Let’s talk about career gaps without stirring up the usual associated anxiety. Your career opportunities don’t dry up just because you took time off from work. In fact, some important personal or professional growth may have taken root during those periods. If you plan to travel, study, volunteer, or take care of family, you may find you return to the office reinvigorated and with a newfound appreciation for work in the traditional sense.

The good news: according to a recent LinkedIn poll, the perception of employment gaps may be shifting.

While 72% of job seekers believe there’s still a stigma associated with having a career gap, 79% of hiring managers surveyed say they would hire a candidate with a gap.

But recruiters are still likely to wonder what you were up to during that time if it’s not explained in your resume or LinkedIn, and if they’re doing their job right, they’ll ask you about it. So you should definitely have a good story other than the fact that you immersed yourself in Scottish culture by binge-watching Outlanders.

My clients often ask great questions about how to address these gaps. Here are a few thoughts.

Is it OK to Treat Volunteer Work as Experience?

If you volunteered, you can include that role in the Experience section if you honed skills you’ll use in your target position. But if it’s not relevant to your target role, keep it in the Volunteer section of the resume. If you do list it under the Experience section, label this section “Experience” rather than “Professional Experience” to avoid confusion.

One of my favorite success stories is about a client (we’ll call her Marie) who worked in hospitality and then took a years-long break to raise her family. While her children were in school, she got involved in the PTA and focused on what she did best—fundraising events. Over the years, she orchestrated the leading annual money-making event, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for her school.

When she was ready to work her way back into hospitality, she took a transitional job at a winery running their events, and within a year, landed a role at a major hotel chain—quickly rising to Director.

In Marie’s case, she was successful because she planned ahead. Although her position on the PTA board was voluntary, we decided the scope and her results during that period were relevant enough to her career aspirations to include in the main Experience section.

Although Marie had to take a formal career break for her family, she stayed active by doing what she was good at. She brought these event management skills to her school and continued to build her skills through volunteer work until she was ready to re-enter the professional world.

If you’ve also had a volunteer experience that aligns with your career, I recommend following Marie’s tactics. You can note that the role was in a volunteer capacity, but list an actual title—in Marie’s case, it was Events Manager—so you give yourself full credit for the work you’ve done.

If I’ve Been Doing Project Work for Several Companies. Can I List My Current Role as a Consultant?

Yes! If you lost your job but you’ve been offering your professional skills, you should absolutely include consulting work in your resume and LinkedIn profile. For one thing, it shows initiative. But you’ll need to highlight specific engagements (with or without the client name, depending on what you’re allowed to disclose) and stories that include hard data wherever possible, to back up your claim.

I realize it may be difficult to get those numbers if you were working as a consultant, for a couple of reasons:

1. If you were working on a short-term project, the results may not have been apparent by the time you left.
2. You may not have direct access to the same information as you would as a full-time employee.

Not to worry! If you don’t have hard results, there are other ways to convey your success. If you were in charge of a major initiative, talk about the different groups you pulled together for the project.

Were the teams from diverse geographies? Were you the designated leader? If so, how many people informally reported to you, and what were their titles? Did you come in under a tight budget and well before an ambitious deadline? Did you do a deep-dive analysis of consumer insights that helped the organization reach the right audience? If you helped convince the client company to make a major technology change, talk about your influence on the decision and how it increased efficiencies, if you have that information.

If, as a consultant, you do have access to hard numbers, you should definitely mask them to avoid exposing your client company. You can do this by using percentages. For example, say “increased revenue by 20%.” or “expanded market share by 30%.”

You could also use a graph that depicts increases without showing actual numbers.

If you frame your success in a way that positions your achievement compared to the competition, that works, too. Expanding on the earlier example, you could say something like:

“Increased revenue by 20% in an industry that was declining by 10%.”

By the way, even if you’re a full-time employee, discretion still applies, especially if you work for a private company. When in doubt, the best approach is to ask what’s appropriate to share.

If You’re a Consultant, Create a LinkedIn Company Page with a Logo

In addition to results and scope of your role, you should have other proof points—like a company name and logo—to back up your claim of being a consultant.

