I posted recently that I was considering studying Chinese for a year in Taiwan just because I need to take a year out to recharge and do something different with my life, but I’m not entirely sold on the idea. I’m in my late 30s and have a bit of savings that I know I should use on investments and downpaying my mortgage, but I feel like I badly need to take a year out. But I keep worrying that I’d waste my money and that I’ll become unemployable afterwards. Quora is full of people saying not to worry because you can explain the gap in the CV in an interview and make it look good, but the reality is that some idiot in HR goes through hundreds of CVs a day and the first thing they do is look for “red flags” (of which a one-year gap is a big one) to bin the majority and lessen their load, so I’m worried I wouldn’t even be able to get a chance to make it look good in an interview.
Has anybody here taken a year out later in life? What did you do? Was it easy to get back into work afterwards?
These HR people are terrible. I don’t really blame them because they get hundreds of CVs for each job and need to lessen their loads somehow, but I know for a fact that many of them use whatever little excuses they can to bin most of the applications that come through.
I took six months off last year. I said in the interview that I felt like I had done everything I wanted to at my previous role and fancied a bit of a break before starting my next assignment. Nobody I interviewed had a problem with that. During the six months off, I didn’t really do anything remarkable, Learning Chinese for a year would be a more impressive statement. I think most interviewers would probably be envious of your position.
Yeah, the problem with that is that I’d have to wait until next September (I can’t do it this September due to other commitments) and I’m not sure I can wait that long to take a year out at this point!
Took a year off for travelling in South America and Asia /early 40’s/. Never had any problems with finding work a year later. In fact, they were pretty interesting in my travelling experience and asked a lot of questions.
Agree… It’s all about how you frame it. I did something similar and when I was ready to go back to work, I added it to my resume under education… basically described myself as someone who is a strong proponent of life-long learning so I decided to have a full-immersion experience in both language and culture. It definitively seemed like an advantage when I was interviewing and I ended up with a better position and better pay than I had previously.
I’m sure you can find all sorts of reason to explain the resume gap… like self employment, started a business, worked in the family business, etc.
Just make it sound convincing, and avoid the obvious ones (like went to prison or whatever). I’m sure their HR will imagine all kinds of nasty reasons for the gap year but it’s not like there’s anything you can do about that.
I have, if you count accumulated time off between jobs.
I’ve worked in over 7 countries in the public and private sectors, and have had big achievements in some, pissed off a lot of people in others.
To answer your question–always easy to find work if you have in-demand skills, good education, etc. Having worked in trade, STEM science, etc., always relatively easy to fall back on my feet.