Going for an interview with a career gap can be often scary because of how it will be perceived and this fear is completely understandable especially how commercialized all industries are. You may have to explain these gaps.
Start with understanding why career gaps are disliked. Often when people have a gap, they lose touch with their work, loose connection with their network and the market changes at this time as well. Not knowing how things work and having the employee that is not updated is a setback for any company. This is why they do not work in favor of those with a gap.
Nonetheless, in this article we will explain how you can overcome your career gap with helpful resume tips.
Resume tips to explain career gap
Below are some points that will help you to make your career gap less obvious.
Mentioning the year rather than dates
While writing your job experience, instead of mentioning the exact dates of start and the end, mention just the year. This is one of the qualities of a winning resume.
Example – if you had a gap between working at two companies, rather than writing your duration like- Company X: 2/3/2005-14/5/2014, Company Y: 23/2/2015-5/9/2019, conceal it by writing it like- Company X: 2005-2014, Company Y:2015-2019.
If your break has been a small one then in most cases it will go unnoticed.
Choosing the right resume format
Choose the resume format carefully. Choose one that does not highlight the working dates, or has a small font type for the date. If you have a lot of experience, write only the most important ones and omit some.
This will help make the gap undetectable and if the gap was taken long back then, it may be rendered irrelevant.
Only gaps taken in the recent past have had an effect. These are some ways to conceal your career gap but recruiters are quite experienced so always assume they will find about it.
Do not shy away from the question and do not lie. Small gaps varying from a month to six can also be categorized under job seeking.
Mention recommendations in your resume
Write down any recommendation from past jobs to have a positive reinforcement of your skills. This will let the interviewer believe that your skills can hold their own while working.
If you worked on any projects, mention that it will show your enthusiasm. Write the results of your project in the form of quantifiable data such as percentages and comparison with other projects of the same category.
This will make the interviewer believe that you know what you are doing and are confident in doing it.
Emphasize on your skills
Emphasize what you did and learned in that period rather than exposing what you didn’t.
Tell them about the latest skill development that you worked upon and how it prepared you for this job today. Make the gap look like a positive break rather than an employment hiatus which will help you work even better than you did before.
Talk with confidence and show your passion, this will do the trick. If your skillset is polished and updated, more often than not recruiters will not take the gap seriously.
The whole point of using these are to make yourself look competent and make the recruiter believe that you do not lack any skills or are less talented than any other candidates just because you took a break.
Be honest
Interviewers may take a stricter interview once they get to know about the gap. The very first question they will ask is about the reason you took the gap. May it be personal or due to unavoidable reasons, be truthful and clear about it. If you took a gap for leisure purposes, list out any charity/ social work or association with NGOs.
This will create a socially responsible image of you and companies like hiring such individuals since that boosts their image as well.
Doing these may seem like very small changes but these small facts are the things that make you an asset instead of a liability. Do not show your fear and face the interview with fierceness.
Lastly, assure them that this was a one-time thing and will not be happening again as long as the reason for the gap was an emergency, like getting medical treatment or if you faced an accident.
Bottom line
Hope you understood these resume tips to explain career gap. Follow these above tricks and your interview will go smoothly. If you need help with anything else, let us know in the comments below and all the best !!
