We Don’t Hire Candidates With A Career Break!

When my client decided to take a couple of years off to care for her little toddler, she didn’t realize that what she thought was the most rewarding time of her life would also become the biggest roadblock to her career growth.

Despite having a fast-tracked career at a Big 4 consulting firm, she was repeatedly told, “we don’t hire candidates with a career break”.

As a working mother, we’re almost made to believe that we have to choose between prioritizing our family or our career.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

It starts with understanding why the hiring team has concerns about your career gap.

Sure, some people hold all sorts of biases against working moms.

We don’t want to work at those companies anyway.

For the rest, their only concern is in addition to their already overloaded plate, they don’t want to hand-hold you for months because they feel your skills and experience are not “current” anymore.

You can fill this perception gap.

Here are the exact steps I followed with my clients to fill this perception gap in her skills:

The first crucial step in overcoming the “career gap” objection in the job search is to rewire your belief and stop seeing your career break as a disadvantage. Only when you stop seeing your career gap as a problem, can you confidently convince the hiring team why you are still the best candidate for the role even with multiple years off on your Resume.

Second, we restructured her Resume to bring up her Education section to the top of the Resume. This closed the gap in work history and showed that she had simply taken time off to pursue her two Masters full-time.

Finally, we gave her LinkedIn a facelift. We created a keyword-rich LinkedIn profile that clearly highlighted the impact she made on her previous organizations, positioning her as a senior-level candidate in her field of expertise.

If you are returning to work after caring for your little ones, you don’t have to do it alone.