Ask HN: Why are resume gaps frowned upon?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39013983

by codingclaws • 3 years ago

32 69 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

dtagames• 3 years ago

Like a gap in your car insurance, it implies that you were unable or unwilling to find employment, which makes the employer wonder, why not?

k8svet2• 3 years ago

"Because I didn't need to". Holy shit, I can't take how out of touch people are with tech comp, living within your means, and not living to work. I need to just stop reading this thread.

I took five years off, was statistically underpaid (read: I had peers that made a jump, making double my base salary) when I was previously employed, and every retirement calculator I can find says I still will have more money than I'll need to retire at 45 or 50.

zero-sharp2• 3 years ago

Pessimistic take: people don't want to deal with deviation and "complexity." A resume gap makes people ask questions, which is way too much effort.

futureshock3• 3 years ago

Previous recruiter here.

It’s an imperfect signal, but when you have 200 resumes on your desk, it’s a good low pass filter.

You want candidates who need to work, want to work and are capable of working. A gap could indicate any number of less desirable situations.

-Chronic health issues

-Mental health issues

-Imprisoned

-Homeless

-Not financially hungry enough

-Poor job seeking skills leading to extended unemployment

-Anti-work in some way, alternative lifestyle

-Unusually large family care responsibilities

Should you have a gap, the best way to close it is to describe career-related activities you did during your gap or other personal development. Continuing education, side projects, personal projects, interesting detours like overseas charity work.

It’s not fair at all, but you need to know how to project a “Worksona” and not being able to market your real messy life as a shiny seamless ideal worker is also a signal you’ll be less professional.

And YOU may be a perfect excellent candidate with a gap, but I promise you that among that pile of 200 resumes are a lot of barely functional people with major struggles you do not want to let into your company.

admissionsguy• 3 years ago

That's what unvarnished truth sounds like.

hotpotamus3• 3 years ago

And for some reason it's a mystery why people are having few or no kids these days.

iosguyryan• 3 years ago

I had a baby, but in reviewing its resume realized it had a 9 month gap of doing nothing. I asked that recruiter what policy was, realized my mistake for bringing him onto the team, and fired jr the next day. Strangely morale plummeted.

latexr• 3 years ago

Why is it important that someone was never homeless?

Or why does it matter that they’re “not financially hungry enough”? Or that they have poor job seeking skills?

If anything, wouldn’t those last two mean the candidate would be unlikely to ask for raises or leave your company for another offer when you least expect it? The latter in particular has seemingly zero impact on someone’s dedication or skills (same with homelessness). Why would you prefer someone that’s good at finding work? That’s like looking to date someone who is good at starting new relationships, wouldn’t you rather someone who is good at maintaining them?

hotpotamus3• 3 years ago

I worked at a company that at one point was actually open minded and cared more about the work than a lot of trivialities (till it grew up, got acquired by private equity, and became an empire of bullshit), and there was an employee who was famously homeless until she worked there. She was intelligent and incredibly dedicated and really well liked throughout, but I was also told she needed to be told to shower regularly (no idea whether that's true; she never seemed too unkempt to me). She could certainly also be called a bit weird.

I suppose people just don't like misfits (speaking as one who could also be described in such a way for a few reasons) and don't want to be made uncomfortable by their presence.

dougmwne11• 3 years ago

It’s just a possible signal. When you have 30 equally qualified candidates, you will take any signal you can get.

Homelessness could indicate drug addiction, mental health issues, poor history of financial decisions, lack of social support network (below average social skills). In a 200 resume pile, SOME of those people will have bad personal lives that could negatively affect their work performance, maybe not always, but perhaps episodically.

