Question:
I have a question for anyone who can give me some insight here. Why
are employers skeptical about potential employees who have been out of
work for several months?
I ask this because there seem to be several fair reasons for someone
not return to the workforce immediateley after losing or quitting a
job:
1. A person may have saved some money and has decided to take it easy
for a while, beyond what is allowed by vacation time.
2. They may have become tired of the industry that they have just left
or been forced out of.
3. They may have decided to take some time off to think about the
direction their life is going in, dropping the pressure of work for a
while.
4. They may have decided to go back to school full time.
5. They may have had personal / family problems that required them to
leave work for several months.
How would an individual account for these things in a resume? Is it
even logical for an employer to be skeptical since every new employee
will take some time to become acclimated to the work environment (and
procedures) of the new company?
Answer:
-"Developing my personal websites/self education/vacation in moldova" covers
a multitude of sins.
Using year instead of month/year helps too.
-Why would you need to unless asked? Remember, a resume is a sales
tool that gets you the interview. It isn't a complete and total work
history down to the exact day. If a prospective employer wants your
diary, they have to ask you. (And if they asked me, even nicely, the
answer would be "heck no!")
I would caution you about using 1 especially, 3, and 5 in an interview:
many employers (stupidly I admit) view these as a lack of commitment
to work. Many people don't understand the value of saving enough money
to pull those reasons off and just can't deal with the thought that
someone else can save that much (but they can't).
2 and 4, especially in combination, are fine to talk about in
interviews, but need not be on a resume. People can grok going back to
school to change jobs but they can't grok a period of no work and
personal introspection (even though it often amounts to the same thing).
Go figure.
Or at least this is my experience.
-I can only speak for myself. I am looking for someone who is
self-motivating, has a good work ethic, good technical and soft skills.
For an entry level position I often have hundreds of people applying for
one position. I can only interview a few people. I'm going to look for
ways to eliminate people from the list.
Taking the extra time to understand a gap in a candidates job history has
no perceived benefit for me, the employer. The lower entry the job the
more this is true. Mind you, for higher entry positions things could be
very different. I might have only 5 candidates so I'd take the time to
review each one in detail.I cannot imagine be idle for months. I'd have something to put on my
resume. I want to hire someone who likes to do the job. I'm the sort of
guy that takes his work home with him because I like it. I want someone
who is looking for more than justa pay cheque.
Are they applying for a job in the same industry? I don't want to hire
someone who is tired of the work.
Why were they forced out of the industry? That would worry me.
If they are switching industries then I won't hold that against them but
it does not explain why they were working for a while. I have someone I
hired who was working in the automotive industry. He was sick of it. He
quit and applied to my company. He had taken evening courses while still
working full time and was willing to continue to take courses as needed
for advancement. He has been working here for 3 years now
As an employer I am skeptical of EVER resume that comes across my desk.
The resumes that appear to be the clearest and have no questions are the
people I will interview first. These interviews are just confirming what
the resume indicates is true.
The best recommendation I could give is that the resume has to have enough
information for me to want to interview you and less questions than any
other candidate I'm considering. Say a lot but not too much.
