5 Ways To Deal With Employment Gap In Your CV

By Dorcas Karauna,
As a potential job candidate, your CV is the most important tool in your “self-marketing.” It is the first impression you will make on an employer, but it could also be the last if your resume has a work history gap; that occurs when there is as break in the employment chronology. This is caused by any number of reasons- most often by having been laid off/ fired. A gap gives more fear to job seekers while job searching or even in interviews.
Hiring managers are trained to spot all gaps of 6 months and longer on a candidate’s resume. When an employer scans your resume for 20 seconds, what will they see? If you have had a series of job gaps lasting for more than 6 months, then you may look like a flawed candidate,  or a job hopper and these are big red flags on your resume. A person with such a record of employment gaps does not leave a positive impression and sways employers to move on to consider other candidates instead. Short periods of employment create an impression that you were terminated due to lack of performance.
Obviously avoiding gaps is recommended when rewriting or updating your resume. However, lying on your resume by stating false employment that did not really exist in order to fill in time is not recommended. So what can be done?
1. Consulting and Temporary Assignments- During the period you are out of work; you may work as a consultant. Many in consulting and temporary assignments are offered short-term projects. You may indicate on your CV “Consultant” and specify the full length of time you were in the role. Underneath this section, highlight the companies and/or specific experiences and accomplishments in the role. An employer will view all the individual experiences and temporary assignments – and its significance in furthering your career experiences – as a whole. If that doesn’t fit your situation, just make sure to indicate that it was a contract position next to the dates so people will see right away that the short tenure was planned.
2. Use only Years- Reformat Dates of Employment: Rather than listing the specific month and year you were employed with an employer, indicate only the year. It can appear less obvious that you were only on the job for 16 months, and appear more like two years. Therefore, if the gap is small it will help caver it. Is it a lie? No. You are going to present exact dates of employment in an application later on. The aim of your CV is to get an interview where you will be able to explain the reasons for the gap in employment and show why you are the right candidate for the job.
3. Omit One or More Jobs- If you have a lengthy work history there is no need to include all of your experiences on the resume. It’s reasonable to put jobs that extend beyond 15 years in a previous experience section and point out just company name and title.
4. Use a Cover Letter- When compensating for a gap in your employment a cover letter is exactly what you need. You can explain the gap to the potential employer: if it is some life event you can simply tell about it (e.g. caring for your new born baby). If not you should show what you weren’t just unemployed but did some job skills training courses, learned something work related or contributed something positive to a society, did any volunteer activities, show that your gap was a valuable and helpful time for you which developed your skills and made you an ideal candidate
5. Use a Combination Resume- A combination resume is much more effective than a chronological one because it lists your skills and accomplishments before the experience with actual dates. When writing a resume objective or profile section use memorable and effective words to help with the key-word search and hook the reader into your resume. After that include a “Highlights of Accomplishments” section which shows your outstanding accomplishments and results and quickly communicates why you are a good fit for the position. You can write it as a list of five or six sentences in bold type to make it stand out.
No matter what the reasons for your employment gaps are, use all the tools to present yourself in the best possible way and remember to remain optimistic and show that you are ready and willing to return to work.
Dorcas is a Human Resource Consultant at Corporate Staffing Services. Email: dorcas@corporatestaffing.co.ke. Website www.corporatestaffing.co.ke