How do you address gaps in your resume?
There are a lot of reasons there might be a period without paid experience in your work history: a health issue, world travel, family care, struggling to find something after a layoff. A generation or so ago, that gap could cause huge problems for future employment, but these days, it’s much less of a big deal.
Still, you will want to figure out how to address the gap so that it doesn’t work against you. You should, of course, never lie on the resume, but there are some ways to minimize the appearance of a gap, as well as ways to fill it in. Let’s start with minimizing.
One thing you can do is to use just years instead of specific dates on the resume. I don’t recommend this approach if you have less than a year because it will read as very dishonest if they learn your 2-year experience actually only lasted 3 months, but if you held a position for a year or more, feel free to add just the years!
Another step is to call that section something like “Selected Relevant Experience” or “Experience Highlights” and remove the jobs that don’t tell the story you want told. You don’t need to list every job you’ve ever had, especially if you have a lot of work experience. A nice part about this approach is that it also lets you move older but more relevant pieces of experience higher up on the document, so it gets a bit more attention from readers.
If you want to fill the hole instead of minimizing it, list other things you’ve done during your unpaid stint: volunteering, taking classes, freelancing. Simply list these, in chronological order, in the same way you list your jobs, complete with bullet points under each, focusing on your accomplishments. (If you’ve been pursuing more education, it may look a little different—simply put your education section on top, right under your skills summary.)
Finally, focus on your skills. I recommend starting every resume with a list of your skills and accomplishments. Be sure to give a bit of detail, though. It’s fine to say you have communication skills, but lots of people claim them without actually having them, so back up your claim or briefly explain how you learned it. Provide other details, as well. For instance, if you have public speaking listed, how large are the audiences you’ve spoken to? If you’ve done budgeting, what size of budget have you worked with? Make this skills and accomplishments section robust, and really demonstrate how fabulous you are. That will let people who read your resume really focus on that, rather than any gaps.
Of course, once you have your resume set, you will also need to solidify the story you will tell in an interview. More on that next week!
