Is a resume gap even a big deal anymore?

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Now, today we're going to be talking all about resume gaps, big old gaping holes on the resume, small holes, medium holes, all the holes. Yeah. A little, I imagined like a hole in your sock, as you were saying that. You know, you can have like a tiny little hole in your sock and then it becomes bigger and then suddenly your toe fits through. And then your whole toe is poking out. Yeah. You can always flip them over, by the way. That's an elite tip, brought to you by our aunt. What do you mean? You know, when you get like a hole in the bottom and it's like your toe goes through, but it's kind of in the bottom. We just put that on the top. You've got a hole on the top of your sock instead of on the bottom. But there's a heel bit would be on the top of your foot. Yeah, I know. I know. Do not use that advice. Throw the socks out. Our auntie does that. Shout out, Arnie Belinda, who turns her socks around. I've never heard her say that. What the hell? I've seen her wearing them with a hole on top and the heel bunched up around her ankle. No. Oh my God. I know what I'm getting her for Christmas. We tease her about it regularly. So, resume gaps. What do you think about resume gaps? Like coming from like a newer generation, new to the workforce. Like what's your vibe on resume gaps? I think there's nothing to worry about. Life happens and work is one part of your life. People have kids, people move overseas, people go on holidays, people have mental breakdowns. Yeah, but also, oh well, people have health stuff that they need to deal with or mental health stuff they need to deal with or parents they need to care for or just emergencies, disasters, life things that they have to deal with. So I really do think that resume gaps aren't really seen the same way as they used to be in the past. Don't get me wrong. I don't think I speak for everyone when I say that. Like there will be hiring managers and employers out there who like want to see every single day of your employment history and quiz you about it or whatever. But I think in general, so many people had gaps in their employment during COVID and they were the types of people who wouldn't have ordinarily had a gap. They couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't their fault and they had a gap. And I think that really normalised it and it just kind of proved everyone again that like it doesn't necessarily have to be anything to do with you or be part of some bigger picture about you. Unpopular opinion. COVID was devastating. We lost so many lives. It was awful. That goes without saying. But it's given us so much in some ways. You know, resume, you know, career changes. Oh, COVID, you know, really made me re-evaluate the pandemic. It's true. What I wanted to do. Gaps in your resume, oh well, you know, everything shut down. I lost my job along with millions of others. Like it gave us this sense of not alone. Everyone's in it. Working from home too. Like I know that a lot of companies are now being like, no, you're back to the office. That's been really flipped on its head. The thing is though, I never thought that suddenly everyone would always work from home. Like that there'd be these companies that never came into the office. I think a lot of people really hoped for that. Being in HR, I never thought that that would be the case. It pushed us along the road of the move towards remote work and flexibility and stuff, but it didn't jump us light years ahead. And I think for a lot of companies, it showed that it can be done and has probably left companies more flexible, like let you do it where possible. But I don't think where forever, you know, from home. Yeah. Anyway, I think that this is one of the other things with resume gaps with COVID, but also just with redundancies, the shifting world, like the volatility of the world we work in. It's just, I think it's just changing. We don't stay in careers as long as we used to. We don't say jobs as long as we used to. People are empowered with, you know, kind of the great resignation and the really tight job markets that we've seen on and off over a little while where everyone's been encouraged to change jobs to find a better opportunity. So I think it's just a bit of a different way of looking at the way you move through your career in general. On that note, like go on of the days, like our parents, where you work somewhere for 25 years, what is up with that? Like that's not a thing. At my workplace, there are so many, I don't want to say old people, but like, you know, 50s to 60s. Call them lifers. Lifers that have worked there for in excess of 20 years. And I've been at my workplace for two years and I'm very happy there. I couldn't stay there a long time, but I cannot fathom being there for 20 years. Not anything to do with the workplace, but just being in the same workplace anywhere for 20 years. I can't understand it. I know. And hey, I think it's a funny way of kind of talking about gone of the days. Yeah, they are absolutely for like the majority of us, but there are still some industries and types of work where, like teaching in the same school for 15 years or whatever, like that's just a bit different. And being in like public service or government or whatever for that amount of years, like so normal. So I think it depends on your industry or like nursing in the same hospital. Again, like that's pretty straightforward. But in terms of people who have a career where you can work multiple different places and it's a bit easier to move around. Yeah, you're right. That's not really a thing anymore. So I wanted to give some context on resume gaps. And I thought it'd be good if this didn't come from me. So I grabbed an article from Seek. Now in Australia, Seek are our basically