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I'm helping a mate with his CV. There's a gap in his employment history (much of 2017) during which he had addiction troubles, went to rehab, and dealt with recovery.
How would you explain this? He'll be looking for work driving, warehouse managing, currently manages a small fleet. So not looking to join any boardrooms.
Any thoughts appreciated!
Why not pop in 'temporary positions' in the gap or indeed just put 'year out'.
Unemployed fits the bill as accurately describes it and doesn’t put a lie on the CV.
Not looking for a Security DV clearance so very few employee are going to be bothered about experience from 6 years ago given jobs looking to apply for.
Good luck to your pal as clearly been through some tough times.
He had a medical condition which affected his mental health and took time off to fully recover.
6 years ago he took a year off. As someone who use to be a recruiter for a big bank it wouldn’t bother me at all.
As above, if asked, taking a year off to sort out their mental health is more than an acceptable response. Far more important would be a decent reference from his last employer
good luck to him..
What's your pal's current situation? He may be able to access free support to find work and help with this kind of thing, if he fits certain criteria.
My company runs a lot of these services.
In my 20s I'd have worried.
Today, I'd just leave a gap. It's a conversation for an interview should anyone care, rather than an entry on a sales pitch. And the answer is likely a variation on "I took time off for personal reasons" with a side order of "none of your business, sunbeam."
Maybe he went on a religious retreat; maybe he became a full-time carer for a terminally ill relative; maybe he took a few months off just because he could afford to; maybe he was in rehab; maybe... insert reason here, it could be anything. It was six years ago. Does it really matter? You don't become less of a truck driver if you cashed in your Premium Bonds and sodded off to New Zealand for six months.
He had a medical condition which affected his mental health
taking a year off to sort out their mental health is more than an acceptable
I wouldn't mention that, even. Mental health likely falls under "disability" as a protected characteristic. Legally they're not allowed to ask, let alone your mate be obliged to disclose such things.
Travelling/career break.
I've had a couple of gaps due to health issues, one being around 2 years. My CV just lists the start finish date of the jobs either side (and their details) with no comment on the gap that is obvious enough if you look at the dates. It was never queried.
Put something in there as otherwise it will likely be questioned. I question any gaps. No need to be specific either and more likely it won’t be questioned if you put something. Just don’t leave a gap in the dates as it looks like there is something to hide.
A big unexplained gap would probably not make it past shortlisting and if they did make it to the interview stage it would definitely be questioned.
When I interview someone who has a career break listed I wouldn’t question it further unless the candidate referred to it during the interview. In fact someone who has dealt with a difficult period in their lives in a positive way could even use that as an example demonstrating all sorts of useful experiences.
Wish them luck.
"I had to look after a family member who wasn't very well"
I don’t think lying is the best advice. Career break is ambiguous enough to not be untruthful.
Leave the gap and if asked, be honest.
I had an argument twice with a recruiter about gaps in my CV when i looked after my twin boys full time on two occasions. <br /><br />he just could not get that this was an okay for a Head of IT to do.
i should have complained to his superiors
‘unemployed’ or just leave a gap and say personal (mind your own business), as a person who has read thousands of CV’s and interviewed hundreds, i personally wouldnt care and it makes no difference to me.
I had to go through CVs for a post recently and one had a 6year gap which threw up a whole load of questions.
Out of teacher training then nothing for 6 years. Would much have preferred "stay at home dad" or something.
To be fair the rest of the CV was poor. Could have overlooked the blank if the other 5 years had told a good story but they didn't.
You must miss out on a lot of top notch candidates then
Not at all as it’s quite rare for there to be a massive unexplained gap and I didn’t say it’s a black and white rule. What I also said is if they made it through to interview (which they would if the rest of the CV was good - I’m not an idiot) then a gap would be questioned.
then a gap would be questioned.
To what end?
I understand the instinct to query a gap, but what are you hoping to gain? What would you do if the response to your questioning was "personal reasons"?
Would you push for further information? If yes and the candidate replies "I was off work for a while because I was recovering from gender reassignment surgery" then you have a potential to go from Zero to World Of Shit rather rapidly. And if no then, well why ask at all? Would you hold an evasive reply against them?
The days of career gaps being weird was 30 years ago. The likelihood of someone blurting out that they were banged up for six months for bumming a 14-year old, I suppose it's possible but it's slim. How about "the job market was slow and I could afford to wait for the right role"? Anyone could say that, box ticked.
If you're just coming out of a gap of a year or so, I might question it, but a gap over 6 years ago? That's ancient history.
🙄
Thanks for the tips all, that's really useful.
As it happens, after coming out, he did a 2 year FE course, then started uni (but dropped out when COVID hit and he didn't want to pay £28,000 for an online learning course).
