How To Write a Resume with Time Gaps in Employment

Besides providing job search consulting as my regular job, I spend a few hours a month volunteering in the employment assistance section of a social services and training nonprofit in Chicago. I provide resume help and job counseling to many different kinds of job seekers. This past week I helped a man who had a 10-year gap in employment. His work history stopped in 2001. Prior to this time, he worked as a business analyst and industry researcher. He was dressed in a suit, which isn't required, well-spoken and articulate -- not the type of person you would expect to have "dropped out." That's the way he explained the employment gap when I asked him about it. So, how do you go about helping someone write his resume who has a wide gap in employment?

Everyone has employment gaps. If you are laid off, it generally takes most people up 3 months to get re-employed. This type of employment gap is not a problem. Some people have employment gaps because they returned to college for 2 to 4 years. Again, this isn't a problem because the time in college is documented. A problem arises when people have employment gaps for a year or more. When they are unexplained, red flags go up in a recruiter's mind. Does this person have a personal problem? Long gaps in employment are assumed to be more than skills or interviewing issues.

When I reviewed his resume and began asking him about this 10-year gap, he revealed he had had two jobs: one as a handyman and another as an office worker for a "friend." He got the latter job through networking. Presently, he is a volunteer math tutor at a social service agency. He said he has a good relationship with the tutor manager and would ask her to be a reference.

As I alluded to earlier in this blog entry, an explained gap is not a problem. Unexplained gaps and reference checks are. Employers are rather aggressive about reference checks these days. I have a customer whose references were called before she was even offered an interview! So, references of 10 years ago pose a problem; it's unlikely he can even locate them. Without current work references, his employment search will go nowhere. In addition, online applications collect a lot of information on job candidates. This employment gap would be revealed early in the process.

For starters, he had to come to the realization he could not simply restart his old career. We looked at a few jobs ads for business analyst and industry researcher. We read the basic and desired requirements together. "I can't even do the first one," he said with a bit of regret. Realizing he had to start over was an important step for him. His new resume could not focus on old experience. Rather it had to be refocused on what he can offer an employer right now.

Rewriting his resume was a 3-step process:

• Select a realistic job objective
• Create a detailed and expanded knowledge, skills and capabilities summary
• Expand the current job descriptions while briefly summarizing the past ones

Realistic Job Objective: Since he realized he was not ready to be a business analyst again, he had to decide on what he could do. Over the past few years he had worked as an office worker, handyman and now is a math tutor. He did not want to be a handyman. We looked through some jobs on indeed.com and decided that some kind of office worker or administrative assistant was realistic.

Expanded Career Summary: While he may have gaps in employment, he still has the knowledge, skills and capabilities of a business analyst or researcher. He has a college degree. And he knows a lot of software programs. He's clearly a good tutor so he has good training skills. So, the task before him is to create an extended knowledge and skills inventory that will make up a big portion of the resume's footprint. Most resumes spend over 80% of the page on work experience. He can't do that because of the employment gap. So, he must spend  more time on his knowledge to demonstrate what he has to offer. In other words, he must weight his resume to his knowledge, not his experience.

Describe in Detail His Current Occupations: His current "job" is that of a volunteer math tutor. Most people would place a volunteer position in a "Volunteering" section of their resume. He can't do this because it would draw attention to his employment gap. So, this tutoring job needs to be treated as his current employment and his duties must be expanded in detail. He also must state in the summary of this "job" that it is a volunteer position. I have used this approach with other customers. What happens is that the volunteer situation is overwhelmed by all the detail in the job duties that the job type doesn't matter much. Next, he needs to use this same approach for his office and handyman job. For his previous experience, he must briefly describe it in a separate section at the end of the resume. He should list only job title, employer, location and dates. For this man, his previous employment written this fashion was only 3 lines of the resume.

Knowledge-weighting a resume for long employment gaps is only effective to a point. This approach shifts the resume reviewer's attention away from the employment gap. But, this approach will not always pass the background check test or the competition in online recruitment or applications. So, this man will need to use his knowledge-weighted resume as a job networking tool. He will be compelled to "work" his contacts more than people who do not have large time gaps in employment.