And there’s a Goldilocks zone of financial need. If you are too rich, then we might as well be paying you Monopoly money. Those people can act in unexpected ways since they live in a different incentive world than their team members. If someone is in dire financial straits, they might suddenly have their car repossessed or begin stealing from you. It’s standard to do a credit check for certain financial roles to make sure the candidate isn’t a theft risk.

toldyouso2022• 3 years ago

Managerial class needs to strip away any responsibility so they are perfectionist. If we sill lived in an entrepreneurial society this whole thing would not be a big issue

chrsw2• 3 years ago

I've never been a hiring manager but I've interviewed maybe a couple dozen engineers over the years, of all experience levels. I've never once considered an employment gap in and of itself a deal breaker. Sometimes I've never even asked about it. And the times it did come up, there was never a concerning explanation.

But many people are not like me and they think any stumble in the rat race is an insurmountable red flag.

SpicyLemonZest• 3 years ago

Were you interviewing applicants directly, or was there an upstream selection process before their names landed on your desk? It makes sense that everyone you see with a resume gap has a good reason behind it if recruiters were filtering out the people who don't.

dougmwne11• 3 years ago

Did you filter through the giant pile of raw resumes? If they were pre-filtered then you already were talking to qualified candidates and a determination was made that the gap was not indicative of bigger issues with that candidate.

dagw• 3 years ago

If you are interviewing less than a dozen candidates a year then that probably means someone else in the organisation has already gone through a big pile of CVs to narrow it down to the 10-15 best candidates for you to interview. Having, briefly, sat at the start of that pipeline and seen 150+ reasonably relevant looking CVs (someone had already thrown out the very worst ones) roll in in a week for a fairly entry level programming position and having only a few hours spend to go from 150 to 10-15 candidates, you start making up some pretty arbitrary rules for throwing out CVs.

k8svet2• 3 years ago

Not hiring tech workers because they're not financially desperate enough sure would explain why "tech hiring is hard". Jesus Christ. Thanks for the reminder that I should have no loyalty to an employer whatsoever and treat them as an adversary.

dougmwne11• 3 years ago

You should not be loyal to an employer unless they are extremely special (and probably privately controlled).

And yes, the right amount of financial dependence keeps the average employee in the seat and taking the work seriously.

whateveracct4• 3 years ago

Good to know the industry does its best to discriminate against the disadvantaged while maintaining plausible deniability :)

dougmwne11• 3 years ago

Yup, and age discrimination is rampant as well. I’d say 50 is where it starts being a serious drag on an IC candidate. People use terms like “fit” and “team dynamics.”

Zpalmtree• 3 years ago

you should hire people who are worse candidates because.... they're disadvantaged!

thejazzman• 3 years ago

Wow... do you mind sharing which company(ies) this is commonplace?

dougmwne11• 3 years ago

Almost all of them and in every industry. It is as standard in HR as having a PTO policy.

living_room_pc3• 3 years ago

I have a gap on my resume, I went thru-hiking, sure that is a good enough and maybe positive explanation, but if brought up on an interview I'm going to pass on any offer unless I'm desperate.

I don't want to work for someone that judgemental. I enjoy my work, and making good things, but also work is work. If an employer is going to judge me beyond just the skills I bring to the table, that is a major red flag.

maybe I am not the ideal candidate then, but if you are looking for someone perfect on paper, your going to get someone who _was_ perfect on paper

dougmwne11• 3 years ago

It’s most likely to be brought up by a recruiter during a 10 minute phone screen, and since a tru-hike takes maybe 6 months max, I wouldn’t expect you to get asked. If you went hiking for over a year, I think the recruiter might ask, but that it doesn’t really reflect on the company’s values, it’s just a standard kind of question any recruiter might ask if they get a sense there could be a problem there.

If the hiring manager asked about a short gap, that would be a bit wtf to me.

sp332• 3 years ago

Maybe you were working somewhere, but you you don't want to talk about it. A competitor, something under the table, somewhere you were fired from and don't want anyone to follow up...

joshuamcginnis2• 3 years ago

To think we punish our fellow man for pursuing all life has to offer, especially over a career spanning decades is a travesty. If I'm hiring, I don't favor someone who's never once broke away from the matrix of 9-5 employment year after year to explore something new or meaningful or to rest.