So 'career break' followed by going back into education to pursue a long-held dream feels like a decent way to think about it.
I've got gaps in mine, no one ever asks.
Reasons were 6 months unemployed post redundancy then did a completely different career for ~5 years which isn't of any relevance to my 'normal' office job. So that's about a third of my working life 'blank' on my CV. Never been questioned about it in an interview.
Most interviewers are only interested in your last job anyway. Going back 5+ years you were more junior, doing mode junior things.
🙄
Hard to argue with that.
Just say renovating a house.
It's what I use to explain gaps.
In reality I'd finish a contract and do stuff to the house while riding my bike until the next one.
tpbiker has the best answer, if you really need to put anything then write "recovery from ill health" and no further. It's none of the hiring managers business to ask because what happened 6yrs ago isn't relevant to how you do your job now.
But if you write a load of shlt about house renovation you just know that the interviewer will ask you about plastering or something and you'll have to construct a complete load of cobblers and this will be really distracting and put you on the back foot, or even worse you'll get figured out as a bull£h1tt3r
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I wouldn’t put anything that suggests your friend is in any way likely to need paid time off. I know hiring managers shouldn’t discriminate, but if you have two identical candidates, one of whom has no breaks and the other had a year “recovering from a mental health problem” then it takes a very robust system for that not to affect the outcome. We all like to think we are objective and don’t discriminate, but we all do to some extent.
Travel / pursuing a personal business possibility / renovating a house / focussing on my MTB career all seem like better options to me.
I also like
“the job market was slow and I could afford to wait for the right role”
IANA recruiter though, and 6 years ago is probably long enough to not matter.
Don’t overthink it. If he were female then gaps are just assumed to be childbirth related, so don’t get asked. I’d find it hard to believe in this day and age that a gap can be used as a screening tool. My wife was a full time mum for 15 years before returning to work and nobody has asked what the gap on her CV was for.
I keep the dates on my CV vague anyway, with just years rather than months. Unless he was out of action greater than 12 months then it’s easy enough to brush over the details. Who’s to say what exact date his uni course started.
Theres nothing to explain. Nothing wrong with taking a break from working. I went part time to start living more and so many people from work think i have another job or "project" on the go. No, I'd just rather have more time to live and no expendable income.
My last job was at a place I’d been dropping into for two years as part of my then job as a vehicle logistics driver, and when that came to an end, I phoned them on a Wednesday and asked if they had any jobs available. I was given a contact email address, I dropped them an email with my updated CV and I was asked to phone the next morning. After a long-ish conversation, I was told I had an interview booked for the following Monday, and she wasn’t even bothering sending my CV. I was offered a job on the Wednesday. Experience was all they needed, which was driving tens of thousands of miles, in lots of different vehicles, without doing anything stupid. Nothing I’d done previously was of interest or relevance. Neither was my age, although that’s not something that can be considered now anyway.
If he uses "travel" to explain it my employer would ask for overseas Police checks if any stay in a country was over 3 months.
All our employees CVs have to be continuous with no unexplained gaps. Mine had a void of dates info so for a 12 year period all 4 employments were for exactly 3 years. This satisfied HR when I explained I didn't have the exact dates.
Personally I think overcoming addiction should be used as a "strength" at interview.
I've been on the hiring side of things a bit and a gap is not a massive deal, certainly for my line of work. I'm more interested in how they talk about themselves and their experience.
The headteacher at our local secondary put it really well while showing a bunch of us parents round a while back: everyone, with very few exceptions, has bad months or years in their lives. Sometimes they coincide with school years. The same applies through life.
I'd be a little bit suspicious of someone with a rather squeaky-clean CV with no gaps or 'mistakes' after a decade at work.
I never pay much attention to things before their last position. Most of what will get them an interview is their experience etc.
HR may filter out some people.
We're a large employer and use value based interviews so combing over their CV wont come up in the interview.
IF there were a lot of gaps you may get asked but a gap six years or so ago is less problematic
“I can’t discuss that period in my career due to a NDA”
or
“I can’t discuss that period in my career due to the official secrets act”
They told me i should go to rehab and i said.... yeah fair enough.
i would hope a reasonable employer would appreciate the honesty, and being able to face reality, and exhibit that its in the past.
I can see them not though, so Official Secrets Act it is.
I'd phrase it as like an adult gap year, time off to find yourself etc. As its technically true without writing something down that, like it or not, may well see your CV binned before the first hurdle.
When I got made redundant a few years back I took 8 months off thanks to a big payoff. When I finally went back to work, my new employer asked a load of questions about that gap (HR rather than the people that interviewed me and I'd be working for). I had to provide proof that I'd been travelling for some of that time as well as proof of my redundancy payment to prove I could afford to take that time off without earning.
I'd just lie and say travelling- make up some cool shit.
