"That's classified."
"I worked for Men in Black, which is now People in Black."
Or, "I worked in Area 15, helping dyslexic aliens."
Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
161–170 of 248 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
this isn't "burden and cost".... it's providing a large set of requirements and giving clear expectations about what is realistic, and the flexibility of choosing which requirements you satisfy to demonstrate your skills.
unless I'm misunderstanding why you're referring to?
Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#163First 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.
Can’t see why it would hurt, and it’s obviously much easier to explain than a gap.
Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#164I had a 12 year gap. Went back to school, did entry level internships and then got a grad level internship which later became a full time position. You need a story and also talk to what you did to get back. There will always be folks who see the gap before they see anything else, but there will be others who find your passion real. Also network a ton, find mentors. After every interview do a retrospective with self and ask yourself what went well and what didn’t. This helped me a lot to perfect my story to an elevator pitch under 2 minutes.
Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#165I always wonder what the HR person would get all upset over a gap for? Can someone tell me about the time they rejected a candidate because they had a gap in their employment? lol :D I mean why do they care. If I save up money and take a year off every few years? That just means if I get bored of them I'll walk out. It sounds like the kinda thing people care about because they're told to, but they don't actually have…
Getting hired is a competition. If you're up against another person who is laser focused on their career to the exclusions of all other hobbies or priorities in their life, then that person is more likely to get a call then you are if you just took a year off to do whatever. Companies get many resumes for each opening and they just can't call everyone. At some point you will start getting filtered out vs people who a…
I agree with some part of your second paragraph. If I met some guy who did nothing but code 14 hours daily for 10 years, my first guess would be that he may be mentally deranged and impossible to work with on a team. Maybe 10-12 hours 5 days a week for many years I’d just think he’s very serious about his career. Beyond that he may be a crazy person.
Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, if you had good reason to take time off, but the future employer still has a problem with it, you probably don't want to work for them anyway.
I think this sort of statement is thrown around too lightly. It's a bad sign, but there's a limited amount of signal in it. It may not correlate strongly with employee experience, and lots of other positive factors might outweigh it. Maybe it's just one recruiter's resume filter. Maybe the company actually has a great medical leave policy, or pays really well, or works on something the OP is super excited by. Or mayb…
> though, what's it worth? $5k in salary? More? Less?
Maybe a huge amount. If an employer has a negative predisposition towards you, and you already have a small negative signal on your own resume (gap)-- they have the potential to really screw things up for you. The amount of suck you might endure is unbounded, and the probability of your recent experience on your resume becoming worse is too high.
Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#167Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#168Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#169You just do it!
I took 3 years off between two jobs to burn through my savings. I just said "I took three years off to burn through my savings" to people and they were like "cool, fine, as long as you can still code".
Re: Ask HN: How to explain job gaps on the resume?
#170Make something up. Say you were traveling, pursuing some art project, a startup idea, etc.
> Make something up.
This is terrible advice.