Tips To Handle Employment Gaps.Parts 2

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However, most resumes focus on time by addressing experiences chronologically. Consider using the following suggestions to draw attention away from your time between jobs:

• •   Don't distinguish between paid and unpaid work on your resume. This way you can
      have a seemingly continuous string of jobs, even if you volunteered for
      the sake avoiding an employment gap.
• •   Use only years (not months) when listing work dates on your resume. This can
      discretely cover several months of unemployment.
• •   Summarize what you did while you did not have a job. It may seem awkward to put this
      kind of information directly on your resume, but it is more important to
      let recruiters know you used your time wisely.
• •   Use a functional resume. Unlike the traditional chronological resume, a functional
      resume puts less emphasis on the timing of work experiences.
      Instead, a functional resume emphasizes skills, which employers care more about.

4) MENTION MAJOR GAPS
The last important step in handling employment gaps is deciding when to discuss them. Unless you can completely hide the gap, a recruiter will eventually spot it. If you are prepared to address the issue, you can avoid a potential disaster.

There are basically 2 schools of thought on this issue: address an employment gap in your cover letter or address it in the interview. Neither approach is wrong; neither approach is right. It is a matter of personal taste. Just consider these points before deciding, which approach you use:

• •   In a cover letter, make your explanation very brief. A one or two-sentence long
      explanation is enough. Details are not important.
• •   If a gap occurred a long time ago, don't bother mentioning it in a cover letter. Employers
      are concerned with your recent work, not something that happened 10 years ago.
• •   In an interview, still keep your explanation brief. The only reason to go into deeper detail
      is if you gained valuable experiences during your employment gap.
• •   No matter what, END ON A POSITIVE NOTE. Whether you address the gap in a cover
      letter or an interview, state that you are ready and excited to get back to work.

CONCLUSION
Hopefully, these steps will give you ideas on how to handle your own employment gaps. It's a difficult task to do, but it is also one of the most valuable. Having employment gaps shouldn't keep you from finding a job, but only you can stop the cycle from repeating itself. ( by Nathan Newberger)