Can you explain this gap in your
employment history? What have you been
doing for the "X" months since you were
last employed?
Discussion:
A gap in your employment history can be alarming to a
Hiring Manager. If you have a gap in your work history, you might try
to face it head on by bringing it to the interviewer's attention and
making positive statements about it to ease potential concerns. Unless
you must, try not to indicate personal reasons for the gap. Try to show
that you made a conscious choice to take a break from regular
employment so that you could accomplish a goal related to the
position at hand. Show that in the time you were not employed you
were doing a positive and entrepreneurial activity, and that you kept
up with trends and developments in your chosen field.
Discuss any volunteer work, extracurricular activities, classes or training
you might have completed, long range projects that you may have supervised
(such a major remodeling or move of the family) and any professional
associations that you have kept up with, or regular meetings you
attended. Show that during the gap you sharpened skills that are
relevant to the position at hand. Show that you have even learned new
skills that will fill the Hiring Manager's needs.
"I made a choice to support myself for a while by pursuing a personal
goal of building my own eBay business related to one of my hobbies. I
have learned a ton from that about sales, organization, project
management, customer service, and logistics. While I was doing that I
also kept up with trends in my field by reading regularly, and I also
attended several classes related to my career goals. I was so satisfied
with my results that I felt I could go back to regular employment and
just manage my eBay business in my spare time. It's now a great
additional source of income that I use to move toward my own well-
developed personal financial goals."