Calling All Those Who Had a massive Career Gap and returned to work

[YABVVU]

What did you say about the gap at interview?

Why did you take the career break?

How did you convince the employer to take you on even though you had been out of work for a while?

What did you provide by way of references?

Officially, I've been out of work for 10 years! During that time I did plenty of jobs but they were all self-employed i.e. private investor, market research, the odd HR freelance contract, NLP, a little bit of volunteering e.t.c.

I'm desperate to get out there and get be employed, have an impressive CV but cannot see employers frown when I talk about this 'gap'.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to explain this away?

Any gaps on my cv that need to be explained, I simply say, 'looking for work'

or moved from this town to that town.

@YABVVU

What did you say about the gap at interview?

Why did you take the career break?

How did you convince the employer to take you on even though you had been out of work for a while?

What did you provide by way of references?

Officially, I've been out of work for 10 years! During that time I did plenty of jobs but they were all self-employed i.e. private investor, market research, the odd HR freelance contract, NLP, a little bit of volunteering e.t.c.

I'm desperate to get out there and get be employed, have an impressive CV but cannot see employers frown when I talk about this 'gap'.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to explain this away?

What did you do before your break, and is this the same thing you're interviewing for now?

I've worked with people who have taken long career breaks and being honest, it hasn't worked out, because they didn't keep up-to-date with our line of work in that gap, and coming back was too much for them.

I wouldn't care if someone had been self-employed rather than employed, but it would raise alarm bells if they'd been out of the game for 10 years and couldn't confidently chat about what they'd done on their own initiative to keep their skills current. If, for example, HR is your bag, and you've been doing regular CPD courses, I'd feel a lot more relaxed about hiring you.

It's the people who take a break and don't stay relevant who are difficult to employ - after 10 years, your initial training becomes redundant if you don't do something to keep it current.

It's the people who take a break and don't stay relevant who are difficult to employ - after 10 years, your initial training becomes redundant if you don't do something to keep it current. how do yo u stay current tho if you don't know what you'll be going back into? I have just over a decades experience in social housing, but I'll be out of work probably a decade before I return. But I have no idea into what or where I'd really start in trying to catch up my housing knowledge and skills

@SleepingStandingUp

It's the people who take a break and don't stay relevant who are difficult to employ - after 10 years, your initial training becomes redundant if you don't do something to keep it current. how do yo u stay current tho if you don't know what you'll be going back into? I have just over a decades experience in social housing, but I'll be out of work probably a decade before I return. But I have no idea into what or where I'd really start in trying to catch up my housing knowledge and skills

There are specific professions where you need to update your knowledge every year - so taking a 10-year gap without doing any of that would effectively result in someone applying for a job they no longer were qualified to do. The OP has implied she belongs to one of those professions.

If you take a career break, it's on you to either spend part of that break attending relevant CPD courses, or to accept you'll need to retrain and/or do something different at the end of the break.

If you leave the game for 10 years, and stop watching, you can't expect it to be the same when you get back. It's a different story if you stop playing the game but continue to spectate.