How to Address Employment Gaps on Your Resume, Cover Letter, and More

Key takeaways

Address gaps in employment during your job search by tailoring your resume to your experience and explaining them in your cover letter and interview.

• Employment gaps can be short-term, defined as three to six months, or long-term, defined as 27 weeks or more [1].

• Consider highlighting relevant skills developed during your time away from work, whether you were volunteering or parenting full-time.

• You can describe your employment gap in more detail in a cover letter, where you can focus on what you accomplished during the break, not why you took one.

Learn how to address any gaps in employment on your resume, in your cover letter, or during an interview. If you’re ready to refine your resume and cover letter for your next job, consider enrolling in the University of Michigan’s Good With Words: Writing and Editing Specialization. In as little as two months, you’ll have the opportunity to discover creative ways to use syntax and strategies to add nuance to your sentences. 

What are gaps in employment on your resume?

Gaps in employment can be short-term or long-term. While a short-term gap typically refers to a period of unemployment lasting three to six months, long-term gaps occur when you remain out of work for 27 weeks or longer [1]. The type you’ve experienced will determine how you integrate that information into your job search materials.

Read more: Frictional Unemployment: What It Is, Why It Happens, and What to Do

Adding short-term gaps 

When you’ve had a short-term employment gap, it may be useful to format your chronological resume to display the years of your previous employment rather than the month and year.

• For example: Digital marketing specialist, Oxford, Mississippi (2020-2022) 

You can also use a functional resume to focus on your skills and place less emphasis on your dates of employment. However, take note that applicant tracking systems (ATS) tend to have trouble scanning these types of resumes, so it may be more difficult to get past an algorithm.

Adding long-term gaps

When you’ve had a long-term gap in employment, a one-line explanation will suffice to call out your gap and signal to a recruiter the larger narrative of your career trajectory. You can add this line to the employment history section of your resume.

• For example: Took planned personal leave (2021-2022) 

If your gap is due to a larger responsibility, such as being a stay-at-home parent or going back to school, you can detail that information across one line as well.

• For example: Stay-at-home parent, Charlotte, North Carolina (2020-present) 

You can deepen your explanation by including a few bullet points about the responsibilities you handled during your employment gap, especially if they drew on valuable workplace skills, such as organization, problem-solving, and communication.

Stay-at-home parent, Charlotte, North Carolina (2020-present)

• Oversaw competing schedules for three children under the age of 9, organizing appointments, school, and activities

• Developed a local online parenting group that currently includes over 45 families; planned meet-ups and collected resources and tools to feature each week

Enrolled in graduate school (2019-2022) 

• Earned an MBA from X University 

• Completed an internship with ABC Company

It’s also worth mentioning that if your employment gap is from a long time ago, you may not need to include it on your resume if you’ve held several positions since then. Learn more about how far back your resume should go and how many pages to include, depending on the length of your career.

No matter what type of employment gap you’ve experienced, a resume objective can be useful to discuss your career goals and what you want to accomplish next. Developing a one- or two-sentence overview near the top of your resume can help you draw a recruiter’s attention to the future. 

Online networking sites and career gaps

Building your online networking presence can be useful when you’re actively searching for a job. Recruiters may use your LinkedIn profile to learn more about your experience, skill set, and goals. And LinkedIn now offers a way to add a "Career Break" to your profile.

Follow the steps below:

• Click on the "Me" icon in the top menu.

• Click "View profile."

• Under the "Introduction" section, click “Add section.”

• Click the “Core” dropdown and then "Add career break."

• From there, add in the details of your break and click "Save."

How to explain gaps in employment in your cover letter

A cover letter is a great chance to go into more detail about your gap in employment. That being said, whatever the reason for your gap in employment, you get to decide how much you want to share. For instance, if you had to step away for seven months to help a family member, you don’t need to disclose the specific details of their needs. Instead, you can say that you took personal leave to be a short-term caregiver.

Instead of getting mired down by why you had to take a career break, it can be more useful to discuss what you did during one, especially if it involved ongoing development, such as meeting with a career coach, completing a professional certificate, or taking time to reevaluate your values so you can find work that better aligns with them. 

For example: I needed to take a career break to help a family member, but I managed to use some of that time to think more specifically about my work values. I’ve come to realize how important it is to be a part of a company seeking to make a lasting difference in users’ lives, which is why I’m particularly excited about the open web developer role at Company A. 

The power of language to explain a career break

Language goes a long way in providing context. For instance, rather than say, “I was laid off at my last job,” consider shifting to “I was let go after an economic downturn required a reduction in staff.” Or “I chose to focus on advancing my education so I could continue growing in my career" instead of “I went back to school."

Here are two other examples:

Following my department from Company X, I spent the past three months reflecting deeply on my values. At that time, I enrolled in a leadership course offered through X University, and I’m excited about bringing a wealth of new techniques to my next opportunity. 

I’m passionate about creating experiences that keep users engaged and build brand loyalty. After taking time to care for one of my family members, I’m excited about finding a more challenging front-end developer position with high impact and growth opportunities.

Discussing an employment gap in a job interview

The way that you communicate your employment gap on a cover letter will also help you during an interview. Ideally, the interviewer has reviewed your cover letter, so they’re aware of your gap. In that case, they may ask questions about it, which you’re free to answer to the extent you feel comfortable. 

You can also proactively address a gap by bringing it up. But if you’re not asked, you don’t have to mention it and can instead focus on highlighting your skill set and previous experience. In discussing an employment gap, it may help to: 

• Keep it brief: You don’t have to go into too much detail. 

• Highlight skills development: If you’ve been working on your skills, either by taking an online course or enrolling in a professional certificate, bring up this information because an employer may like to hear what you’ve been doing to continue growing. 

• Discuss career goals: If you talk about your gap in employment, connect it back to your career goals. Now that you’re actively interviewing, what are you looking for, and why would this new company be the place to help you achieve it?

A gap in employment is nothing to be ashamed of. In an interview, you get to own your story, so before you speak with a recruiter or meet with a hiring manager, take some time to think about what you want to share and how you want to discuss your employment history. 

Discover free career resources

Gain insights into in-demand skills and career trends by subscribing to Career Chat, our LinkedIn newsletter. Then, explore these free resources as you prepare for your job search:

• Read our Career Chat issue: Job Search 101 

• Take a quiz: Career Test: What Career Is Right for Me Quiz? 

• Watch on YouTube: How to Answer Final Interview Questions Like a Pro 

Whether you want to develop a new skill, get comfortable with an in-demand technology, or advance your abilities, keep growing with a Coursera Plus subscription. You’ll get access to over 10,000 flexible courses. 

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