Here’s what I mean:

You’ll recall how, when you type the name of a company in the Experience section of your profile, multiple logos and company name choices pop up.

That list of logos and company names is generated because the companies have their own LinkedIn pages. For example, if you type “Mic…” Microsoft is one of the companies that pops up because Microsoft has a company page. If your company doesn’t have a LinkedIn page, no company logo will be shown, and you’ll just see that bland, grey space holder. There are some cases where you have no control over that, because the company you worked for was so small or is no longer in existence.

However, if you were self-employed, you do have control over whether there’s a company page. And this is why, when you list yourself as a consultant, you should make sure you have a company name and LinkedIn page. The name (which you should also use on your resume) doesn’t need to be anything fancy. It could be as simple as Jane Doe Marketing Solutions. As for LinkedIn, you’ll add credibility to your consulting work if you have a company logo associated with it.

Follow these steps:

1. First, create a company page.
2. Once you create the page, LinkedIn will ask you to provide a logo. To create a logo, I suggest using Canva’s free account. Don’t worry—it’s very simple to use, even if you’re a design newbie like I am. 😁

Your page will just look cleaner and more professional if you have a logo for every company you’ve worked for.

A caveat before you update your role as a consultant: go to your LinkedIn settings and switch the privacy controls to “No” for activity broadcasts. If you don’t do this, be prepared for an onslaught of “Congratulations!” from your network about your “new” job, because every job you edit shows up in your feed as a new role.

I Graduated from College Years Ago. Where Should I Put Relevant Coursework and Training That I Took During My Break?

If you were in the workforce for a while, but recently took a gap year or two to earn important credentials, insert these near the top of your resume, so the reader can see what you’ve been doing without scrolling around for answers. Include a comment about the training (don’t forget to use keywords related to that training) in your LinkedIn About section, in addition to the designated Education and Certification sections on your page.

If you’re in a situation now where you’re out of work, look for opportunities to up-skill. If you’re on a budget, you can find reasonably priced (or free!) programs and classes at Udemy, LinkedIn, and Coursera.

Even if you haven’t completed the coursework for the degree or certification by the time you send your resume, list it as “in progress.” Again, course names will help drive SEO, so be sure to list them.

Bonus: Your reader will see that you prioritize learning and growth.

How Should I Handle a Break for Travel or Family Obligations?

If you took a travel or family care sabbatical and you’ve worked more than three years since you took that break, insert a line in the Experience section, but keep the information brief.

If the gap was more recent, and you haven’t worked since 2019 or 2020, list the sabbatical above your Experience section on your resume, and include a sentence about it in your LinkedIn About section. But again—keep it brief.

The idea is to quickly answer any potential questions the reader may have about a gap. You can elaborate if you’re asked during an interview. In the meantime, while you’re looking for full-time work, explore opportunities for volunteering or consulting under your own company banner.

Just remember: In either case, keep a bank of stories about what you learned, in case you’re asked for more details.

Own It, Address Concerns, and Move On

Don’t shy away from your career gap, and definitely don’t try to hide it. This doesn’t mean you have to explain every gap, layoff, or company meltdown on your resume. But there are positive ways to talk about them.

Be matter-of-fact about why you took the career break, and quickly move on to why you’re the best person for the job. A brief, but clear, response could sound something like:

“Yes, covid took it’s toll on my company, and now I can’t wait to get back to work. In fact, the reason I’m so interested in this particular position is because of the experience I had at X, where we faced similar challenges. One of the most difficult situations was X, and this is what my team did to did to overcome it…’”

It’s about the stories you tell about your experiences, and how they relate to the target role, that will set you up for success.

Will We See a Cultural Shift?

Fortunately, we now live in a world that seems to be coming around to the idea that you may have lost your job due to no fault of your own, and that it’s OK—and sometimes even recommended—to take time to rejuvenate. We’re seeing a cultural shift that’s sparking a change in the way employers think about gaps, since the events of 2020 had a universal impact on the workforce—a global phenomenon not seen since WWII.

Time will tell if companies are truly willing to set aside their biases against career gaps. If they do, that’s good news for candidates and employers, who will have a bigger pool of talent to pull from.