The Absolute Worst Resume Advice For Career Breakers

If you have a career break of any length, you may have come across this advice: hide the gap on your resume.

Urgh, I hate this advice.

You don’t have anything to hide.

Let me repeat - YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE!

Okay, that’s enough type yelling for now🤣

Now let’s get into why you should OWN your career break rather than try to sweep it under the rug.

Hiding your career break creates the wrong mindset

Think about how it feels when someone tells you to cover something up.

What comes to mind?

I don’t know about you but I feel as though I did something wrong and waves of shame and guilt sweep over me.

Let’s be clear, your career break is not something to be ashamed of.

Life does not follow a perfect path, and neither do careers. People step away from paid work to raise children, care for family members, manage health concerns, relocate, pursue education, or simply reevaluate what they want next.

When you begin your job search believing that your career break must be hidden, that mindset can follow you throughout the entire process.

You may find yourself apologizing for it during interviews, minimizing what you did during that time, or questioning whether you still have something valuable to offer.

Rather than treating your break like a problem you need to explain away, learn how to speak about it clearly and confidently.

Hiding your gap can confuse recruiters

Your resume should make your career story easy to understand.

Recruiters often review resumes very quickly and they need to be able to follow your experience without having to piece it together like a puzzle. If your format is unusual or your dates seem intentionally unclear, it can create more questions than answers.

This is one reason I rarely recommend a functional resume, which places a large skills section at the top and moves employment history toward the bottom. It is often suggested to career returners because it appears to draw attention away from employment dates.

The problem is that many recruiters are used to reading resumes in reverse chronological order, beginning with the most recent experience and working backwards.

When that familiar structure is missing, it can be confusing leaving them trying to figure out what’s going on rather than understanding why you’re qualified.

And trust me, you never want to confuse a recruiter!

You may be hiding valuable experience

When you try to erase your career break from your resume, you may also erase everything you accomplished during it.

Career breaks are not empty spaces.

You may have volunteered, completed courses, joined professional organizations, supported a family business, led school or community projects, or helped a friend with freelance work. You may have coordinated medical care, advocated for your child, managed complex schedules, or developed new technology skills.

Those experiences count.

I firmly believe that experience is experience and impact is impact, whether or not a paycheck was attached to it.

Instead of focusing only on the time you were away from paid employment, think about what you learned, how you grew, and what results you created.

Then identify which of those experiences are relevant to the positions you’re targeting.

What about employers who judge career breaks?

Whenever I talk about owning your career break, I hear some version of this concern: “That sounds good in theory, but employers will still judge me.”

Unfortunately, some will.

There are still hiring managers who hold outdated views about career breaks, and there are candidates who have been told directly that their time away affected a hiring decision.

That experience is frustrating, and I don’t want to dismiss it. At the same time, it’s worth asking what that response tells you about the organization.

If an employer views a career break as a flaw, how will they respond when life happens after you’re hired? Will they support employees through caregiving responsibilities, health challenges, or other major transitions?

Sometimes rejection is also information.

We’re also seeing progress. More employers are creating returnship programs specifically for professionals who have spent time away from the workforce. These programs, which are often structured like paid internships, show that many organizations recognize the value career returners bring.

There is still work to do, but the answer is not to make career breaks invisible. The answer is to continue normalizing them.

Your career break is part of your story

Your career break does not cancel out the experience you had before it, and it does not erase the growth that happened during it.

You deserve to find an employer who values the full picture: your paid experience, your unpaid experience, your skills, your perspective, and the person you’ve become.

Own your career break. Present it clearly. Focus on the value you bring now.

You have nothing to hide.

And if you're wondering how to best position your unique, amazing and talented self in your job search book your free discovery call to set yourself up for success as you return back to the paid workforce!