The Punishment of Having an Employment Gap

 There are so many reasons that someone takes an employment gap. First, let’s define employment gap. An employment gap is a period of time where you are unemployed either voluntarily or involuntarily. 

The most common employment gap is being laid off or fired from your current job. Right behind that is parenting. You take years off to raise your children. Medical illness/disability is another common reason to have an employment gap. Becoming a caregiver is also another reason to take years off of your professional career. Relocation, education, travel, and or starting a new business venture on your own are also common reasons to have an employment gap.

Women are more affected than men from taking an employment gap in their professional career.

Years have passed and now you are ready to pursue your career again. You spruce up your resume and start applying to jobs. Months pass by and years pass by and you are still unemployed because of the bias that exist with hiring managers and recruiters.

We have to question as to why these hiring managers and recruiters continue to discriminate against candidates that have the amazing years of work experience yet they don’t consider your employment gap appealing.

You write a passionate cover letter explaining the reason as to why you have your “x” years employment gap but you still don’t hear back.  

No one talks about the punishment of having an employment gap.

Do these recruiters and hiring managers already have a prejudgment that we don’t have the up-to-date skills needed to perform? Are they being instructed by management to not even consider anyone who has been working recently?

What’s really going on in the recruiting/hiring industry?

These are just questions that I may not ever receive any answers to.

What I do find interesting that some companies have created returnships. Now what are returnships?  

So basically, returnships are internships for adults that have been out of the workplace for a long period of time that are ready to re-enter the workforce. These returnship programs, depending on the company, can last for a few weeks or a few months. The goal of these returnships is to help you become reacquainted with the culture of today’s work environment and improve your skills while providing mentorship.   

At first glance, it sounds amazing right? But do you think a returnship is suitable to people who’ve had successful careers but had to take years off to now start from scratch? These returnships aren’t even guaranteed employment at the end of your term. Will you, a former Vice President, apply for a returnship because you took a 10-year employment gap? Now you have to start from scratch because these hiring managers don’t think you’re trainable in a month’s time because of their assumption that your 15-year sales career is not valid because of your 10-year employment gap.  

Creating these programs sound great but the real root cause of the problem is these hiring managers not considering these amazing, diverse, successful candidates with employment gaps.

Prabha Kannan wrote a linkedin post expressing to hiring managers and recruiters to consider candidates with resume gaps after returning to the workforce herself after 7 years as a stay-at-home mom. 

Time will only tell if things will change. It just makes me sad that we have to continue to endure this silent discrimination in the meantime.