5 Great Ways to Explain Work History Gaps on Your Resume  

One of the first things a recruiter or employer notices is a gap in a resume or application. They want to know why the candidate took time off from working. However, candidates can have legitimate reasons for a gap in a resume, and luckily recruiters and employers are more and more understanding of them. Here are some tips for explaining gaps in a work history.

1. Taking time off to travel

We see it every day on every form of social media: someone quit his or her job to travel around the world. As it turns out, that can be a good thing to include on a work history. Taking a year off to explore the world and recharge is a great way to fill a gap in your resume. So, the way to fill the gap in your resume is by noting that you traveled, what you learned from it, and where you traveled. Be sure to describe any activities you pursued did during your travel period.

Here’s an example of what the travel section on your resume could look like:

Travel Abroad                                                                                     January 1, 2015 – January 1, 2016   

• Traveled to South Africa, Germany, Dublin and UK.
• Freelanced for Sharp Heels on traveling and working abroad, resulting in 10 written articles that reached 5000 readers each.
• Taught English to children in Germany at ABC school.
• Currently editor of travelandwork.com blog, which increaed readership from 5000 to 10,000 in two months.

2. Entrepreneurship

If you chose to quit your job and pursue a new venture on your own, even if it failed, this is a great resume filler. You can explain what your idea was, what you did to launch it, and what you learned from the experience.

Here’s an example of what that section of the resume could look like:

New Venture LLC                                                                   January 1, 2015 – January 1, 2016   

• Founded New Venture LLC, a company that provides an online learning platform for ESL students.
• Developed a working MVP that launched successfully and gained 1000 users in three months.
• Managed a team of remote engineers resulting in faster development of features and quicker launches.
• Pitched idea to five investors resulting in raising funds to hire new team members and improve development cycle.

3. Family

Not long ago, having a family was not seen a legitimate excuse for men or women to take time off. While the US is still behind in terms of offering paid parental leave for men and women when they have children, it’s more and more acceptable, and employers are getting on board and offering great benefits for new parents. The same goes for taking care of a family member who may have an illness and you were their caretaker. These are perfectly acceptable reasons to have a gap in your resume, and they are easily explained. You do not necessarily have to list them on your resume, but you can explain them in your cover letter or during your interview.

4. Volunteering or Unique Opportunities

If you chose to take time off to volunteer or pursue a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this is a great way to explain a gap in your resume. If you had a fellowship or volunteered for six months for a particular cause, you are showing a whole new side of yourself to the employer and making yourself stand out. In the same way travel is a great way to show you are adventurous and willing to learn from your experiences, volunteering or pursuing a fellowship can help you gain new skills and a new perspective.

Here’s how to show your experience on a resume:

ABC Fellowship                                                                      January 1, 2015 – January 1, 2016
Fellow                                                                                                             Berlin, Germany      

• Fellowship at ABC University in Berlin, Germany.
• Studied German for three months and passed the fluency exam with a perfect score.
• Experienced working with diverse cultures through English language tutoring.
• Researched and wrote a thesis on “The Impact of Learning a New Language on Your Career” which was published in the ABC Journal.

5. Changing Industries

This does not always seem like a legitimate reason to leave your job, but if you have found your calling and want to pursue a new profession entirely, it is difficult to keep a full-time job in your previous industry while networking and learning new skills to pursue an entirely new career. This gap in your can be filled with courses you are taking, internships, or side projects. You should still include your previous experience, but tailor it to your new career. Your resume will look completely different if you are pursuing a new career, and you should pull out experiences from your previous industry that could help you in your new career and show how the gap is filled.

For instance, if you are going from law to tech, you can list an article you wrote for a tech publication, a blog you started, courses you took on Coursera, organizations you volunteered for, or any volunteer projects you took on to gain new skills.

Here’s how to present your experience on a resume when you are changing careers:

ABC Company                                                                        January 1, 2015 – January 1, 2016
Volunteer UX Designer                                                                                   San Francisco, CA

• Created mockups with Photoshop, Fireworks, PowerPoint, and Visio.
• Worked directly with developers and testers to make the designs come to life in code.
• Wrote and illustrated brand and usage guidelines, resulting in a more efficient dev cycle.
• Authored a blog on UX Design at abcuxdesign.com gaining an audience of 5000 in one month.

As with all sections of your resume, any gap section should include not only what you did but how that made an impact. Each bullet point should have the following format: X activity, which resulted in Y. For example: Freelanced for SharpHeels, which increased their readership from X to Y.

Having a gap in your resume can actually help your career if you use that time to help others, pursue new endeavors, or learn new skills, so present it accordingly. It’s a great conversation starter and a great way to show you are adventurous and not afraid of pursuing new skills and taking risks.