6 Ways to Handle Employment Gaps on Your Resume

6 Ways to Handle Employment Gaps on Your ResumeHave you had to bounce around a bit? Worried your recent job history will appear a bit erratic to potential employers? Though job hopping is becoming less and less stigmatized, and more and more employers and recruiters will be sensitive to the particular challenges of the marketplace and the current economy, there are totenstill some situations wherein its best to downplay all your job activity. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display(div-gpt-ad-1467144145037-0) ) Here are 6ways to minimize the damage of having employment gaps on your resume1. SummarizeIf you dont already have a summary paragraph at the top of your resume, nows the time to add one. Use it to define yourself, and then to guide the recruiter through the bullet points and information shes about to take in. Use it to show how best to interpret your multiple recent job changes, and what narrative to take away from that. If you give a recruiter a greater narrative, t hat should stick with them. And, if youre worried that recruiters might think youd be a flight risk? Emphasize in your summary that you are looking for a long-term position, or to be somewhere for the long haul. Get out in front of the story, as they say in the media.2. FocusOn three or four of your recent jobs and flesh them out in more detail than you normally would. Then make a more summarized section on previous employment, including multiple jobs within those dates, to minimize the feeling of having hopped around from job to job during that time.3. Find coherenceIf you can find a through-line to connect all of your hopping, then youre golden. Perhaps these were all positions within the same field, or in hopes of rocketing up the ladder, or learning new skills. Or if youve hopped from industry to industry, emphasize instead the work you do, and how youve been trying to hone in on the perfect niche for it. Make your job hopping an asset by making it tell a story.4. Be honestIf yo u were laid off as the result of a merger or acquisition, or you were a contract worker, then some of your hopping was not at all your fault. It is totally okay to explain this on your resume. A quick parenthetical (formerly X Company) next to the company personenname will be a good start. Your summary paragraph will also help here.5. Fudge the monthsIf you can get away with taking out the months in your dates, and just leaving the years, then you can give the illusion of having worked at a place longer than you did. Using years only helps you to smooth over short-term gigs. You can also put the dates to the right of the job headings, rather than the left, to deemphasize them.6. Try a hybridIf all else fails, the hybrid resume might be for you. This is a new way of thinking about the resume, emphasizing your skills first, and your bulleted, chronological history second. Choose four to five responsibilities or skills or job facets that youve excelled in, across all of your jobs, and sell yourself as a primo candidate. By the time the hiring manager gets to the second page with your list of actual job experience, shell already be convinced you can do the job.

Women Feel More Anxiety Could The Pay Gap Be The Cause

Women Feel More Anxiety Could The Pay Gap Be The Cause The Columbia University School of Public Health just released a study focused on the gender pay gap and mental health. The authors of thestudy stopped short of concluding tzu siche was a causal relationship between womens anxiety disorders and their level of income relative to mens, but found a quite disturbing set of correlations.The authors of the study found a clear correlation between a womans income level and her likelihood of experiencing anxiety and depression if she made less than a male counterpart of the same age, with the same education and within the same industry. No such increased likelihood of anxiety and depression existed when she made the same or more than a male counterpart with similar age, education and industry characteristics.While the jobs between the men and women in this study were not necessarily identical, the finding is totenstill alarming. As theWashington Post article reporting on the study points o ut, this extra anxiety women bear may be caused by the experience of bias that creates the pay difference in the first place (rather than the lower level of money, itself).Moreover, this issue appears to affect women across the board low-income earners as well as executive-level women were both affected by the mental stress that differential pay (and treatment) may be creating.Fairygodboss is committed to improving the workplace and lives of women. Join us by reviewing your employer