Classic Hacks: How To Hide Unemployment Gaps In Your Resume

When you’ve been unemployed for a while, finding work can feel like an uphill battle: how do you explain the gaps in your resume if they prevent you from even getting a foot in the door? Here are two tried-and-trusted solutions from a professional recruiter.

The following advice comes from an article we ran back in 2013. Firstly, don’t despair! According to Employee Relations Associates’ COO Jill Knittel, significant gaps between jobs are fairly common in the workforce. When it comes to your resume, she suggests two different approaches:

One solution is to list just the number of years or months you worked at your earlier positions, rather than the usual start and end dates. You can also use a functional resume, which elaborates on your skills, instead of a chronological resume. This will take the focus away from time, and on to your abilities and what you can do for a company.

If asked in an interview about the time frame of your resume, you will still need to be honest about the gaps. But at least you’ll have a chance to explain yourself in person. For more resume tips, check out the original article.


Lifehacker’s Classic Hacks is a regular segment where we dig up the most popular, useful and offbeat advice from our archives and update it for your modern lifestyle.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments