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Sometimes, it is necessary to take a career break for some reason or the other. You may be on a break for several reasons, like to study, to seek for a change in life, to attend to some family issues or even serious sickness. The gap may look suspicious when you want to find a job, especially if the break is too long – a few years or more. So, how do you prepare your resume after this break to increase your chances of securing a job? Here are the top tips you can use.
Acknowledge the Career Break
Some people decide not to include a career break in their resume. They hide the break with the hope that recruiters will not notice. However, this is not a good idea – recruiters have a way of assessing your resume to weed out any form of dishonesty. If you are finding it difficult to land a job after a break despite using the most advanced AI resume tools, the reason could be your failure to address the break.
The trick is to be honest about the break – you do not have to give out all the details. Recruiters know that people take breaks from their careers. So be honest and give a reason for the break. Was it to recover from an illness, to deal with family issues, or for personal reasons? Be frank about it. While at it, explain that you are now ready to re-enter the workforce.
Additionally, emphasize on your resume anything you accomplished during the break that relates to the job you’re applying. For instance, you may have taken a break to further your education, and mentioning it will show the recruiters that you care about personal and career development. Other things you may have done during the break that could prove useful in the position you are seeking include:
- Volunteer work
- Professional certifications
- Freelancing work
Emphasize the Appropriate Job Skills
In most cases, recruiters are interested in the competencies that make you the right individual to hire. So, you should not focus so much on the career break. Ensure you explain the work skills you possess and how they are relevant to the role you are applying for.
Pay close attention to the job postings and identify the requisite skills for the role. Then, list the skills you have – only include the ones that are relevant for the position. It is recommended to use bullet points for easier understanding.
Begin with technical skills, and then follow with the soft skills. For a management position, some of the skills that are valued by recruiters include leadership, conflict management, and coaching. In essence, start with those skills that are applicable to the job in question.
Only listing your skills isn’t enough. You should highlight instances where the skills were useful to you in your previous positions. For instance, you can highlight how you led a team when managing a project to showcase your leadership abilities.
Consider a Functional Resume Format
How you write your resume also determines if the career break affects your job application. In some instances, the break may have been too long. Take an example of a case where you took a 5-year break. Some recruiters may feel this break may have affected your competence and ability to deliver in the available job position.
The fact that you took a long break does not mean you should re-enter your area of specialization. You can make things easier for yourself by writing the resume using the functional design. In such a resume, the emphasis is on your competencies and experience. You do not include the periods, which means the recruiter will not easily tell if you took a career break.
However, you should also know that recruiters are always skeptical when you submit a resume that’s prepared in a functional design. So, you should prepare how to deal with that question when it comes up during the interview. The advantage here is that the recruiter will already know you have the relevant skills and experiences.
Tailor-Make the Resume to the Particular Role
You might be fearing that you would not get the desired job as a result of the career break. Therefore, you should avoid making things worse. To avoid having your resume rejected by reviewers, make sure it is tailored to the particular position.
Ensure you comprehend the requirements for the position in question is the first step in tailoring your resume for a job. Use the job advertisement’s keywords to highlight the competencies the position requires. In the experience section, only mention those that are relevant to the role. Include all the relevant details in the resume while still ensuring it is as brief as possible.
Refine the Resume
A blunder you can make is to present a resume filled with errors. It tells recruiters that you are sloppy or that you lack the skills to do a proper job. You should not do this because you do not want potential employers to have this impression about you. It decreases the probability of you getting the job. So, refine your resume and make it as flawless as it could be before submitting it.
What faults should you rectify when refining a resume? First, ensure you have included all the necessary sections – the information in these sections should address the requirements of the job. Also, the resume should not have any spelling, grammar, and formatting mistakes.
Summing Up
After that career break, let your resume make it easy for you to land another job. Acknowledge the career break and highlight the relevant competencies you gained while on the break. You can also consider writing the resume using the functional design as such a resume mostly emphasizes your competencies and experiences. Importantly, customize the resume to the specific role in question refine it to perfection.
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