monopoly job board. They kind of other 800 pound gorilla of the job board world in Australia. And they write some articles and things like that. And this is an exit from one of their articles about gaps on your resume. So they said, the red flags hiring managers should watch out for a long stints of unemployment that are not explained by the candidates cover letter. Multiple short periods of employment, like so a job where you didn't stay that long, interspersed with numerous short career breaks on a candidate's resume would also concern this expert that they talk to. That suggests a radic employment or a lack of commitment to work. She says another red flag would be an unexpected departure from a company without anyone to act as a referee. That could be assigned something went very wrong in the relationship. That's a question worth asking. So what do you take away from that in terms of like what employers are thinking and the advice that they're getting about these gaps? I think it makes sense because it says like it's a red flag when not explained in the cover letter, meaning if you explain it and stuff, it's fine. But like naturally if it seems confusing and you don't have the missing puzzle piece, it can be a red flag. And they're talking about long stints of unemployment that aren't explained with lots of short career, like a pattern. Yes. So I think the thing is one gap, like it's just not a big deal. Like explained gaps, not a big deal. Hattens and overall like, hey, I keep not finding jobs that work for me and I keep only staying there a couple of months. But having one gap, I just think it's just such a non issue. No, I've replied to like 10 DMs in the last week of people saying that they had been in their job forever went to go take a new leap that sounded really great and better. They've got there, they don't like it and they're so stressed about looking again and like what are they going to think and blah, blah, blah. And my message to them was like, oh my god, you have my permission to leave. I can't tell you what to do but leave. It's fine. Explain it. And sure, if that was their seventh time of starting a new job and then hating it, okay. Even like twice in a row, like, okay, you might have to be like, well, what have you learned? Like how are you going to not do this again for a third time? But one time, the first time it's ever happened and it's just unlucky that it didn't turn out how you wanted. Why are you stressed? Don't waste in your energy on that. And we have a whole episode about that by the way that's so specific. I'm like, hey, help, I hate my new job. I think it's called like look that up. Go listen to that one if that's you. We basically do say it's okay to leave. But you do want to make sure that if you are leaving, you don't want to make a short term decision to go to something else that you're also going to hate because it happens again. And then you do create a pattern for yourself. So I don't want you to just emergency panic and get out of there. Like make sure it's the right thing for your next one. But yeah, you can kind of see that even the stuff that's written to target employers, like this is the questions that you should ask about someone's resume gap. He's very focused on patterns, big red flags stuff that's actually something that they might want to know about. And again, where they talk about if you had a sudden departure from a company without anyone to act as a reference that could be a sign of something really wrong. And I often talk to my colleagues who work in recruitment when they see someone's resume and the person says to them, oh yeah, I just left there, you know, the culture wasn't great or like they just don't give much information. It's like they were there for quite a long time. And then when you ask for references, they don't have any from that company. It just makes you think right? Unfortunately part of my job in HR is to let people go when they have made very bad decisions for a variety of different reasons. It could be that they just weren't the right fit for the role. And there's no hard feelings and it just didn't work out. But it also could be something really serious like they assaulted someone or they were involved in bullying or they stole from the company. You know what I mean? And they were fired, which is why they don't have any references from that company. Those people are going to be vague about why they left. And they're also not going to have any references. So it's our job to read between the lines of that. So if that's not you, you need to be more detailed than a person who's covering something up. So that's the background. Let's get into what to do about a gap on your actual resume. Yes, on the actual document itself. So all the advice we're going to give here, there's no one clear answer for everything. And like we always say on this podcast, if you're new here, this is the first time you're hearing it, this is our big piece of advice. If you're reading stuff on LinkedIn, getting advice elsewhere, if someone says, this is the way you have to do things and they give you something absolute, run away. Do not trust them. Everything depends on your situation. So we're going to give you our thoughts, our ideas, our suggestions. And it's your job to take what's relevant for you and apply it to your situation. There is never one single answer. Hey, interview boss listeners. If the podcast just isn't doing it for you and you need way more help to prep for your next interview, we have the perfect thing for you. Interview Academy. Em, tell us all about it. This is huge. This is the love child of Sarah after doing hundreds of one-on-one coaching sessions, finding out what people struggle with the most common mistakes Sarah has created. The ultimate course that you can do in your own time, self-paced, heaps