This hyper-optimization people have to go through now to beat the resume screening algorithms is dehumanizing as it leaves no opportunity for people to explain their individual life choices. I understand why it is the way it is, but I don't like it and it's not getting any better.

avmich• 3 years ago

This is a negative sum game - to stand out, I embellish my resume, so now you have to do the same and we're back on square 1 but the efforts are spent.

Do we want to turn job seeking into a contest of resume designers? Do we have a feedback from the employers who are supposedly interested in best employees, not the best to pass interviews?

aynyc• 3 years ago

Because hiring practice is outdated. Previously, it largely discriminate against women who decided to have babies. Now, it's going against everyone who decided to take a break.

mcv2• 3 years ago

The easy way to fix that gap: start your own business. It doesn't have to be successful, but it fills the gap.

joshuamcginnis2• 3 years ago

This used to be the case. So many people have gaps attributed to "consulting" that the feedback from recruiters is now something like, "well since you've been independent so long, how do we know you can work well with others?" eyeroll

grepfru_it• 3 years ago

When I lost my job, I took some time for myself then immediately put up a landing page for a new idea. Then iterated on said landing page until it was a full marketing website for the idea. Everything else can be hidden behind a robots.txt or require signup for demo etc. having a marketing page that evolved over time allows recruiters to pop the website into archive.org and see your company evolving. Just saying you had a business is no longer sufficient.

I like to also make merch and take video interviews while wearing say a branded shirt to show I was serious (I was not, it cost $20). I’m also not afraid to offer a screen share and walk through infrastructure diagrams or other intriguing IP to show something I have been working on instead of publishing everything to GitHub (unless it’s an OSS project)

Mind you this has backfired on me. I took an interview with a series A startup and the ceo flat out rejected me upon hearing my startup. He wished me best luck but stated he needed someone who was 100% invested in his startup and not someone thinking about their side hustle. Couldn’t fault him on that and instead flipped the interview into a Q&A with a billionaire. YMMV

cableshaft2• 3 years ago

I've just worked on personal projects, not always even releasing them (because they tend not to be small projects), and put it as freelance development work in my resume for any gaps (it's true, I did work on those things). I don't think I've been asked about that once. Never been an issue as far as I know (maybe it pre-screened me out from a few places).

Your idea is interesting but might be more elaborate than you even need.

mcv2• 3 years ago

That's putting a lot of effort into faking it.

I did start my own company, originally to honestly make my own mobile games. A spent a year experimenting with all sorts of stuff, and then just started freelancing for others, and was a lot more successful at that. I probably still have some half-finished attempts at mobile games somewhere.

XCSme3• 2 years ago

This is my experience now too.

Whenever I try going back in the job market, I somehow seem to be "over-qualified". They don't want someone who can do anything needed or who is able to manage on their own, they want someone who does one thing and well. They want someone that is most likely to "need" the job forever, without posing any danger to the leadership positions.

XCSme3• 2 years ago

I did this, my own LLC since 2017, but now the concern is different: "we need someone with 100% dedication the job", "how much time will you spend on your business", "you haven't worked in a team for years", "you don't need the money", etc...

legitster3• 3 years ago

A resume gap is either:

A: a job that ended so ignobly that you don't even want to acknowledge it existed

B: you spent a long time out of the game and weren't getting experience etc during that time

C: something prevented you from working/being a good candidate

A gap is not the death knell it used to be, especially one in the past. That said, it's still nice to offer a vague reason - homemaking or health problems or something. So long as it's clear you didn't spend 3 years selling drugs and playing video games an employer probably won't care.

DimitriPetrova• 3 years ago

Even a gap of a few months?

legitster3• 3 years ago

I wouldn't consider just a few months to be a "resume gap". The rule of thumb is at least 6 months.

whateveracct4• 3 years ago

spend 3 years selling drugs and playing video games

I get your point, but it's hilarious to see these two on equal footing as "things employers would reject you for"

supertrope• 3 years ago

Employers need worker bees to keep delivering widgets or widget service. Any deviation from the happy path is highly suspicious.

