Gap in work history on CV

[kingston12]

So thanks to Covid-19, I've now got a 3.5 months (and growing) gap on my CV.

I've been permanent most of my career, but have had a few years contracting recently and the last one finished at the end of February. I didn't see a problem with that at the time, but in the event the timing couldn't have been worse!

I've applied for hundreds of jobs now and have even had two interviews, but the market is understandably shot to pieces so I'm not holding out too much hope of getting anything anytime soon.

The question is, how do I deal with this on my CV and in recruitment discussions/interviews? I realise (hope!) that some allowance will be made as we slide into this huge recession, but the majority of people I'll be competing with won't have a gap to explain away at all, so I'll clearly be at a disadvantage.

All I can think of so far is to :

1. Claim that I just deliberately sat out for six months after seeing how bad the market was, instead of admitting I've been banging my head against the brick wall of a dead market for the past few months. I'm not sure if that really makes it any better though?

or

2. Just take another form of unrelated employment (e.g. supermarket delivery driver) to show that I haven't just been sitting around at home for months. Whilst some employers might see it as a positive, others will just see it as proof that I couldn't secure anything in my usual field.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

[jgy6000]

i wouldn't worry to much about it. everyone knows the current situation so seeing a gap on a CV isn't really going surprise anyone.

maybe come up with some good answers for when they ask you what you have been doing with your time (volunteering or personal development/ learning)

[Gargamel]

Hi, long time recruiter.

No issue with the gap in the current climate. I would simply continue to show your contract roles. Everyone understands that contractors have gaps, and at the moment no problem

Good luck.

[kingston12]

jgy6000 said:

i wouldn't worry to much about it. everyone knows the current situation so seeing a gap on a CV isn't really going surprise anyone.

maybe come up with some good answers for when they ask you what you have been doing with your time (volunteering or personal development/ learning)

Thanks. Yes, I've been preparing the PD/learning examples.

[kingston12]

Gargamel said:

Hi, long time recruiter.

No issue with the gap in the current climate. I would simply continue to show your contract roles. Everyone understands that contractors have gaps, and at the moment no problem

Good luck.

Thanks. I've made it clear on my CV which were contract roles, including the last one.

[rog007]

As stated, just cover off any gaps at a basic level, more to stop a shortlister’s imagination running wild and wondering if you’d been holed up in a Bolivian jail for a few months on suspicion of drug dealing whilst waiting for the British Embassy to negotiate your early release.

If you can link any gap in gainful employment to your CPD, that will add value. Better still, as you and others allude to, do something such as volunteering or other role that demonstrates your drive and values.

However, one may be more concerned about someone having ‘applied for hundreds of jobs’. Is it safe to assume that you tailored each of those CVs to the role being applied for, or was it the same CV being fired off for all?

If it was the former, then that really is tough and maybe some additional insights in to how to do that better would add value. If it’s the latter, then this level of ROI is to be anticipated.

Happy to look over your CV if you think that would add any value.

Good luck!

[kingston12]

rog007 said:

However, one may be more concerned about someone having ‘applied for hundreds of jobs’. Is it safe to assume that you tailored each of those CVs to the role being applied for, or was it the same CV being fired off for all?

If it was the former, then that really is tough and maybe some additional insights in to how to do that better would add value. If it’s the latter, then this level of ROI is to be anticipated.

Happy to look over your CV if you think that would add any value.

Good luck!

Thanks. This is something I've been thinking about quite a lot. I started off as I have done before with a fairly comprehensive re-write of my CV for each role and a covering letter from scratch.

In the past I haven't had to do more than a few of those as I tended to get an interview from around 50% of applications, and an offer from at least one of those.

This time, the hit rate is understandably lower and I'm struggling to justify the time taken for a totally bespoke approach for each application when a lot of the roles don't exist or I don't get any reply.

Instead, I've got about eight different versions of my CV and I tend to send the one that I feel fits best for each role. If I don't think that any of these are close enough, then I'll 'sharpen' accordingly for certain roles.

As you say, its probably a case of re-focussing and spending more time on each application, but it is a bit frustrating.

[lyonspride]

Don't sweat it, the only harm it could do is earn you a low ball offer of employment.

Agencies won't like it because they like "fresh" contacts, if your fresh out of a job, then that's valuable to them, means they can sell their services to your former employer and your recent knowledge will give them the upper hand in selling those services.

[kingston12]

lyonspride said:

Don't sweat it, the only harm it could do is earn you a low ball offer of employment.
.

To be honest, I’m fairly open to that. I’ve been applying for roles at significantly lower salary levels than I’ve been earning. The roles themselves look fairly similar, so I still think they’d be a good addition to the CV.

I’m in two minds about doing this. I don’t really need the money that urgently, (although it would be nice not to see my savings accounts going down so fast!), but I do like the idea of getting back to work.

The other potential problem is that when the economy eventually recovers, I’ll inevitably be asked the ‘last salary’ question and that may make it more difficult to get back to where I was.

[Doofus]

In the future, I won't be pre-judging any applicants if 2020 is a bit sketchy on their CV.

[lyonspride]

Doofus said:

In the future, I won't be pre-judging any applicants if 2020 is a bit sketchy on their CV.

Exactly, and any prick that does, doesn't deserve your loyalty.