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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?

#121

Post by DavidAdams »

mcv wrote: post #98

A gap in your resume is called a sabbatical. You spent a year doing something else that's more important to you because you can afford it. Medical plus some recovery time is a great reason. But just playing around with some new tech, investing in your education, or even spending time on your other interests, work for charity, or see something of the world, are great reasons. Slacking off may not sound great, but many…

I'll echo this, and add in what some other commenters have said below: you might want to consider leading with your sabbatical in an interview. Talk about it in a positive way, and how you're refreshed and ready to come back to work now.

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

#122

Post by dougmwne »

austincheney wrote: post #57
dougmwne wrote: post #47

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 think in general it would help since it would indicate a respect for authority and a willingness to do difficult things. It does depend on the specifics of your resume. Is the Army Reserve experience written in a way that might make it seem like you were more focused or interested in the military than your software career or is it presented as a nice compliment to a strong developer resume.

And sure an individual hiring manager might have some bias against military experience for wherever reason, but my general advice is not to hide who you are and that you'll find a company that wants to hire you for all the great experiences you bring to the table.

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

#124

Post by epicureanideal »

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.

Same. Other than the 1 exception I mentioned, I literally tell the recruiter, "I can do a full interview and get an offer the same day in the 4 hours it'll take me to do your exercise, so you probably won't hear back from me because I'll already be employed by next week". And that has always been the case.

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

#125

Post by kbutler »

jobgaps wrote: post #52
dougmwne wrote: post #47

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…

>>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. I get Linkedin messages most of the time since i updated my profile to conclude the last place of work. >> Did you do any personal projects, classes or open source that can show continues professional interest and passion? Ye…

Individual software development venture is a great gap reason (and probably means it could be not a gap at all). Think and be prepared to talk about lessons learned, including technical, business, and people management.

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

#126

Post by hackinthebochs »

m_fayer wrote: post #110
tetraca wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, offloading the burden and cost of the initial filter on to prospective candidates works well for the employer!

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

#127

Post by oftenwrong »

I once took almost 2 years off for no good reason. I traveled, visited friends and family, relaxed and generally did whatever I wanted. It was a great and memorable time in my life.

When I started looking for work again, I simply told them that in full honesty, and explained that I had enough money to do it.

Every interviewer reacted positively. Pretty much all of them said they would love to take a long time off like that and asked about my travels and about my projects.

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

#128

Post by ahnberg »

You can explain it either honestly with medical issue during an interview, phrase it as a sabbatical where you focused on something else or yourself for a year to figure out what you wanted, and did projects on the side instead of working.

Or a "fun" way is to claim you worked for any government agency who would never verify or deny that you ever worked for them. :P

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

#129

Post by [deleted] »

mcv wrote: post #98

A gap in your resume is called a sabbatical. You spent a year doing something else that's more important to you because you can afford it. Medical plus some recovery time is a great reason. But just playing around with some new tech, investing in your education, or even spending time on your other interests, work for charity, or see something of the world, are great reasons. Slacking off may not sound great, but many…

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by mltony »

I had a 5 years gap in my career - all medical. Recently, right after that gap, I was intervieweing with multiple companies - most of them didn't even ask me, even though I was worried as hell. In the end I got almost all job offers I wanted. The only notable exception that didn't even grant me a phone screen was Amazon, their recruiter told me that ML has advanced so much in those 5 years that all my prior experience is totally irrelevant to them anymore. Oh, really. Whatever. In the end I ended up joining Facebook.

So with your 12 months gap and your prior experience, I would say nothing to worry about.

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