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Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

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Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#61
post #21
post #14

Just tell the truth. Medical is a perfectly valid reason. Tangent: What does it say about hiring culture that a gap of 3 months is a potential deal breaker? Like anybody who would ever deign to not be employed by choice is unhirable. God forbid that people are defined by anything other than having a career working for others. A person's worth is not defined by how much economic value they create.

Do you think the vague `medical` needs further elaboration? I sure do know my medical is not related to mental health. Is it reasonable to somehow indicate that or it should be better left for an interviewer to inquire?

It's illegal to ask further about medical, or any personal information like marriage status, etc. Medical is a good enough answer.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#62
post #21
post #14

Just tell the truth. Medical is a perfectly valid reason. Tangent: What does it say about hiring culture that a gap of 3 months is a potential deal breaker? Like anybody who would ever deign to not be employed by choice is unhirable. God forbid that people are defined by anything other than having a career working for others. A person's worth is not defined by how much economic value they create.

Do you think the vague `medical` needs further elaboration? I sure do know my medical is not related to mental health. Is it reasonable to somehow indicate that or it should be better left for an interviewer to inquire?

In the USA I am pretty sure it is actually illegal for a company to discriminate based on health issues, so a smart recruiter will NOT push this issue further than Medical. It would violate a few things and not be great if you sued and used that in court.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#63
One guy I hired just had it listed there as hiatus on his resume. His company was acquired and he took some time off after vesting. Didn't stop me. It didn't actually work out in that case, but I don't think it was because he took the time off.

EDIT for reply since I'm rate-limited:

> The period was slightly over a year. The resume described what he did which was roughly (without going into detail that would de-anonymize) "spend time in a tropical country relaxing". He described what he did to me verbally.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#64
I can't speak for every company out there, but for us, we've discovered that resumes and whiteboard challenges are bad predictors of great engineers. So, we simply come up with a small project that's related to what we would have you work on if you were hired and give you around a week to finish it. You can use other people's code snippets online as well as any libraries you see fit. As long as the end result is good enough, we'd move you to the next step, which is to just test if you're a good culture fit. I know quite a few other startups are doing this as well, so maybe the method is becoming popular. I would recommend you research the companies a bit and see if it's even something they'd care about first. We wouldn't even ask you to explain a gap in the first place.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#65
post #64

I can't speak for every company out there, but for us, we've discovered that resumes and whiteboard challenges are bad predictors of great engineers. So, we simply come up with a small project that's related to what we would have you work on if you were hired and give you around a week to finish it. You can use other people's code snippets online as well as any libraries you see fit. As long as the end result is good…

A week of work for each job applied to rapidly becomes unsustainable. I personally have never done more than 6-8 hours of coding as part of an application, and only did that once.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#66
post #22
post #14

Just tell the truth. Medical is a perfectly valid reason. Tangent: What does it say about hiring culture that a gap of 3 months is a potential deal breaker? Like anybody who would ever deign to not be employed by choice is unhirable. God forbid that people are defined by anything other than having a career working for others. A person's worth is not defined by how much economic value they create.

I'm not sure it is a potential dealbreaker. People just think it is. It's certainly not an issue in a hot job market.

I've certainly been asked about literally 3 months of gap. Exactly 3 months.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a lie (providing care for yourself), and your potential employer has no right to additional information as it relates to your medical condition and why you needed the time away from employment. Don't disclose what you don't have to. It provides you no benefit, and can only be used against you. Why would you sandbag your employer opportunities (and the ability to support yourself) because of faux moral hazard…

It is a lie. You weren't providing care for a loved one (that's not how anyone would reasonably interpret 'love one'). It is indeed none of your employer's business. But still you should not deliberately mislead with an untruth.

It is the truth that you are not required to disclose any information about medical situations of your own or your family, or any related to familial status, including even the fact that those issues exist or are medical in nature.

How else is one able to exercise their rights in circumstances like this without some mild obfuscation? "Providing care" is saying enough to signal that it is an issue which is likely medical in nature, without disclosing anything about your own medical condition or circumstances, which is your right. If your issue is only "for a loved one" then maybe you have a point, but you should have no issue with "I was a full-time care provider" and now we're just mincing words.

The goal is to explain enough to make it clear the question is related to medical conditions or familial status, so that the legally well-trained interviewer knows not to pry any further, and the interviewee who knows their rights has a perfectly good way to avoid discussing it any further if the interviewer asks for more information.

"I'd rather not discuss details about that, as the details are personal in nature and not in any way relevant here." That's all you should need to say.

I have seen situations evolve from privately disclosing some information about medical issues as a professional courtesy, into supervisor asking for updates as a logistical concern, and later unwanted discussion that continues as a matter of personal empathy, and then sometimes even more inappropriate discussions between parties that are not involved, or more public than you wanted; conversations that you wish wouldn't have ever started, over things that should have never even been an issue that needed to be discussed in the workplace.

My advice is to exercise your rights and avoid this as much as possible, which is to say, hopefully avoid it altogether.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#68

First of all, I've done plenty of hiring. You should not worry about a 12 month gap. It will have a minor negative impact on getting callbacks. You might have to work slightly harder at your applications to compensate. If you're already getting calls and interviews, you've already passed through the filter since a gap is most likely to hurt you while a HR recruiter is sorting through a large pile of resumes. You can…

To what degree does Army Reserve experience hurt? I have a lot of military time that overlaps with my years of employment as a corporate software developer and am considering taking it off my resume in the future to see if there is an uptick in interest on my resume.

I've never been in HR, or even in a position to hire, but if you put 2 CVs in front of me that were identical with the exception of one having guard/reserve/active duty military experience I'd always take the military one because it tells me they have are more likely to have discipline (even with knowing how big of screw ups several of my friends that served are).

And if there was a degree, i'd just assume the military was the way it was paid for as I've got probably a dozen friends that got their 4-year degrees via their military service.

Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?

#69
post #64

I can't speak for every company out there, but for us, we've discovered that resumes and whiteboard challenges are bad predictors of great engineers. So, we simply come up with a small project that's related to what we would have you work on if you were hired and give you around a week to finish it. You can use other people's code snippets online as well as any libraries you see fit. As long as the end result is good…

Yikes. Hopefully paid? What if the candidate is currently employed? Where do you expect them to find the time, knowing that they are not likely to be only applying to your company, but to others as well?
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