Oceanskipper - what answer would someone give that you would find unacceptable?
1. I decided to have a year with my children. (Is your expectation around this different for men/women?)
2. My mother was dying of cancer and I decided to put my career on hold to help care for her in our final year together (is your expectation around this different for men/women?)
3. I had cancer.
4. I was on remand for a crime I was ultimately acquitted for.
5. I was serving a short period in prison for a serious driving offence, but that is obviously spent now.
6. I was made redundant just after my mother died and left me some inheritance, so I took my time going back to work to make sure I was doing a job I enjoyed.
7. My partner committed suicide and I decided to take some time to sort myself out.
8. I won a small amount of money on the lottery and used it to go on a leg of the Global Challenge
9. I was raped by a former employer and sacked for reporting it. It knocked my confidence and I waited until after the trial before going back to work.
10. I was a candidate in the 2017 General Election, I left my job so I could campaign, but when I didn’t win I found it quite hard to get back to work as people expected me to quit as soon as the next PM got booted out.
11. I was in the fortunate position to be building my own house (you might have seen it on Grand Designs) and wanted to get my hands dirty and build it myself so too some time off to do that.
12. I had got addicted to cocaine from my previous work hard - play hard job and ended up on a residential rehab programme for 4 months followed by about a year of community based rehab.
13. I drank too much since the age of 14 and at 34 had a moment of realisation that if I didn’t sort my life out I’d die so spend 9 months at a retreat “drying out” and I’ve now been sober for 4 years.
14. my past job was wearing me down, my wife was happy in her job and earning more so we agreed I should just quote mine until I found something that made me less stressed at home.(Is your expectation around this different for men/women?)
15. when I went under gender reassignment surgery I found it easier to have a radical change from my old life.
there’s 15 answers there - at least half of them are protected characteristics in law, which by you having probed - if you consider as part of your decision (and if it’s not part of your decision why did you ask) - you’ll have opened the door to potential claims from them or other candidates!. The ones that might seem innocuous are actually not necessarily good news to all employers - you may seem flaky - the type who quit their job on a whim.
if there is a *genuine* need to verify someone’s entire history I would suggest that is left until after the interview when you have decided who your preferred candidate is and then it can be handled in the way that people do security clearance type screening.
so what would be an example of an answer to a historic gap (say 18months 6 years ago) which you would then refuse someone a job… because I’m struggling to think of any that would be legal and logical (for most jobs).
if the only way you can sort CVs is by who has 100% continuous timeline either you need a better selection process.
All our employees CVs have to be continuous with no unexplained gaps.
Well, that's just bloody silly.
Is it just me that thinks it weird having to explain something you didn't do? "I see here that you didn't work appear from March to September 2017. Why is that?" - "I didn't need to." 🤷♂️ Going to work is often a necessity but rarely mandatory, we spell it 'career' not 'Korea.'
I also didn't go skiing, didn't garotte a giraffe, never became the revered leader of a smaller Asian country and utterly failed to learn how to play the ocarina, all of which are similarly not on my CV. That moon landing I was looking forward to is looking increasingly unlikely too, now that I come to think of it. Meanwhile my partner was earning £120k so why on earth would I choose to sit in an office answering moronic questions from a braindead **** when I could be at home in my underpants playing Nintendo? I have many and varied character flaws but "being daft" is not one of them.
Anyone recruiting right now? 😁
Last time I wrote a CV was around 2008.
Contacted a company, went and said hello and good offered a job straight away. Didn't need the CV at all.
Only other interview was me meeting the boss of the company at a trade fair. Went for a beer. Before the drinks were finished I had a job.
I hate CVs.
Just leave the gap.
If a company requires any gaps to be explained then it's a company that's best avoided. Consider it a bullet dodged.
Just say you were in prison
"Why is there a six-month gap in your CV?"
"Oh, I went travelling."
"Interesting, where did you travel to?"
"HMP Wakefield."
@poly Err - I'm not sure why you are asking me all those questions. 🤷♂️
I’ve got gaps in mine, no one ever asks.
Reasons were 6 months unemployed post redundancy then did a completely different career for ~5 years which isn’t of any relevance to my ‘normal’ office job. So that’s about a third of my working life ‘blank’ on my CV.
TBH, if it was an interesting job which added skills/strings to your bow. It's quite often useful to add. There's a difference between "i spent 3 years as a fluffer in the porn industry" and "i spent 3 years managing/running/working in a community kitchen". Though, fluffer might help in some places of work.
All our employees CVs have to be continuous with no unexplained gaps.
Friend of mine started working for the government recently in a high risk/sensitive role. She's had to explain her whereabouts for the last few years. Addresses, landlords, house mates, partners, flights. Any gap of more than a couple of weeks needs some detail. The time she spent schlepping round most of North Africa/India (several months travelling overland from Marrakesh to Delhi) took some explaining... And about 4 pages of additional notes.
