All research

How do I explain a career break?

Briefly, and only with what’s true. Naming caregiving did no better than silence in the UK, and worse than a layoff in the US. Keep the line plain and save the story for the interview.

From a preregistered UK experiment with 9,022 employers (Kristal et al., 2023) and a US audit of 3,407 applications (Weisshaar, 2018). Read the study (opens in a new tab)

What to put on the pageUpdated How we write these

  1. The line you write

    May 2024 – Present
    Caregiving for a family member; finished a supply chain course
    Mar 2019 – May 2024
    Operations Manager, Miami Valley Distribution

    Fictional example

    Leave your last job’s end date as it is. Then give the break its own line with what you did, in a few plain words: caregiving, a career break and what you did in it, study, or freelance work if it was real. Call it a sabbatical only if you chose the time off. A job search isn’t a sabbatical, and neither is a layoff.

    One change did raise callbacks in the UK test: listing years in each job instead of dates.3 Applications still ask for the dates.

  2. The sentences you say

    “I took two years off to care for my dad, and that’s settled now. I finished a supply chain course while I was out. This job is inbound scheduling across three sites, which is what I ran before, and I want it back.”

    Fictional example

    The truth in a sentence, what you kept sharp, then why this job. No apology, and no more detail than you want to give. A health reason can stay private: “I took time off for a health matter, and it’s resolved” is enough.

    Our take, from fifteen years in hiring: tell the truth about it, and what you kept sharp. In one study, HR professionals read a long gap as low motivation more than anything else, so end on why you want this job.1

  3. The person who vouches

    “I worked with Dana for five years. She ran inbound scheduling for three warehouses. If she’s looking, she’s worth a call.”

    Fictional example

    When nothing on the resume explains a long break, a former manager or teammate who saw your work can. Start with them, and start early.

    Referred applicants got interviews far more often in one recruiting platform’s data. For laid-off workers, contacts helped most early in the search.2

What the tests found about naming the reason

The UK experiment sent versions of one fictitious mother's application to 9,022 employers. With a gap of two and a half years, “Left to become a full-time mother and look after my children” got the same callbacks as the gap left unexplained.3

A US audit sent 3,407 applications for professional jobs in 50 cities, each from a parent with an 18-month gap or none. “Left to take care of my children” got interview requests 4.9% of the time for mothers and 5.4% for fathers. “Laid off due to downsizing” got 9.7% and 8.8%, and no gap about 15%. The study had no unexplained gap to compare, so it can't say whether leaving the reason off would have done better.4

Health reasons went both ways. In a US audit, “I had a medical issue. It is now taken care of” did a little better than no explanation.5 In Belgium, naming depression did no better or worse than saying nothing.6 In Norway, a year out for “mental health challenges” drew interview invitations 20.7% of the time, against 28.5% for a year of travel.7

Our take: a few true words do the job. If the reason is health, “Career break” is true and enough. If you’d rather say more, and it’s behind you, say it’s resolved. Spend the rest of the space on the work you did before the break and since.

Leave off a stopgap job far below your level

In one US experiment, a recent job well below the applicant's skill level drew about as few callbacks as a year out of work. Our advice: list a course, a project, or freelance work in your field, and leave off work that reads like a step down. An application that asks for every job still gets the full list.

Limitations

  • These are audit studies: fictitious applications, measured by callbacks, not hires.
  • The UK caregiving test used one mother and one wording. The US test had no unexplained gap to compare.
  • We found no study of what to say about a break in an interview, or of “sabbatical,” travel, or a gap year as labels. Those parts are our take.
  • No study has tested whether a referral makes up for a gap. The contacts study followed workers laid off when their plants closed, not people returning from a break.
  • The studies span the UK, the US, Belgium, Norway, and Italy, and different kinds of jobs.

Sources

  1. 1Why Are Employers Put Off by Long Spells of Unemployment?. Van Belle, Di Stasio, Caers, De Couck & Baert. European Sociological Review 34(6); earlier as IZA DP 10876. 2018. (opens in a new tab)
  2. 2People I Know: Job Search and Social Networks. Cingano & Rosolia. Journal of Labor Economics 30(2). 2012. (opens in a new tab)
  3. 3Reducing discrimination against job seekers with and without employment gaps. Kristal, Nicks, Gloor & Hauser. Nature Human Behaviour 7. 2023. (opens in a new tab)
  4. 4From Opt Out to Blocked Out: The Challenges for Labor Market Re-entry after Family-Related Employment Lapses. Weisshaar. American Sociological Review 83(1). 2018. (opens in a new tab)
  5. 5Sick and tell: A field experiment analyzing the effects of an illness-related employment gap on the callback rate. Namingit, Blankenau & Schwab. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 185. 2021. (opens in a new tab)
  6. 6First depressed, then discriminated against?. Baert, De Visschere, Schoors, Vandenberghe & Omey. Social Science & Medicine 170. 2016. (opens in a new tab)
  7. 7The mark of mental health problems. A field experiment on hiring discrimination before and during COVID-19. Bjørnshagen. Social Science & Medicine 283. 2021. (opens in a new tab)

Next questions

Should I explain the gap on my resume?

In the largest test, no. A line explaining a caregiving gap did no better than leaving it unexplained. Listing years in each job instead of dates did help.

Preregistered experiment Kristal et al., 2023 · 9,022 UK employers

How much does a referral really help?

A lot, at every stage. 40% of referred applications reached an interview. Of applications sent in cold, 3% did.

Vendor data Ashby customers, 2021 to 2024 · 38 million applications

What does my resume say about who I am?

Whatever a stranger can say in one line. In mock interviews, first impressions predicted the final ratings and, later, real internship offers.

Peer-reviewed study Barrick, Swider & Stewart, 2010 · interviews, not resumes

How we write these

We link every study we cite and say what it can’t tell you. When something is our advice rather than a finding, we say so. The date above is when the page last changed. The longer version

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