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March 28, 2024, 04:13:31 PM

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Explaining Gaps and other irregularities in CV

Started by gotmilk, May 15, 2021, 01:30:22 AM

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Emma Raducanu

Just respond to every question with "I don't play by the rules man". It's bound to impress them.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Burst into tears during the interview if they bring up any gaps in employment. They'll quickly move on.

flotemysost

Quote from: icehaven on May 15, 2021, 09:19:05 AM
You couldn't have picked a better 15 months of unemployment to hide, there's loads of Covid excuses you can use. You got laid off because of the pandemic and haven't had any luck applying for other jobs, you were furloughed by somewhere that has since shut down, you had long Covid or you were caring for someone that did, you were volunteering, there's plenty.

Seconded. Employers will be aware it's a shit time and it's unlikely you're the first applicant in this boat they've come across.

I think attitude-wise, it's good to try and believe (correctly) that this is in no way any reflection of your value or ability. I had a sort-of-similar situation years ago, when applying for my first job with my current company, where the last three roles on my CV I'd either quit or been turfed out before my probation was over (admittedly with the one I quit, that's because it was a horrible, predatory environment which was making me miserable - but again, probably not something I'd have felt comfortable going over in an interview). Likewise I was living with my family at the time, with a Humanities degree and stints of experience in media jobs which were starting to feel less and less relevant as time went on.

When the dreaded question came up in the interview about why my most recent role had ended, I gabbled something about changes in the company structure leading to redundancies (this wasn't too long off the back of a recession, so I guess you could say that was sort of my equivalent to COVID in your situation). Utter bollocks, and my soon-to-be manager probably realised it at the time, but I was confident and assured for the rest of the interview and thankfully that was enough.

Also, I'm sure you know this already but if you're getting a reference from HR at a previous employer then all they need to say is verifying that you definitely did work there for the dates you've claimed to, they can't say anything bad (unless you specifically need to give a character reference, but I don't think this necessarily needs to come from an employer - not saying that it would be negative anyway in that case, of course!). Best of luck to you.

An tSaoi


imitationleather

You took time out to get pissed up all day.

Chollis

if they question you just start pointing and going "you werenae there, you werenae fuckin' there!"

gotmilk

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for all your advice. I got a couple of part time temp jobs shortly after posting this, but it was only recently that I started applying for full time jobs and summoning the energy to really try and sort my life out. I managed to get three job interviews, and none of them even mentioned the gap in my CV. It's weird how much I built it up in my head, and you were right to suggest not worrying so much. Anyway, last week I got a job which is more interesting and better paid than my last "proper" job, so things are looking up.



Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Did you try that? That's next level technique, that.

Stigdu

Given it was lockdown and Covid everywhere, I'd say now is the perfect time to have gaps in your CV. Good luck, BTW.

EDIT: Just saw your update. Well done!