Forbes India – Taking A Break From A Career Has Become An Asset For Your Resume

Nearly 64% of women have interrupted their careers for parental, medical or mental health leave. (Credit: Jason Goodman / Unsplash)

Illness, burn-out, bereavement, parental leave, career change… there are many reasons to put one’s career on hold, sometimes beyond one’s control. But when it comes to returning to the job market, how do you explain this “gap” in your resumé to the recruiter? Don’t be ashamed, talking about it could even make recruiters more inclined to hire you.

“The good news is, sentiment around taking a career break is changing for the better: 46% of hiring managers believe candidates with career breaks are an untapped talent pool,” writes Camilla Han-He, who heads up Product at Linkedin, in an article available on the social network.

Recruiters see career breaks as a positive

From a practical point of view, a timeline without gaps avoids being “blacklisted” by the artificial intelligence programs that sort through resumes today. But if you look deeper into this phenomenon, recruiters, like workers, seem to be breaking away from this taboo.

Programs dedicated to getting a new career start

Several signs indicate change is in the air in this regard. On March 1, social network LinkedIn introduced a new feature to report and specify a “career break.”

From now on, users can add this mention in the same way as they might any other work experience at a company. By describing the reasons for this break (taking care of children, taking time to think about a career change, or simply taking care of themselves), users provide details for recruiters.

Many companies are looking at profiles who have taken a career break. Wells Fargo Bank recently made news by launching a program called Glide-Relaunch to revive the careers of workers with seven years or more of experience who had voluntarily stopped working for two years or more.