[lovelearning]

A "gap" seems to be almost like a crime no tech worker should dare do. I have seen otherwise rational coworkers reject resumes only for having a "gap". Most want to relax, but the same people also punish those who do just that. I thought it was a quirk of the society I live in, but from comments here, it looks like it's the norm in all countries.

[09bjb]

This is the kind of mindset that discourages people from taking healthy risks. There are any number of legitimate ways to explain a gap, such as, "No, I was not actually playing video games and surfing reddit the entire time! I actually wanted to invest more time in ____. Can I share with you what I learned?"

Disclaimer: my CV has often been a horrendous mess of 3-6 month "gaps" (during which time I learned many of my most valuable life lessons) and it never cost me more than a month of training myself up, networking, and interviewing.

Another disclaimer: I've always been of the habit of saving my money so that long gaps feel stress-free and I don't have to take the first job I'm offered.

[CydeWeys]

You can easily eliminate every gap up to 12 months and some gaps up to 23 months simply by omitting months on your resume. Quit job A in January and joined job B in December of the next year? 2011-2013 at Job A, 2014-Present at Job B! Solved!

[r00fus]

Exactly. If pressured on interview to detail months then have a good fractal story. People love stories. First mention is one sentence; if listener is interested then you go into more detail.

[coaxial]

I don't think I get your point, could you elaborate on what you mean?

[CydeWeys]

First sentence: "I took some time off to travel."

If they ask for details, then list all the places you went, and then if they're curious about any individual one give them more details about what you did there. If they don't ask for any details about travel, then they don't care, and you're not wasting time with irrelevant information by going into detail on travel from the beginning.

[tartoran]

It's a risk. If a hiring company searches in your butthole for gaps in employment you're likely better off not working there anyway. There are plenty of other companies who won't do that...

[tomp]

Alternatively, just write that you were a consultant / freelancer, and actually work as one for like a month of a year (even for free for a non-profit if necessary).

[paulgrant999]

doesn't work when your company looks at your salary/paychecks.

yes, they've been collecting this since the 70's/80's.

[kadendogthing]

>"No, I was not actually playing video games and surfing reddit the entire time! I actually wanted to invest more time in ____. Can I share with you what I learned?"

I consider this a self-reflective question on the interviewer's part. If your interview can't sniff out the gap in their experience, then there are two possibilities.

A) The most likely one: your interview sucks and you're not as good as you think you are

B) The gap doesn't matter.

[projektir]

I can't say I've found this to be that strong of a thing. Even big companies don't seem to mind my gap.

I'm frankly confused as to why a resume gap would be relevant to anyone. If anything, my resume gap cleared up my head and I've dabbled in some things I don't usually touch so it made me a better employee, if we want to use that language.

This just seems like a cultural holdover and one we could eliminate with more people taking breaks.

[tmpAccount9001]

It varies.

I took six months off after being fired(!) (four months truly off, ~6 weeks prepping, looking for new role and interviewing). During my time off, I traveled, got healthy after years of neglect, created a couple of mildly interesting side projects, read oodles, and generally was just a man about town.

I told recruiters in month one that I was taking some time off but that I'd love to speak to them around month four. When the time came, I still had very good choices and landed a fairly coveted position.

I did have one particular worry that I guess aligns with what you're saying. I felt that if the three or four good companies I'd hit snooze on in month one all fell through and I had the explain the six month gap after the fact rather than prior to, the onus would have been on me to prove that I hadn't just been applying everywhere for six months with no takers.

[burlesona]

I haven’t found this to be true. All I’ve seen is that people ask “what were you up to” and if you say “I wanted to take a sabattical and now I’m fully recharged and really excited to get back to work,” people’s reaction is “wow that’s awesome!” And it’s not a knock against you.

[the_clarence]

Not sure I understand what's wrong with a gap. At worst it's a red flag if a company refuses to hire you for that, and you dodge a bullet.

What I see a lot around me are people quitting their job to join the new one on the following week. I never understood that either. Besides retirement it's probably the only time in their life where they can take long holidays.

[jhu247]

In my own experience in SV, companies just want good engineers. If you have good experience and good projects recruiters will still find you, despite having a gap.

[bitexploder]

We give our employees time to take sabbaticals. One person took 6 weeks and hiked the El Camino trail in Spain. We actually have to encourage people to take time off :)

[lovelearning]

We found a unicorn!

Jokes aside, that's a really admirable - and in my experience, rare - thing you're doing. Your employees are really lucky.

[bitexploder]

Thanks. Our business is well set up for it and it makes sense. I think more businesses can do it than they think. We all need hard reset now and again. It doesn’t take six weeks. Probably more like 2, but it is super important.

[elindbe2]

6 weeks is a long vacation, not a sabbatical. Those would be 6 months plus. I say this not to be pedantic but because I worry about the concept of a sabbatical being watered down before it becomes more commonplace.

[humbleMouse]

6 weeks isnt a sabbatical. Thats a normal vacation in europe.

[bitexploder]

Interesting. I guess most Americans would call a sabbatical longer than that too, but it is a decent, hard disconnect from work well beyond a typical vacation. I don’t think I have taken that long off in 20 years.

[sticazzi]

Sabbatical is 1 year or more. 6 weeks is a vacation. You should also look up an article about bragging that was on HN few days ago.

[bitexploder]

Good article on bragging. I do it some of the time and without any shame. Part of being a business owner is promoting it with honesty. It blurs the line with bragging IMO. I do try to avoid it on HN, but pride, etc. I almost never share IRL, most people will not understand the context or effort or sacrifices required, and, a lot of it is luck too, so bragging obviously is self servicing to some extent. Thanks for pointing it out though, genuinely, it is good to think about. I think this fell under item (6) of the article.

[barrkel]

6 weeks isn't a normal vacation. 20 to 30 days vacation allowance (excluding public holidays) is the norm in the private sector and while in theory you could use 30 days to take 6 weeks off, you'd have nothing for the rest of the year. 2 weeks is a normal big vacation, over summer, often in August.

Overlap it with public holidays, and you can get 17 or 18 days off in a row for 10 vacation days - 10 weekdays, three weekends and a public holiday or two. But it's usually better to plan a public holiday somewhere in the middle because of the extra traffic.

As terminology though it's not a sabbatical either. 6 weeks off sounds more like a gap between jobs with gardening leave or travel or some other project that wouldn't fit in a work vacation.

[thelasthuman]

Normal in the sense that they get vacation time last, unlike in the USA (outside of the middle class+ bubble).

[ninjakeyboard]

I view 1-1.5 year jumping as more of a risk. At the level of maturity that I'm at it's actually more of a mental health concern than it is anything else. I encourage people to move fast but I also know from my own patterns that the fast moves are a sign of depression.

This guy has a biography online about what he did so screw that. Just post a link to this article if you re-enter the work force. But you'll have something to put there anyway.

[omg_ketchup]

You were pursuing a passion project. You were getting to a point in your life where it might not be feasible to pursue it, and you'd regret it if you didn't, so you know what? You went for it. Anybody who doesn't respect that, you probably don't want to work for anyway.

[ian0]

Just fill the gap with something relatively interesting and your ok. You will of course need to keep your skills in practice though.