Just leave the gap.
If a company requires any gaps to be explained then it's a company that's best avoided. Consider it a bullet dodged.
Just say you were in prison
"Why is there a six-month gap in your CV?"
"Oh, I went travelling."
"Interesting, where did you travel to?"
"HMP Wakefield."
@poly Err - I'm not sure why you are asking me all those questions. 🤷♂️
I’ve got gaps in mine, no one ever asks.
Reasons were 6 months unemployed post redundancy then did a completely different career for ~5 years which isn’t of any relevance to my ‘normal’ office job. So that’s about a third of my working life ‘blank’ on my CV.
TBH, if it was an interesting job which added skills/strings to your bow. It's quite often useful to add. There's a difference between "i spent 3 years as a fluffer in the porn industry" and "i spent 3 years managing/running/working in a community kitchen". Though, fluffer might help in some places of work.
All our employees CVs have to be continuous with no unexplained gaps.
Friend of mine started working for the government recently in a high risk/sensitive role. She's had to explain her whereabouts for the last few years. Addresses, landlords, house mates, partners, flights. Any gap of more than a couple of weeks needs some detail. The time she spent schlepping round most of North Africa/India (several months travelling overland from Marrakesh to Delhi) took some explaining... And about 4 pages of additional notes.
All to make sure she hasn't been radicalised.
So it's not unusual. I had to do the same in my first job (MoD and DoD clearances). But, errr, i only had a few part time jobs to list!
So it’s not unusual.
Jobs that require to know everywhere you've been for the past 5 years, work related or not, aren't that unusual?
The application form for local government jobs in Scotland (Myjobbiescotland) insist that every day of your working life is accounted for.
This thread brings home the notion that recruiters are trained to exclude certain characteristics and if you fit one of them, they nearly all reject. I suffered a dead end job for years because of the fear of going back into the market again - when finally made redundant as my profession went the way of the wheelwright, I never again gained a permanent contract - which made the account for every day thing awkward.
if the only way you can sort CVs is by who has 100% continuous timeline either you need a better selection process.
What about jobs that require you to have a license and to get that license you have to have 10 years of provable employment/education? It really depends upon the job you are applying for.
What about jobs that require you to have a license and to get that license you have to have 10 years of provable employment/education? It really depends upon the job you are applying for.
Don't most of these type of things require an external agency to provide the certification?
In that case you would have to justify your absences to the external agency, not a prospective employer.
I've had two jobs that required it and both were done by the employer: Barclays and G4S. G4S had to share the details with the SIA for my CVIT license to be granted every 3 years, the last one ran out back in July and as I've had two periods of no work I cannot renew it.
Any gap in a CV is best described honestly, I'm currently applying for new jobs and have been 100% up front about my gaps, one for waiting for training delayed by the lockdowns and the current one as I gave my job up due to an impossible commute and my dad then falling ill. I fear both of these are holding me back as I'm not getting any interviews but at least I know there are no skeletons in my closet for anyone to find if I do get a new job.
Jobs that require to know everywhere you’ve been for the past 5 years, work related or not, aren’t that unusual?
No, i'd not look at a recruiter/application/manager as if they were mad if they asked me to list my jobs and places of residence plus house mates/family members etc. if i was expecting to get access to military secrets or the inner workings of government.
Didn't say they were common.
What about jobs that require you to have a license and to get that license you have to have 10 years of provable employment/education?
Such as? [edit: cross post]
I would've thought that any role requiring that level of inspection/examination would "do their own research" rather than taking a CV at face value.
Security clearance post-selection is completely separate from the interview process - or should be. BITD I applied to, and got a job offer from GCHQ in Cheltenham. The interview was standard job interview stuff really, and after accepting the offer, there was a whole new process for checking my background. (In the end I didn't go there thanks to a last-minute PhD studentship offer. Or did I?)
Having left a job in part for mental health reasons (psycho bullying boss being the cause) I'm more interested in what a new company culture is like
So if they wince and consider you unemployable because you had a few weeks or months off getting yourself right side up again after whatever cause, I'd read more into NewCo culture than I'd allow them to read into me.
got a job offer from GCHQ in Cheltenham... I didn’t go there thanks to a last-minute PhD studentship offer. Or did I?)
If GCHQ is spending its time bickering with us idiots, we are doomed...
Gap? Who cares?
CV should focus on what’s been learned and achieved.
I’d just settle for the discontinuity.
Depending on employment history - lots of short jobs or few longer ones - it’d be easy just to put:
Consultant mathematician xyz corp 2007-2009
Rock star 2009-2013
Without mentioning ‘Getting fixed 2009-2009’
Otherwise just have the gap but don’t call it out.
When I got made redundant a few years back I took 8 months off thanks to a big payoff. When I finally went back to work, my new employer asked a load of questions about that gap (HR rather than the people that interviewed me and I’d be working for). I had to provide proof that I’d been travelling for some of that time as well as proof of my redundancy payment to prove I could afford to take that time off without earning.
🤣🤔
I took nearly a year off after redundancy. Because I could. Ok, I did have a company during that time but did nothing but file the accounts and some ‘hobby’ jobs because folk asked for help.
But to be asked for weird proof? That’s not on. Any organisation that needed to know what you were up to would surely have its own in house spies or call on a vetting agency?
The application form for local government jobs in Scotland (Myjobbiescotland) insist that every day of your working life is accounted for.
This is the reason 6 missing years stood out so badly on the case I mentioned at the beginning.
The application form for local government jobs in Scotland (Myjobbiescotland) insist that every day of your working life is accounted for
🤣 do they find recruiting easy?
My working life did not include the time I wasn’t working. Nice little gap in the late 2010s of not working.
The key word here is ‘unexplained’. In my social care world every gap has to be accounted for (came in after Ian Huntley did his thing). It’s fine to have gaps, but they do need to be accounted for with a valid explanation. Doesn’t seem a big deal to me!