If you sell habit forming drugs that improve corporate earnings (caffeine, methylphenidate) it’s not called selling drugs anymore. It’s labeled pharmaceuticals or consumer staples / discretionary.

If you’re generating free cash flow making games then suits perk up. The presence of money can nullify a lot of stigma or counterculture friction.

C.R.E.A.M.

screye• 3 years ago

(Only mildly tongue in cheek)

Because anyone who is incapable of creating plausible lie about their employment is too naive to survive in corporate America.

The best people take career breaks as a flex. They don't need recruiters, they have the executive suites personal number.

The competent know how to mock employment without being employed. Board member, consultant, contractor, infinite unpaid-leave.....there are many such instruments.

The desperate are too desperate to take a break. That leaves the incompetent, the red flags and those of us with truth-itis.

To answer your question: Yes, Truth-itis is worst affliction a mere mortal can have. It doesn't matter that you aren't lying. Because you are anonymous (not famous), your word, along with all others will be put into the 'liar until proven otherwise' category. Get wise to it.

This really isn't talked about enough. Many of us are more principled than our capabilities will allow. Leads to horrible disillusionment later.

iancmceachern• 3 years ago

Run a side business doing consulting, then fill in any gaps with that.

FinnLobsien• 3 years ago

I think it might be because recruiters will think you've been getting used to doing just your hobbies for the time that you had a gap that it'll take you a while to "get back into the game" of the daily work grind.

cableshaft2• 3 years ago

So what?

A coworker just came back from 10 weeks of paternity leave today. He mentioned it felt like he had to 'remember how to code again'.

By that logic, the company should fire him because it's going to take him a while to 'get back into the game' of the daily work grind, right?

But it's not going to be that bad, and we don't have anything so pressing he couldn't take even a few weeks to "get back in the groove" for all that matters for our department. We somehow managed fine without him for 10 weeks, he can take his time to get back into the swing of things.

And even if we did have pressing things, that's more on the company and not him. Probably means they should be hiring more than just that one person, and should have hired earlier so they have the chance to get used to things (there's always a ramp up of learning for every job anyway, for pretty much everyone).

Not accusing you of thinking that way, btw, you did say specifically that recruiters might think that, just challenging the thought process of those recruiters.

lulznews• 3 years ago

Don’t assume recruiters are rational or have agency. Actually if you start thinking of them as low reliability automatons you’ll start to understand.

tayo42• 3 years ago

With a few exceptions I think this is an outdated idea. Time off is pretty common.

I had a year off between jobs. Most people didn't bring up the gap or care that I talked to.

Only one person did bring it up, it was a underpaying job and clearly not a fit.

Most people couldn't even read my resume close enough to know I hadn't worked for months.

Ive been meaning to wrote about my time off, maybe I should get to it.

evanjrowley• 3 years ago

Because when you work at a company, you are a human resource, and when that resource's growth cannot be measured in a standard quantifiable way, it is considered a risk.

marssaxman• 3 years ago

Are they? I have taken two full-year sabbaticals over the course of my thirty-year career, and this has yet to pose a problem when looking for a new job.

People rarely ask; when they do, I have some good stories to share, and I think the experiences make me more, not less, interesting.

dougmwne11• 3 years ago

It’s not holding you back because you are jumping over the low bar. A year is not a particularly long gap and might even go unnoticed. But f someone noticed and asked, sounds like you had a great answer. That’s all you need.

Having no good explanation for a 5 year gap will probably get you filtered out.

hiAndrewQuinn• 3 years ago

I have no strong claims, just a related link: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/04/co...

[E]mployers would rather call back someone with no relevant experience who’s only been out of work for a few months than someone with lots of relevant experience who’s been out of work for longer than six months.

It didn't seem to be a big deal for me when I started looking for work in a new country after being out of the job market for 14 months due to passport issues. But that could be that I was keenly aware of just how bad that looked, and took steps to ameliorate it.

Ask HN: Why are resume gaps frowned upon?

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