Career gaps are considered to give a negative impression to hiring managers and interviewers. However, people take career breaks for many reasons, such as sickness, traveling, education, and some to relax to get their minds off work for a while. However, this leads to gaps in your work experience and an outdated CV that is the basis of your career. Even though hiring managers have hundreds of CVs to analyze, they are smart enough to detect a career gap in your CV.
Here are five ways to improve your CV after a career gap that will make the employer ignore the lack of work experience and help you land a job quickly:
1. List your career gap in the experience section
A career gap is not something to be ashamed of; accept it, acknowledge it, and write openly about it in your CV. Because a missing experience does not look good on the CV and leaves a wrong impression on the employer. Instead of hiding the truth, be open about it because the employers recognize why one might decide to take a career break.
2. Display your career gap in a positive light
A career break does not necessarily mean that you did not do anything productive during that time; talk about the positive aspects of your gap. Make the employer see your career break positively, and explain everything productive that you did during your break as if it were a full/part-time job.
3. Use your CV introduction to explain your career gap
The introduction section of your CV is the perfect place to define your career gap; end it positively by talking about how you are ready to get back to work. Furthermore, explaining your career break at the beginning of your CV will assure the employers that you are honest, open and serious about your career.
In addition, expressing the productive side of your break will reassure your employers about your aims and commitment to work. Finally, you can discuss the skills you learned during the break and use your gap to your advantage.
4. Rearrange the sections on your CV
Proper arrangement of your CV sections is crucial to make your CV more visible among hundreds of resumes and hook the recruiters. In order to ensure they see your relevant experiences and skills and consider you as a strong candidate for a position, you should place the strongest sections that are relevant to the role and most significant achievements toward the top.
Consequently, this will give you a chance to impress the recruiter with your skills and achievements. The recruiter might decide to overlook your career gap because of your accomplishments and hire you.
5. Consider skills-based or creative CV design
Formatting your CV according to the field/industry you are applying to helps cover up your career gap’s negative side. For example, a creative CV works perfectly well if you are applying to graphic designing or fashion designing. A skills-based CV also works for many other fields/industries and can show creativity and skills without explaining or questioning them.
Conclusion
It is normal to have a career gap; as long as you have positive arguments to justify it, there is no reason to worry. Your CV tells the employer about the value you will add to their business/company, so make it compelling using the five ways that have been discussed in the article.
Good luck!