Accounting for Unemployment on Resume

apr911

Hi All,
I've been unemployed since January and while it might not warrant any questions (after all its not the largest gap in employment) I suspect when I start my job search up next week Im going to get asked about the gap in employment. How do you usually account for it?

For me, I've been and remained unemployed mostly by choice; I was afforded an opportunity that I deemed too good to pass up by my former employer that allowed me to take a much needed break from work (after working 60-80 hours a week for nearly a year, I was pretty well burnt). I could have jumped right back into the job market and perhaps been better off financially but decided to take the time to recharge and pursue several personal and professional goals so the last 3 months have been quite busy and anything but quiet.

I've taken a week and a half of vacation (5 days back East with family, 5 days in Hawaii), I've added my instrument rating to my pilot's license, completed my F5 certifications and my CCIE written. I also have plans to add another additional rating to my pilot's license assuming my finances, interview schedule and job placement allow for it. My thought was maybe to list it as on my resume as a "position" and list the personal/professional goals I completed (leaving out the vacation part).

Part 2 of my question, once Im employed again, would you leave the "position" on there to fill the gap permanently or would you drop it and just have a gap to be explained in the future? This all becomes a non-issue if I find a position immediately and start in March... I dont list exact dates of employment so the resume gap would only be for the month of February but since Im on the high end of salaries, I'm not quite that optimistic and expect a more realistic start to be April or May so my resume would have:

May 2016 - Present - New Position
September 2014 - January 2016 - Previous Position
Leaving the unemployment gap to be February, March & April depending on how you look at it (most of my other positions end and start in the same month so it could in theory be argued I have another 1-2 months to account for and in reality, I would have to account for January on an employment verification since I left January 4).

TheFORCE

You could include it as "project related work" and just be honest about it on the interviews but dont include detailed descriptions in the resume. After some time, you could remove it completely.

Danielm7

If it's only a month you could add a bit in a cover letter about taking some time for you CCIE and F5 certs. I'd probably leave out the pilot license stuff unless it's directly related to your job. You could bring it up when talking, something about how it gave you some freedom to do X and Y which you wanted to do, I wouldn't create it as a listing in your jobs/work experience though.

scaredoftests

Say you have been looking for a job during this time.,,(which you are..) You don't have that bad a gap..

636-555-3226

Personally if I was looking at your resume and know that now.... Had a good gig that set you up financially for a few months afterward and allowed you time to play catch up with life to make up for the 60-80 hour weeks you were working. Spent that time doing what you enjoy - took a vacation, brushed up on some certifications, and got to work on that additional pilot's license rating that had to take a backseat to the extra time you were spending at the previous spot. Now that you've enjoyed your time and refreshed mentally and spiritually, it's time to get back into the game. It's open, it's honest, and to me at least it sounds cool.

Priston

mmmm, giant wall of text

apr911 wrote: »

How do you usually account for it?

I don't, I just have a 3 month gap on my resume. Honesty > deception.
If anyone asks simply tell them, you were working 60-80 hours for nearly a year and took a break from working.

renacido

It's terrible that our messed-up culture worships "busy-ness" so much that you need an alibi for taking time off or you're looked at like a bum. Sad.

Danielm7

Priston wrote: »

mmmm, giant wall of text

I don't, I just have a 3 month gap on my resume. Honesty > deception.
If anyone asks simply tell them, you were working 60-80 hours for nearly a year and took a break from working.

And as a bonus you'll weed out the places that think that's terrible, because they want you to work 60-80 hour weeks too.

$bvb379

renacido wrote: »

It's terrible that our messed-up culture worships "busy-ness" so much that you need an alibi for taking time off or you're looked at like a bum. Sad.

I second this. I am also looking for a job and have not worked since August 1st, by choice. I am also extremely good with money even at a young age. God-forbid it took me awhile to know what career path I want to take and have the money saved up in order to not work for a few months. I have had only one potential employer question me about it. He still thought the gap as unreliable even though I had a thorough and acceptable explanation as why I have been unemployed.

scaredoftests

$bvb379 wrote: »

I second this. I am also looking for a job and have not worked since August 1st, by choice. I am also extremely good with money even at a young age. God-forbid it took me awhile to know what career path I want to take and have the money saved up in order to not work for a few months. I have had only one potential employer question me about it. He still thought the gap as unreliable even though I had a thorough and acceptable explanation as why I have been unemployed.

Some employers (people) just don't get it. It was the economy for me for awhile on interviews. Some interviewers understood, while others looked at me like I had two heads and robbed a liquor store..

UnixGuy

It's a small gap...and with your experience and certs you shouldn't have a problem...

however, I can see people asking you about it (it doesn't make sense to me)...you have many options..

you can say the truth (that you worked for 60-80 hours) and needed some time off, and you also wanted to pursue some very challenging certifications and hence you needed the time. All valid reasons. I personally wouldn't mention the pilot license because I like to keep my personal life separate but it doesn't really matter.

Again, with your certs and experience, someone like you shouldn't worry about it at all!

apr911

Priston wrote: »

mmmm, giant wall of text

I don't, I just have a 3 month gap on my resume. Honesty > deception.
If anyone asks simply tell them, you were working 60-80 hours for nearly a year and took a break from working.

Dont know what happened there... I had it formatted out to paragraphs and didnt notice when the topic posted it became a giant wall of text... Fixed it back up...

Anyway, I wasn't advocating being deceptive about it but Im interested in do you lead with the information and put that you were unemployed during that time to try to cut off the questions or do you wait for the questions.

Honesty definitely works and in my case I've kept myself busy and accomplished quite a bit in a short period all while having a blast doing it.
(Have a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE04WplScDY )

So there's a part of me that wants to show what I've accomplished but another part of me that says not to call attention to the unemployment gap either.

renacido wrote: »

It's terrible that our messed-up culture worships "busy-ness" so much that you need an alibi for taking time off or you're looked at like a bum. Sad.

