“Can you explain this gap in your resume?”

WFH is normal now, but what about no work at all?

Yep – it’s time to normalize that too. The good news is that answering “Can you explain this gap in your resume?” isn’t as complex as it sounds.

Maybe you took a gap year. Maybe you got lost “down under”. Maybe you were away on an intergalactic bounty excursion. Whatever the reason, if you have big ol’ work experience gaps in your resume, you might worry about how to make them look less daunting. 

We get it. Career breaks happen for many reasons, including losing a job, taking care of a family, or simply needing a reset from the world’s madness.

And we’re here to help fill the time (quite literally).

So now that you’re ready to tackle your next big project, let’s discuss how to answer the “Can you explain this gap in your resume?” question. 

Be honest & proactive

Let’s say two people are applying for a job, and they both have a 12-month gap on their resume. 

They took time off to travel. 

One person glosses over it, hoping the prospective employer won’t notice. They think it looks bad just to take off and adventure. The other completely owns their decision and adds it as an experience to their resume: 

Planned Career Break – Feb 2019 to February 2020

• Took intentional time off work to travel to 17 countries in Southeast Asia and parts of Europe new to me
• Engaged in cultural activities pertinent to the areas visited and learned beginner travel-based conversational skills in four languages
• Learned React/Redux and used it to build an app that cataloged every meal I ate while traveling

Let me ask you this: Who appears more trustworthy (everything else being equal)? 

See – explaining employment gaps on your resume makes a lot of sense!

Carefully spending time to enjoy something grand doesn’t make you any less employable. In fact, being up front shows you’re invested in sharing this information, rather than trying to hide it. 

LinkedIn has gone as far as offering 13 different options for “Career Break” so you can add it straight to your profile. 

The same also goes for any gaps in resume that aren’t all fun and games. Fill out bullet points with the hard work you put in raising a family, or caring for a loved one, or the improvements you made on yourself during the mental health break you needed to take. 

You may feel vulnerable, yes, but being honest and proactive goes a long way.

Change up the format 

There are a couple of ways you can change up the format when thinking about how to explain gaps in your resume. One way is to pull the month out of your entries, leaving just the years. 

This:

• Senior System Administrator, Acme Corp. – June 2022 to Present
• System Administrator, Rush Inc. – August 2018 to January 2022

Becomes:

• Senior System Administrator, Acme Corp. – 2022 to Present
• System Administrator, Rush Inc. – 2018 to 2022

This is an easy solution in the short-term, but you should be prepared to clarify in the interview if it comes up. 

The other way to change the format is to create a functional resume. A functional resume highlights the skills someone has rather than the positions they’ve held. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t add the dates. It just emphasizes the importance of the work you were doing over the time period you were actually doing it. 

Another benefit to the functional format for freelancers is that you can talk about multiple projects done under the umbrella of your freelance work without having to note exactly when you worked with a client.

Tie the gap into the job

Life is chock full of learning experiences, and the time we spend at work is only one way we enrich our brains. Take a look at the job description and find descriptive phrases that you can then tie back into your time between jobs.

Multi-tasker

• Managed daily care of an elderly relative while simultaneously teaching 3rd and 5th grade classes to my school-aged children and getting a certificate in project management

Detail-oriented

• Organized a two-week sailing trip for a group of 12 expats from 5 different countries, helping to coordinate various visa and entry requirements for all participants

Self-starter

• Built an app for community members to help provide coverage for family members and full-time unpaid caregivers to take breaks for anywhere from a few hours to a few days

These kinds of skills aren’t just honed in the office. They translate to very real and very useful situations in your everyday life. 

Don’t downplay what you accomplished when explaining gaps in your resume, because the chances are that you did way more than you’re comfortable giving yourself credit for. 

Whether you learned a new language or how to clean a wound, you learned something new and valuable. Let it show on your resume, and know that it was just the break you needed.

Feeling more confident now about answering the question “Can you explain this gap in your resume?” Looking to get back into the game after a long break? 

A freelancing career with Gun.io might be for you, so learn more today!