lived, you include all your experience to land your first significant role or shift to a new career. But once established, those early roles are less critical and may even be irrelevant.

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So before you worry about explaining a gap in your employment that happened years ago, stop and consider if it’s still relevant. Or did your current career not start until after that?

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If that’s the case, you’re justified in beginning your list of employment roles after the gap, at the point the experience relevant to your current career begins. You omit the gap and the employment experience that is no longer relevant.

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Disguise Small Gaps

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If you have a gap you can’t omit, you may be able to ethically disguise it if it didn’t last very long. For example, if one role began in January 2019 and ends in June 2020, and your next role began in August 2020, listing your jobs by season instead of the month will effectively remove the gap. Simply list your first role running from Winter 2019 to Summer 2020 and the following role starting in Summer 2020.

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Include Experience Gained During Your Gap

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Consider any gaps from the past. You may not be able to spend that time gaining more career experience or relevant skills, but you can present the time in the most favorable light possible.

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Rather than leave a gap, include the gap as if it were a role, and use life experience gained during that time as the "job title."

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For example, if you were caring for an elderly relative during that time, you could list it as "Full-Time Caregiver," followed by the location and dates and a brief description of what you were doing. There can be many genuinely good reasons you took time out between roles, for example:

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• Retraining to switch careers.
• Spending time searching for a new role.
• A layoff as a result of organizational changes, COVID, and so forth.
• Taking time to be a full-time parent.
• Medical leave to seek treatment for illness or injury.
• Furthering your education.
• Gaining licenses or certificates required for the role you want to move into.
• A gap year spent traveling or on personal development.

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List The Reason For Longer Gaps In Employment

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Where you have long gaps in employment, tackle them head-on with open honesty and transparency. While the way you present them in your resume can be used to indicate what you were doing during that time, you also have a cover letter to work with.

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Use it.

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If you have a gap of longer than a year in your employment history, it is well worth explaining what led to it. By doing so, you effectively demonstrate to hiring managers and recruiters that you’re trustworthy and honest, even when it’s awkward or difficult. This is an excellent way of ensuring you stand out from other candidates.

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