I dont know that it's "busy-ness" that managers look for so much as "productive" or at least some sort of "growth." I've known people who have taken several months off between jobs to travel and its never been an issue. Not that "productive" or "growth" is much better than "busy"... I agree if I have the ability to take the time off and sit at home and do nothing but sleep, watch tv/movies and play video games all day that's no one's business but my own (sleeping, watching TV/Movies and playing video games can be viewed as productive from certain perspectives) and how I spend my personal time should not reflect on my career but that's sadly not the way most employers would look at it.

I guess they also want to know so they know if it's something that's likely to come up again... Like when a parent leaves the workforce to become a stay-at-home mom or dad... Again, not saying its right and technically employers arent allowed to ask about family or your plans to have kids (or more kids) but if you have an employment gap because you became a stay-at-home parent and then express the desire to have another kid; well... it'd be discriminating if that's the reason they decided not to hire you but Im sure there is probably some other reason/argument that they could make as to why they hired someone else... discrimination cases are notoriously difficult to prove and usually require a pattern to be held valid.

Danielm7 wrote: »

And as a bonus you'll weed out the places that think that's terrible, because they want you to work 60-80 hour weeks too.

Hopefully you're right. I dont have anyone to blame but myself really and after having done it, I am glad I learned the valuable lesson about work/life balance now while Im single but even being single, working that much had a severe impact on my personal life... Everything from my social life to my finances and simple things like normal household duties (cleaning, laundry, etc).

Its not something I want to do again. I dont mind if there's a really busy period that requires it but it cant be the "norm" and it cant be "crunch time" all the time...

$bvb379 wrote: »

I second this. I am also looking for a job and have not worked since August 1st, by choice. I am also extremely good with money even at a young age. God-forbid it took me awhile to know what career path I want to take and have the money saved up in order to not work for a few months. I have had only one potential employer question me about it. He still thought the gap as unreliable even though I had a thorough and acceptable explanation as why I have been unemployed.

That's probably the most interesting thing about having to "account" for unemployment... Between my tax refund, retirement and general savings, I put 25-35% of my paycheck aside last year... Granted, I've only been able to touch about 1/3 of that without having nasty tax consequences but between the savings and the position my employer put me in before I left the company, I've had enough to continue living for the last 3 months as if nothing happened... In fact, my spending has generally increased (flight training and certification exams aren't cheap) but I've managed just fine anyway.

Despite the fact I was responsible enough in my employment to save enough money to take 3-5 months off and responsible enough in my unemployment to spend more money than usual but still budget for the time off, employers look at an employment gap and go "he's unreliable." Perhaps the real comment should be "he's quite resourceful" either that or "he's overpaid" because Im sure somewhere someone is probably looking at some one like me putting 1/3 of their paycheck aside, paying 1/3 in taxes and living off the remainder (especially with my expensive hobbies) and going... well gee he clearly doesnt need to be making as much as he does.

UnixGuy wrote: »

I personally wouldn't mention the pilot license because I like to keep my personal life separate but it doesn't really matter.

Again, with your certs and experience, someone like you shouldn't worry about it at all!

Im not worried... I know I could pick something up starting tomorrow if I were desperate and willing to take the first available job, pay and location but Im not there yet... Heck even if I want to be a bit more picky on the pay it probably wouldn't take me much more than a week or 2 to find something comparable to my previous position.

Add on being picky with the location and employer and Im thinking it'll probably take me 6-8 weeks from when I start applying in earnest until I actually start at the new job. Im planning on starting the application process later this week which puts me employed sometime in May with any amount of luck and hopefully it'll be about the same time or slightly before the savings run out so I dont have to go too deep into debt or break open the investment piggy bank (though I also have a plan to cut certain expenses in the next 2 months to also help stretch the current war chest to June).


As for the Pilot license... I've never really had issue with a personal interests section on a resume as long as those interests demonstrate something and aren't things like "Avid follower of <favorite sports team>" or "Level 50 Paladin in World of Warcraft."

I've used personal interests sections in the past to fill space on my resume but stopped when my "recent" experience filled the space of my 2-page allotment. I couldnt justify maintaining the personal interests section in the place of relevant/recent experience but because I did a lot of summer contracting when I was younger, some of my experience is starting to get rather dated and when those positions get to the point where they're not really relevant and I either drop them entirely or shrink them from a paragraph to a sentence (probably around the time Im looking for my next job after this upcoming one) I may use it again to fill some space if needed... Of course my interests are rather varied as Im a licensed driver, motorcyclist, boater, pilot, scuba diver and sky diver so I dont have any trouble avoiding the "avid football fan" or "avid reader" topics in my personal interests.

It shows balance and it shows me to be a unique and varied individual and its inevitably something interesting to talk about; plus I am considering some positions with companies involved in aviation... Not as a pilot but it shows a passion for the field... So long story short, not concerned with including my personal achievement on my resume under the "recent accomplishments while unemployed" section (assuming I decide to make use of such a section).

For the record, I also list Eagle Scout on my resume under certifications. It's not really relevant to what I do, its going on 12 years dated and I havent been active with scouts since the year after I became an "adult" and aged out but its still an achievement (just like any of my other hobbies) and its something that comes up every now and again when I have someone on the interview panel who is an eagle scout, is involved in scouts as an adult leader or was involved as a youth.

bloodshotbetty

I think it is totally understandable if you say...I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time away from work and focus on my certifications. It shows commitment to personal and professional development and would look favorably upon you. My opinion is that if an employer doesn't value that you will probably end up working another 60-80 hours a week. I had a couple of employment gaps on my resume. I have yet to be asked about them. Stuff happens, y'know?