How to Discuss a Resume Gap Caused by the Pandemic
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, June 22nd. I'm Charlie Turner for The Wall Street Journal, sitting in for J.R. Whalen.
How common are pandemic-era resume gaps and why do they matter to job seekers?
Many people who were laid off during the pandemic now have a gap on their resume. As more of them look to get back to work, they might be worried about how that gap could look to a potential employer. But for a lot of hiring managers, it's no longer a deal breaker.
There is kind of a recognition that people's careers could go sideways and it might not have anything to do with them as an employee.
Coming up, our work and life columnist Rachel Feinzig discusses how to talk about a resume gap in a job interview. She joins us after the break.
Up until recently, any time gap in a resume was widely thought to be a detriment to a person landing a new job. To a hiring manager, resume gaps might raise questions about an applicant's work ethic. But that could be changing. A survey by job site Monster has found that nearly half of 400 U.S. recruiters believed resume gaps had shifted from being a red flag to acceptable. Let's find out more from work and life columnist Rachel Feinzig. Rachel, thanks for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. Rachel, it seems like the pandemic has made recruiters and human resource professionals more open to gaps in a resume. Why is that?
I mean, I think it's just everything that happened. There was kind of a recognition that people's careers could go sideways and it might not have anything to do with them as an employee. Illness happens. People have, you know, caregiving responsibilities that, again, might not... might not even be that they're making a choice. It might be that school is literally closed and they don't have another option. And then, of course, layoffs. I mean, we saw tons of layoffs in 2020, especially in these really battered industries where it didn't really matter if you were the top person in your group. If no one was staying at hotels, you were likely laid off or furloughed.
Why have recruiters become more accepting of resume gaps since the pandemic?
So I think all of that just kind of changed the perception around these kind of career pauses.
How long has this shift been going on? Is it only because of the pandemic or were attitudes already changing before then?
That's a good question.
Were attitudes toward career gaps changing before COVID-19 hit?
My predecessor, Sue Schellenberger, who wrote this column before I did, wrote a piece in 2019 that kind of made the point that career gaps, that the stigma around them was fading. So I think we were already starting to see a shift. And when I talked to recruiters today, they said that right now people have about a two-year window. So even if you stopped working before COVID hit, there's kind of a recognition that it might not have been the easiest thing to get a job over the last decade. you know, year or 16 months because so many companies were not hiring during the worst of the pandemic.
Let's talk about the actual interview process. Discussing a gap in a resume and the reasons for it might be tricky for both the employer and the applicant. What sort of conversations have employers become more open to having about this?
It's a good question. I mean, I think it really varies from employer to employer. I mean, I did hear from a lot of people like, you don't need to tell your entire life story. People want to hear about your skills, what you can do for them. If you've been on a break, you know, do things like... get new certifications that might make you um more kind of desirable to employers but i think there also is a sense from employees that they want to be open about that this stuff that they don't feel ashamed for prioritizing family or safety from the virus um as they think about what's happened to them over the last year or so so i think we are just seeing a lot of employees being more open to speaking about things you know when you're in the office everything from
mental health to fertility issues I've written about. And now this kind of concept of parenting and your responsibilities there may be coming into the interview process a little bit more.
How much information should an applicant be willing to share with an interviewer?
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:06–0:14
2
How common are pandemic-era resume gaps and why do they matter to job seekers?
0:14–2:05
3
Why have recruiters become more accepting of resume gaps since the pandemic?
2:05–2:20
4
Were attitudes toward career gaps changing before COVID-19 hit?
2:20–7:53
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from WSJ Your Money Briefing
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