Career Breaks happen – plenty of people take time away from their careers for travel, study or even mental health reasons.
But some people have concerns that listing a career break in their resume could raise a red flag when pursuing new job opportunities.
In this weeks episode of Q&A with G&A our candidate experience coordinators , Abby Chambers and Gabrielle Baird share the importance of listing career breaks in your CV.
If you have a question you’d love to ask our recruiters – reach out to us! We’d love to answer them on the show.
Here's why our team recommend that you include career breaks in your CV.
Abby: How do you feel about career breaks? What do you do with them? What do you say about them? Do I just ignore it?
Gabrielle: No, Your resume needs to summarize your whole career. So definitely add in your career break. It gives context as to what you were doing in that time, whether you’re traveling, picking up on additional training certifications, Mat leave, whatever it may be. Good recruiters do like to know what you’ve been doing throughout your work history.
Abby: I would say put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager if you saw a lot of gaps on someone’s resume.
Gabrielle: It’s like what [Managing director] Laura says “if you don’t explain it on paper, they will ask about it anyway”
Abby: Exactly, So if you saw a lot of gaps on someone’s resume, what would be your main concerns? Maybe they can’t hold down a job. They might have been let go, you know. What’s that time accounting for?
Just simply putting career break to travel, personal development time away, personal time. It just acknowledges it and it immediately removes that bias you might face if you have an unexplained gap in your employment history.
Previous Episode: Do cover letters really matter?
Every application asks for them and if you’re in the process of job hunting it can be the very bane of your existence.
But do they still serve a purpose in modern day recruitment?
Watch our highly anticipated first episode of our Q&A series.
Key Takeaways
- It's perfectly normal to take a career break
- An unexplained career gap will raise red flags for a recruiter or hiring manager and they will ask you about it
- Acknowledge and explain the career break in your resume to eliminate any bias from recruiters and hiring managers.
Gabrielle Baird
Candidate Experience Experience Coordinator.
Abby Chambers
Candidate Experience Experience Coordinator.