of modules, videos, interactive quizzes, a workbook that will become your Bible by the end that you can take with you into your interview because if you're a long time listener, you know that we endorse taking notes into your interview. It's a game changer. Check out more about it at interview boss.com.au/interviewacademy. So the more recent a gap is, or the longer it is, the more important to address it. But particularly the more recent, if you're currently in a gap, you probably want to talk about it. If you haven't worked for the last five or six months, you probably want to talk about that in your cover letter. But once you've started in another job and it's just a gap between those two roles, it's just not as recent. You don't need to talk about what you were doing back in 2007. No one cares. No. Well, even if it was just like, oh, last year I had some time off between roles and I couldn't find anything and it's just not as important for you to be super up front about talking about it or writing it on your resume or putting it in your cover letter or something because it's not as recent. So if you just have a short gap, you could discuss that in your tell me about yourself. So it could be like, then I had a bit of time off before I started at, you know, X company. Yeah. So you don't have to put it on your actual resume. If it was a short gap and it's not immediately like right now, you can just leave it off your actual document. If it's a current gap, maybe your cover letter is a good place to talk about that, but that's kind of how I would think about like a short gap that a recent ish. For a longer gap, here's some tips that we kind of think about. So you could add your gap as a job stating career gap. Yeah. Like you list it as like in between where the jobs would go. Does that make sense? Like on your resume, in between where the actual gap is, I think this can be really helpful if there's a really large and fairly obvious kind of a gap. The ones where it's like a few months, like I'm not even probably going to notice that it's November and February, like I'm not even going to notice that they don't connect together. But if it's like 2021 and then 2023, maybe I will notice that there was nothing in between because the years are a bit more obvious, right? So if it's a larger gap, maybe over 12 months or something like that, maybe you do want to slot something in there just to say what you were doing during that time. If there's something you want to add to that section, like I worked in casual jobs, I blah, blah, or I travel the world, I did some study. If there's something that you want to actually add in that adds value, then you can add that under the job as like the description or like what you did or whatever. What about if you just stayed home for two years and like play video games? We're not going to put that in there, like just say career breaks. Or like let's say, you know, you had to look after your mental health or something like that. Like you can just put career break if you want to, like don't try and make something up to put in there. That's always our advice. Yeah, I know. If you haven't got anything to say, don't say anything. If you're going to put it on there of like career gap 2021 to 2023 or whatever, don't force things to make up that you had benefits or stuff that you, like if you didn't do anything, don't write anything, it's fine. Just list the dates and the title and just keep going with the rest of your other experience. Like at least you're saying, hey, I'm pointing it out, there is a gap here. I will talk about it at some other point when we actually get a chance. And the cover letter is a great place to add that context. If it's a gap that you're just coming back from or was recently again. So if this was a few years ago, you don't need to say it, but if you're just fresh off it, you know, my name is Emma. I'm applying for this job. I've recently spent the past year traveling or looking after my sick family member or raising my family and I'm ready to come back. I spent the last year working back in marketing again after I spent two years raising my son and my daughter, you know, like that can be the kind of way that you would address it. You're not spending ages, but you can just mention it in there. Now, the most common gaps, like we just mentioned, are from raising a family or having time off with kids. 100%. Hardest job out there. Respect. People get it. Our whole society only works if people continue to have children. So it's a very normal part of being a human and people understand. Like I know that there is discrimination with working mothers and coming back to work and parental leave and all of that kind of stuff. I get it. But when you're talking past tense, it's a gap in the past. I just don't think you need to be concerned about talking about it. People get it. You say, oh, I raised my kids. Oh, great. Like there are no more questions. Like I have no follow up questions. I've seen some advice on turning it into like what you did as a mother or whatever. Have you seen that stuff in? Yeah. Like, you know, scheduled for people's lives and things like that. So look, you're an amazing parent, but just leave the dot points of your parental duties off the resume. Yeah. I think you don't have to turn it into a work related thing. It's a life achievement. You get all the stuff out of that. You don't have to turn it into like what did I learn from being a parent or whatever? It's just unnecessary. I think people understand that you have a life that there are other priorities. And I don't think you need to be spending that time thinking, how do I make this relevant to my employer? That's none of their business. Yeah. You can also add in brackets, contract to the end of one of your job titles to show why it may have been a shorter