Resumes with employment gaps: How concerned should HR be?
May 1, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Assessing the right candidate, Background checks, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Latest News & Views
When you get a resume with a long employment gap, is that a red flag about the candidate or just a sign of the hard economic times?
As the job market remains tough, more employers will start seeing candidates who have spent significant amounts of time out of work. But how long is too long?
A recent Robert Half survey asked 150 executives how long a manager could stay unemployed in this economy before his or her career was negatively affected. The average response: nine months.
Different experts have different recommendations for how companies should view those gaps. Some say its no big deal, while other say companies should be concerned about the applicant’s skills and work ethic. Of course, a lot of it depends on the reasons the candidate gives for the gap.
What do you think? Would you be concerned about hiring someone who hasn’t worked in several months? What would you ask in the interview to find out whether a resume gap means anything?
Let us know in the comments section below.
Tags: Economy, employment gaps, resumes, Robert Half
May 1st, 2009 at 10:18 am
If the employment gap is presented as a “sabbatical” type break, where the candidate reflected on and reassessed their career goals, that would surface in the fact that the candidate is now pursuing either the same career within a different industry, or a different career path altogether, but building on previous experience and strengths.
If not, then as a hiring manager, I would expect to see/hear something about volunteer activities, courses taken, helping a friend or relative with starting a business – something to demonstrate that the candidate hasn’t couch-surfed for 9 months. Alternately, the candidate may have been caring for a family member with a serious, possibly terminal, illness – that explains a lot, also.
The most problematic “employment break” is if you’ve been incarcerated; in that case, only complete honesty and coming clean will do.
General advice: be upfront, be honest, and be matter-of-fact (i.e. non-apologetic) about it.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
During an interview we asked a candidate about the gap of a few years. Her response was unexpected. “I didn’t know if I should put that down,” she said. “It was the time when I was a prostitute.”
May 12th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Bad economic times can have a huge effect on a person’s job search. After a plant closure, it took me almost a year before I found other employment. I was actively looking for other employment and interviewing — making it several times to being one of the top three candidates, but longer than I expected before I was the number one candidate and received a job offer. Just because questions arise and I ask them myself when there is an employment gap of more than a few months on a resume, I have on resume for that time period listed “actively conducting a job search”.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:31 am
It would depend on the reasons the employee left the last job, if they were attempting a new career or industry, and what they were doing during the down time.
For example if they were laid off unexpectedly and had been at their previous employer for 22 years, I would expect that person to have a harder time than someone who quit their previous job and has had many different employers in a short time period.
Like Emma notes above, a lot has to do with what they did during the time they were not working. If they can demonstrate that they did something productive (other than sitting around watching TV all day), I’m more inclined to think they are a go-getter type and were holding out for the right opportunity.