Do you have a [catastrophe music] resume gap?
No one's going to want to hire me.
Don't worry.
It's not the end of your career,
I promise.
You just need to know how to explain the employment gaps,
which is exactly what I'm covering in today's video.
Stay tuned.
Hello,
and welcome back to my channel,
where I help you slay your career and cultivate the successful life you deserve.
Did you know that 90% of people have an employment gap
on their resume?
You are not alone.
Yet there is this preconceived notion that having an employment gap
on your resume is a career breaker,
but I can assure you it will not.
And I can say this with confidence,
because I have three employment gaps on my own resume,
and they never stopped me from landing a job and stepping up into a better job
every time.
And one was nearly a year long,
and entailed me moving to a whole new country.
Every resume gap that I have actually ended up being a career accelerator.
And it can be for you too.
If you're ready to learn how to handle a gap in employment.
Tap that like button and let's get right into it.
I want it to start off with context.
Because I know a lot of people are in the middle of an employment gap right now
with everything going on in the world,
which I won't even dive into here because you know what I'm saying?
There's a ton of people that have unfortunately found themselves in between
roles.
If you are one of these people,
I want to assure you that when people see that gap on your resume,
they're going to know exactly what it is.
And they're probably going to make the assumption that you were laid off due
to everything that is happening through no fault of your own.
I know that this is no constellation,
but the great news is,
is a lot of the stigma that generally goes with job loss has been disattached in
the current situation.
And if you were to take a scroll through your LinkedIn newsfeed.
You would probably find that a ton of people in your network
are actually very eager to help people that have been displaced,
find new roles.
So I wanted to start there.
Just to set that up,
just because I know so many of you probably clicked on this video
because you are in the middle of the gap.
And if you're watching it right,
when it comes out,
I know the reason for the gap before we actually get into what to do with the
gap.
What I want to cover is just a couple of very simple mistakes that people make
when it comes to having an employment gap on their resume.
Some of these things I've actually seen on different blogs and stuff like that,
being touted as great advice on what to do about your resume gap.
However,
I strongly disagree.
And I'm going to tell you why.
The first is making an effort to conceal your resume gap.
And I've seen people do all sorts of funny things like removing dates entirely,
or just putting their year of employment onto their resume to disguise
the fact that they were unemployed for several months.
Here's the thing most recruiters and hiring managers.
Once they look at your resume are actually going to go over here to your
LinkedIn profile,
which probably does include the month in the year for your job.
So it's not actually going to do a very good job of concealing it.
And also by the way,
this is not fooling anyone,
most recruiters and hiring managers know that the reason for listing only the
year of employment is because you were actually camouflaging a resume gap.
You will be better off to include it and follow the advice that I'm going to
share with you later in this video.
Another mistake that people make is that they pre explain their gap.
If you are currently in a gap using your cover letter,
to give a reason why,
or to focus on what you're doing next is not going to hurt you.
However,
I've seen some pretty random explanations about why there was an employment
gap
and it was listed directly on a resume and directly in cover letters.
And while I will get to having a positive explanation as a valuable tool to help
you proceed,
no matter your gap,
taking time to justify,
argue and defend your employment gap in your application is not actually
a good use of the space that you have within it.
And with this,
I've seen a ton of people that are actually really oversharing the reason behind
their gap,
or they're giving a reason that isn't really an empathy builder.
It kinda just makes them look like a jerk.
We will come back to this one,
but don't feel the need to pre-explain.
At every juncture in your job search,
the reason why you have an employment gap.
And third,
I find a lot of people don't actually take advantage of the fact
that they have an employment gap when you are in between roles.
It is actually a great time to accelerate skill development,
or even to acquire new skills.
You can take courses,
you can do self study,
you can read,
but I don't want to associate with the toxic productivity
that I have also seen espoused online for when you are in between roles.
I also think that it's good for you to take downtime and to find balance in the
time that you do have.
So when you get your next job,
you can be restored and full of energy and be ready to crush it.
Now that we have that squared away,
let's get in to how you can actually.
Explain your gap in employment in a way that makes sense.
