This can happen for a number of different reasons such as raising a family, taking care of a family member who is ill, not being able to find the “ideal” job, recovering from an illness, travelling, or simply taking a break after graduating from college.

If there are gaps in your work history, for whatever reason, there are essentially two ways you can deal with them.

Firstly, you can draw the reader’s attention to them by presenting your reasons in the most positive way you can. For example, Career Break – state this and show the relevant positive experiences that you gained during your time off.

Alternatively, you can change the format of your CV from the more traditional chronological style to the functional CV. The functional CV focuses more on your skills in different areas rather then a timeline of your employment history. Also, it allows the opportunity for you to include any experience you gained while you were out of the workforce under a separate heading such as “Additional Experience”.

The Functional CV

For example, let’s say you’ve been out of the workforce for several years and are now looking for a job. Your CV should start out with a brief “Summary of Qualifications” which is a paragraph containing an overview of skills and areas of experience.

Under the next section entitled “Areas of Strength” either lists key words appropriate to your professional experience or break it down into several distinct areas of experience with bulleted items. Maybe your “Areas of Strength” include Sales and Marketing or Teaching and Office Administration. You can make each one a separate category and list three or four items under each heading to indicate your experience and skills in each area.

The next section, “Professional Experience” lists related jobs, titles, and responsibilities. But do not omit the dates! By leaving out dates of employment on a CV, you will raise more questions.

And finally under the section Additional Experience, you can put any skills learned while you were on your break – include any classes or technical training or part-time or volunteer work while you were recovering from a car accident or caring for an elderly parent. This draws attention away from the gap itself and attracts more attention to your experience and capabilities.

If you took time off to raise a family, for example, you used various skills, such as managing a budget and time management, that would be excellent skills to be used in your new job. If you took time off to travel, pull pieces of information from your travelling experience that would be valuable skills in your next job.

Especially when visiting foreign lands, you may pick up on some basic foreign language skills or learn about the culture, traditions, and customs. This would prove to be a valuable asset to companies that engage in international business. And if nothing else, it may show that you are a well-rounded person.

Be creative

You should think of filling gaps in your employment history creatively by thinking of useful tasks done during this period. Sometimes you might not be paid but might have received experience relevant to your job. Community projects, special projects, freelance consulting engagements, continuing education etc., could all be used in the experience section in place of paid employment.

Whichever way you choose, it’s important to emphasise that you should acknowledge that these gaps exist and be prepared to address them in your CV and at the interview, since potential employers may view any such gap as a red flag.

Debbie O’Halloran – Career Columnist,

www.irishjobs.ie

Related posts:

1. How to Deal With a Gap in Employment on Your Resume
2. Resume Action words – Descriptive words to fill the gaps
3. Functional Resume Template

Each is defined by the way it organizes your experience. Choose the one that shows your experience to its best advantage.

Chronological Resume format

This resume type is the most common. It organizes your experience around the jobs you have held. This format is an excellent choice for people with steady work histories or previous jobs that relate closely to their career objective. To create a chronological resume, list each position you have held, starting with the most recent and working backward. For each position, give the title of your job, name of the organization you worked for, and years you worked there.

Next, relate the duties and accomplishments of that job. When describing your jobs, use action statements, not sentences. Instead of writing “I managed a fundraising campaign,” write, “Managed a fundraising campaign.” Use strong verbs to begin each statement.

Be specific, but not overly detailed, in describing what you did. Employers say three to five statements are usually sufficient for each job. And no job should have more than four consecutive lines of information under it; large blocks of text are difficult to read. If you must use more space, find some way to divide the information into categories.

Your most important positions should occupy the most space on your resume. If you’ve had jobs that do not relate to the position you want, consider dividing your experience into two categories: Relevant experience and other experience.

Describe the relevant jobs thoroughly, and briefly mention the others. If you have had many jobs, you probably do not need to mention the oldest or least important ones. Just be careful not to create damaging gaps in your work history.

Because the chronological format emphasizes dates and job titles, it is often a poor format for career changers, people with inconsistent work histories, or new entrants to the work force.

For these applicants, the functional resume is a better choice.

Functional Resume format

The functional resume organizes your experience around skills rather than job titles. “I often recommend the functional format to students who have not had positions that relate directly to the job they want,” says Bryan Kempton, Program Director of the Career Centre at the University of Maryland, College Park. “By organizing their experiences around skills, they can connect less relevant jobs to the career qualifications they need. For instance, a job waiting tables can be combined with other examples to show organizational or customer service skills.”

To create a functional resume, identify three or four skills required for your target job. For each skill, identify three to five concrete examples to demonstrate that ability. Again, use action phrases—not complete sentences—when writing your list. Arrange your skill headings in order of importance. If you have a specific vacancy announcement, match the arrangement of your headings to that of its listed requirements. The closer the match between your skill headings and the reviewer’s expectations, the more qualified you seem. The last part of the functional resume is a brief work history.

Write only job titles, company names, and employment years. If you have gaps in your work history, you could use the cover letter to explain them, or you could fill them by adding volunteer work, community activities, or family responsibilities to your job list.

Combination Resume format

This format combines the best of the chronological format with the best of the functional format. Combination resumes are as varied as the histories they summarize. One variation begins with a chronological format but then subdivides each job description into skill categories. Another variation uses a functional format but, for each example of a skill, identifies the organization where the example occurred.

Related posts:

1. Functional Resume Template
2. Chronological Resume Template
3. Digital Resume – Writing a Plain Text Resume