All to make sure she hasn't been radicalised.
So it's not unusual. I had to do the same in my first job (MoD and DoD clearances). But, errr, i only had a few part time jobs to list!
So it’s not unusual.
Jobs that require to know everywhere you've been for the past 5 years, work related or not, aren't that unusual?
The application form for local government jobs in Scotland (Myjobbiescotland) insist that every day of your working life is accounted for.
This thread brings home the notion that recruiters are trained to exclude certain characteristics and if you fit one of them, they nearly all reject. I suffered a dead end job for years because of the fear of going back into the market again - when finally made redundant as my profession went the way of the wheelwright, I never again gained a permanent contract - which made the account for every day thing awkward.
if the only way you can sort CVs is by who has 100% continuous timeline either you need a better selection process.
What about jobs that require you to have a license and to get that license you have to have 10 years of provable employment/education? It really depends upon the job you are applying for.
What about jobs that require you to have a license and to get that license you have to have 10 years of provable employment/education? It really depends upon the job you are applying for.
Don't most of these type of things require an external agency to provide the certification?
In that case you would have to justify your absences to the external agency, not a prospective employer.
I've had two jobs that required it and both were done by the employer: Barclays and G4S. G4S had to share the details with the SIA for my CVIT license to be granted every 3 years, the last one ran out back in July and as I've had two periods of no work I cannot renew it.
Any gap in a CV is best described honestly, I'm currently applying for new jobs and have been 100% up front about my gaps, one for waiting for training delayed by the lockdowns and the current one as I gave my job up due to an impossible commute and my dad then falling ill. I fear both of these are holding me back as I'm not getting any interviews but at least I know there are no skeletons in my closet for anyone to find if I do get a new job.
Jobs that require to know everywhere you’ve been for the past 5 years, work related or not, aren’t that unusual?
No, i'd not look at a recruiter/application/manager as if they were mad if they asked me to list my jobs and places of residence plus house mates/family members etc. if i was expecting to get access to military secrets or the inner workings of government.
Didn't say they were common.
What about jobs that require you to have a license and to get that license you have to have 10 years of provable employment/education?
Such as? [edit: cross post]
I would've thought that any role requiring that level of inspection/examination would "do their own research" rather than taking a CV at face value.
Security clearance post-selection is completely separate from the interview process - or should be. BITD I applied to, and got a job offer from GCHQ in Cheltenham. The interview was standard job interview stuff really, and after accepting the offer, there was a whole new process for checking my background. (In the end I didn't go there thanks to a last-minute PhD studentship offer. Or did I?)
Having left a job in part for mental health reasons (psycho bullying boss being the cause) I'm more interested in what a new company culture is like
So if they wince and consider you unemployable because you had a few weeks or months off getting yourself right side up again after whatever cause, I'd read more into NewCo culture than I'd allow them to read into me.
got a job offer from GCHQ in Cheltenham... I didn’t go there thanks to a last-minute PhD studentship offer. Or did I?)
If GCHQ is spending its time bickering with us idiots, we are doomed...
Gap? Who cares?
CV should focus on what’s been learned and achieved.
I’d just settle for the discontinuity.
Depending on employment history - lots of short jobs or few longer ones - it’d be easy just to put:
Consultant mathematician xyz corp 2007-2009
Rock star 2009-2013
Without mentioning ‘Getting fixed 2009-2009’
Otherwise just have the gap but don’t call it out.
When I got made redundant a few years back I took 8 months off thanks to a big payoff. When I finally went back to work, my new employer asked a load of questions about that gap (HR rather than the people that interviewed me and I’d be working for). I had to provide proof that I’d been travelling for some of that time as well as proof of my redundancy payment to prove I could afford to take that time off without earning.
🤣🤔
I took nearly a year off after redundancy. Because I could. Ok, I did have a company during that time but did nothing but file the accounts and some ‘hobby’ jobs because folk asked for help.
But to be asked for weird proof? That’s not on. Any organisation that needed to know what you were up to would surely have its own in house spies or call on a vetting agency?
The application form for local government jobs in Scotland (Myjobbiescotland) insist that every day of your working life is accounted for.
This is the reason 6 missing years stood out so badly on the case I mentioned at the beginning.
The application form for local government jobs in Scotland (Myjobbiescotland) insist that every day of your working life is accounted for
🤣 do they find recruiting easy?
My working life did not include the time I wasn’t working. Nice little gap in the late 2010s of not working.
The key word here is ‘unexplained’. In my social care world every gap has to be accounted for (came in after Ian Huntley did his thing). It’s fine to have gaps, but they do need to be accounted for with a valid explanation. Doesn’t seem a big deal to me!