And it's actually maybe even going to help you in your search.
Now,
ultimately this comes down to the three P's:
positive,
productive,
and potential.
Let's dive into what each of these is.
When you're explaining a resume gap,
you want to make sure that it is positive.
Even if the gap,
as a result of something incredibly negative.
And while you don't want to distort the truth,
you do want to find the best possible truth to actually put forward.
For example,
in a previous video,
I shared about how I quit my job in the middle of the last recession.
Smart move,
I know.
A result of quitting my job in the middle of the recession was
a three month employment gap on my resume.
And the way that I explained it looked nothing like this.
I hated my job.
So I just quit it immediately.
Now,
while I didn't like the job,
it wasn't because it was a bad job or anything like that.
It just wasn't the right fit for me in terms of the role.
And once I knew exactly what I did want to transition to my positive explanation
it was actually very simple.
I was working in a recruiting agency and I found that
I really wanted to be applying for a specific role that I kept on hiring for.
nd that made me realize that I really needed to leave where
I was at so that I could focus on making the transition to the next step in my
career.
If you were laid off because of mass layoffs.
What I want you to do is to say that,
but also talk.
about everything that you learned from that job that you're bringing into the
next job.
The next element of our employment gap explanation is that we want it to be
productive.
I talked about in a video before the different things that you should be doing.
if you are in between roles.
And one of those is definitely investing time into making
sure that you're staying current in your skills and maybe even developing
some new ones.
If you are in a gap,
figure out how you're going to use this time productively
and how it's actually going to become an asset to you in the future.
See that positivity thing is really coming in all over the place here.
For example,
did you take the time that you were unemployed
to learn a coding language or did you deep dive and get your scrum
certification?
Did you get a new certification?
Do courses?
Really what you're trying to do when you're demonstrating productivity
is showing that you continued your professional development so that you are
going to be entering the next role as a better equipped
professional.
That the person who walked into the last job is going to walk into the next job
even better.
Now I'd love to know if you are in the middle.
What are you working on upskilling to use this time as effectively as possible?
Before I do move on,
I do just want to clarify that I'm not talking about toxic productivity
here,
invest the time that you do have,
but also make sure that you are establishing a balance.
And yes,
that balance can include Netflix binges.
Drawing from that,
that leads us into the third component of explaining your resume gap.
And that is potential.
When you are viewing this time and you have an explanation that demonstrates
how this is actually a great potential for your career,
as well as for your next employer.
For example,
maybe you were starting to feel like you had outgrown your last role,
and this is actually giving you the opportunity to take your next best step.
Have you learned a whole bunch of skills.
As we just mentioned that you were really eager to go in and apply,
because even
if you are in the middle of an employment gap,
every adversity is actually an opportunity in disguise.
The more that you can identify that for yourself and explain it to other people,
they are going to be really eager and willing to accept that explanation for
your employment gap and to totally overlook it.
Now,
I would be remiss if I didn't talk about when you should actually be talking
about your employment gap is so people aren't going to see it.
There's two places that you should be addressing it.
f you are in the middle of an employment gap right now,
this is something that you can address in your cover letter.
A simple one line explanation is totally going to do there.
So take the narrative that you just constructed and integrated in there.
The next place that you're going to explain your employment gap is in an
interview.
It's likely going to come up in a phone screen with a recruiter when they reach
out to you.
And it may also come up in subsequent interviews,
just address it,
using that same consistent explanation that you just devise and it's going to
square it away.
But I wanted to leave you on one thing today,
especially if you are in the middle of an employment gap right now,
and that is,
I promise as I open up this video,
it's not that big of a deal.
I know that it's really hard when you're going through it.
And when you're having to answer this question in interviews again and again,
but in the long run,
it is going to be a very tiny blip in your career.
It's not going to have longterm detrimental effects,
and I promise you no matter what it is temporary.
If you are in the middle of an employment gap and you need to know how to find a
job fast,
even in a recession,
check out this video right here.
If this video was helpful,
make sure,
give it a thumbs up,
consider subscribing,
and I will see you in the next one.
Bye for now!
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