stint. So this can be helpful if you've done a few shorter contract roles or temp work or seasonal work. So it doesn't seem so jarring. Yeah. It's really helpful. It's just like you see, oh, that was how long six months. Oh, contract. Okay. Great. It just kind of addresses that thing. And if you've got a gap on there and you've got a contract role, it might be helpful to just make sure that it's clear that that's a contract role so that they're not thinking, oh, gap, oh, short role. You know, like they're not connecting any dots. Like you've covered your bases in terms of why that was a shorter role. Now we do not recommend adding why you left each place. So it comes off as too much information too soon. Those kind of things you can explain when you speak to them in person. Now do people actually do this? Yeah. I've seen it a bit and I find that it tends to be unfortunately when people have been in the job search a little while, they get asked it a lot. I was like, oh, why did you leave there? Why did you leave there? And so they kind of be like, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm just going to put it on my resume. And I've seen like reason for leaving made redundant reason for leaving contract reason for leaving resigned reason for leaving. And it just feels a bit weird to see that all over their resume. And it comes from great intentions because they're trying to follow our advice of like being upfront, but it's just a little too much on the other end. It just feels like you're trying to prove something maybe because it's not traditional to put it on there. I just think leaf that stuff off again with the exception of if it is a contract role or you are putting like a separate thing on there for career gap after I was made redundant, whatever, I wouldn't put the reason for leaving every single place. I don't love that on a resume. And like we've said, once it's been a few jobs or a few years since your gap, you don't have to include them or explain them. Yeah. So I've done a few coaching sessions for people who again, with like the parent kind of gap of like a couple of years break and then maybe working part time after that. And they've had like four or five jobs since then. And we're working on there. Tell me about yourself, like their introduction. What are they going to say about their career? And they kind of go, oh, well, I had a gap and I had a year and then I had my son and then I had another kind of six months there or whatever. And I just think it's just a few years of past now. Like you can just kind of not mention that part and just go, oh, I started in this role and then I went into this role. And it's not a necessary part of the story. If it's a key part and like, oh, after I came back from having, you know, raising some kids, then I wanted a career change. If it adds to the story and it fits and it's part of it, sure, mention it, but you don't have to, like don't feel they need to force it into a story where it doesn't fit. And I guess the context that's important to give with that is that we always do say, don't hide stuff, be upfront about them. So I don't want you to feel like you're hiding this. It's just that is it relevant? Is it adding anything? Is there anything you need to talk about? Are they going to likely to ask you a question? Is it something that you're going to have trouble explaining if you don't mention it upfront now? And if it's something like, oh, I had six months off to travel, that's not going to be something that they're going to find out about later and it's going to be an issue, right? Whereas if you don't tell them that you're made redundant and then it comes up later, like that might be weird. I don't know. As always, I think there's nuance to this advice. Basically, be upfront about it, acknowledge it. You can put the gap on there if it's something noteworthy, especially if it's recent and if it needs to be addressed. Or if it's really long or you're feeling like you need to for some reason. Don't be so upfront that you're feeling the need to explain every minor detail from 2007 and every like, you know, I took a week off here to refresh before starting my new job. Yeah. Or like every time that you, and then I did three days for a while and then I did four days and like it just if it was that long ago, like you can just, it's probably a universal rule actually. The further something was in the past in your career history, the less detail you need to go into, it just kind of all blends together a little bit. Like I think we talked about this in our resume episode. The further things get down on your resume, so they're more in the past, the less detail that you need to include. So you're probably cutting off certain bullet points, dot points at the end, like cutting them out. If they're not super relevant, they're not big ones. Those jobs when they get further into the past, they should become shorter and take up less room because they're just further in the past. Similar thing when it comes to your career gaps, they should take up less room, mentally, less room in your story. They're just less important. You have it. That is your how-to guide on resume gaps. Hope you enjoyed. Good luck out there. Thanks so much for listening to interview boss. If you like hearing the sound of our voices, hit that follow button in Apple or Spotify or better yet, tell someone about the show. It's how we can hit the charts and we can help even more people. For more advice, inspiration and a supportive community, check us out on Instagram @IntifuBoss. If we've been your job search besties and helped you in some way, there's a cool way you can support the show. We get a huge kick out of reading all of your success stories. Head to binyacoffee.com/interviewboss and shout us a couple. 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