Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 248 posts

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

#101

Post by tetraca »

epicureanideal wrote: post #65
loftyai wrote: 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.

After dealing with a few of these things, I've resolved every time I get one of these applications in the future, I'll just decline. If you want me to spend like 1-2 hours doing some small exercise that proves I can program, fine, but I'm not wasting my spare time coding the moon for you with your mind numbing full stack crud app project for some ultimately middling opportunity.

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

#102

Post by bduerst »

jobgaps wrote: post #96
rongenre wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to know you weren't in jail. That's it.

That's what background check is for.

AFAIK misdemeanors have to be checked at the county level, and a lot of background checks skip them unless asked specifically (hence checking about the gaps).

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

#103

Post by pcurve »

cbanek wrote: post #71

As a person who's reviewed a lot of resumes, I don't actively look for job gaps, so I probably wouldn't notice. I'm more interested in what technologies you use (role), and what you've done in the past (experience). As long as you are sharp and know your stuff, you'll do fine. Even if it is a red flag to some, I strongly believe software interviewing is a numbers game, due to randomness and bad interview processes. A…

Yep. I've reviewed thousands of resumes but I never paid much attention to gaps. Gap of 1 year wouldn't even register in my brain.

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

#104

Post by jczhang »

A lot of interesting responses here. While I agree with being honest about it, one issue is that the resume might be overlooked because there is a gap and you never get a chance to explain it. I am basically having to solve the same problem currently so @jobgap if you'd like to discuss pm me.

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

#106

Post by scandox »

pcurve wrote: post #103
cbanek wrote: post #71

As a person who's reviewed a lot of resumes, I don't actively look for job gaps, so I probably wouldn't notice. I'm more interested in what technologies you use (role), and what you've done in the past (experience). As long as you are sharp and know your stuff, you'll do fine. Even if it is a red flag to some, I strongly believe software interviewing is a numbers game, due to randomness and bad interview processes. A…

Yep. I've reviewed thousands of resumes but I never paid much attention to gaps. Gap of 1 year wouldn't even register in my brain.

Oh gaps are usually pretty interesting. I once dug into a big gap (3 years) and went down quite a rabbit-hole with a candidate that was in every other respect excellent.

But the gap: Let's just say it was the worst thing you can imagine.

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

#107

Post by throaway193023 »

jobgaps wrote: post #93
throaway193023 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to what most people are saying here, I would advise to not mention medical issues. People are weird: they will be understanding and have sympathy, but when it comes to who gets the job, there's a good chance this will work against you. Not openly (it's illegal, after all), but subconsciously. Don't see this as lying; remember that it is your right to not mention this. Of course, you shouldn't conjure up some…

Thanks for adressing this as this is a very valid point. I was at the start of the process with two major companies in their respective markets just weeks after i got hospitalized (which echoed back my 12 mth hiatus later). At the initial screening i have mentioned the reason of reschedule to be the hospital stuff. Words of support and `i know a person who have had the same problem` type of stuff came along. Next thi…

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'd say this was not a coincidence. For HR, possible medical issues are always a red flag. This is the reason they're not allowed to ask about that stuff. Frankly, I'm a bit astonished by the other answers in this thread who say it's fine to mention this. Ask yourself: If there's another applicant with similar qualifications but without medical issues in the past, who would get the job? What can you possibly gain by mentioning this?

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

#108

Post by jobgaps »

bduerst wrote: post #102
jobgaps wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what background check is for.

AFAIK misdemeanors have to be checked at the county level, and a lot of background checks skip them unless asked specifically (hence checking about the gaps).

Funny you mentioned that, i've seen a FB job posting mentioning they are ok with misdemeanor on the record. I wonder if there's a time they will okay a felony on file.

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

#110

Post by m_fayer »

tetraca wrote: post #101
epicureanideal wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

After dealing with a few of these things, I've resolved every time I get one of these applications in the future, I'll just decline. If you want me to spend like 1-2 hours doing some small exercise that proves I can program, fine, but I'm not wasting my spare time coding the moon for you with your mind numbing full stack crud app project for some ultimately middling opportunity.

We do basically what OP said, but we ask the candidate to spend more or less 4 hours on the exercise, in one sitting or two. We also give them a fairly large project to do and say "We know you can't remotely complete this in 4 hours. Pick a nice subset that you find compelling and that demonstrates your strengths, and code that. Explain your choices." It's worked well for us - it demonstrates not just coding ability but also planning, communication, and time management.
Post reply on HN