If you have enough financial security to be able to not work for a year, then the company may not want to hire you. Ideally it needs you to depend on it for everything, because this ensures you’ll be a well-behaved slave for an extended period of time.
The care about compliance. If You go “I don’t give a fuck about the norm” You’ll have a good time while you say it and then probably a rejection.
I agree that they shouldn’t care but they do. Unless they are cool.
“I enjoyed life for a bit, focused on hobbies, family and so should you”
They’ll use anything to reject you. But I don’t think they “care”.
I’ve had gaps, and no employer has ever asked me anything about them.
“I signed an NDA”
Oh fuck, that’s an enjoyable response. Unless theres something they can check about that. I dont know enough about employment.
NDAs are almost never all-encompassing. It may not even be legal. Usually an NDA is something like “I worked for [defense contractor] for three years as a mechanical engineer. I can’t tell you about the projects I worked on, but I can elaborate on my responsibilities.”
Unless they want your fingerprints, they probably aren’t going to check your tax history and that is how they’d find out you lied. If you worked somewhere, you’d have been paid and that means taxes. Some US states protect your tax info from background checks, but not all.
I’d guess that filling the gap with pretty much anything is better then leaving an actual gap. Maybe add a proof from police that you weren’t in jail or something.
If a candidate shows me police proof they weren’t in jail, I would be very suspicious: why did they do that? I would never even consider they were in jail, but now that they bring it up…
“Sabbatical.”
“Took a sabbatical to learn [skill]”
*taps sign*
One must speak the language of the bourgeois to win his favor.
I have a “mental health break” line in my resume for a 4 month hiatus. I don’t know if it’s a flex or not, but it’s honest about what it is. At some point, a potential employer asked about it with some stern reservation, which allowed me to avoid a toxic workplace culture. Win win.
My response: “I’m a software developer. Middle manager douchebags told me they don’t need my services because they think they can code their apps themselves. Ain’t my first rodeo. They’ll beg us come back to maintain this shit.”
(Happened last time with VBA.)
“Ok, so you are potentially coming back to your previous employer soon. I guess we shouldn’t hire your then.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t talk about that. I signed an NDA.”
You can even create your own NDA to sign so it won’t be a lie, if you care about that sort of thing.
Narrator: I didn’t.
This is the best answer by far.
Second best is “independent researcher.” Make up the metrics. You produced numerous 20,000 word reports for a small group of peers? Great, I have also barfed up a wall of text at reddit.
First rule of signing your own NDA is you don’t talk about signing your own NDA.
Signing an NDA with oneself sounds like fay trickery 🤣
The NDA trick no longer works, employers caught onto this, and now they have a secret “We employed these people under NDA” list to verify it, and the worst ones don’t upload it there to punish those who dare to leave
It’s not that they keep a list of who was employed under NDA, it’s that [the fact that you worked here] isn’t what’s actually under NDA, it’s the actual project you were a part of.
NDAs just aren’t the blanket defense people think they are.
I signed a non disclosure agreement about that period of time and am not at liberty to discuss it.
Well ZILtoid1991 said you have to tell us with who and we can ask them to use the secret non disclosure disclosure mechanism, who was the NDA with.
The counter party is covered under the terms of the NDA, I can’t disclose who they were either.
Checkmate
No, this could work in a way that all companies just submit names to the same list, and if someone says NDA they check the list.
Problem with this is that small companies or companies from other countries won’t give a shit or won’t be allowed to even submit anything. Of course, you could say small companies don’t use NDA, but that is not true and defeats the purpose really
Any source for that claim?
It’s more like people have suggested it to me to avoid the NDA trick in the future.
They signed an NDA so they can’t elaborate
I googled it. If you’re under NDA for the company name how are they going to ask the company?
That was my “On the lam” year. It worked, and here I am. When do I start?
I’ve successfully labeled a period of “being laid off and playing a lot of video games until my bank account got to the area I didn’t like it to be” as a sabbatical.
ymmv though
Sounds like a sabbatical to me.
My answers to “Would you explain this gap in your resume?”:
- Relevancy: “I only included relevant experience on the copy of my resume that you received.” Hiking experience isn’t relevant. Couch experience isn’t relevant. Time spent as the forgotten pawn in the machinations of capitalism isn’t relevant.
- Privacy: “I am not required to disclose medical information, and will not be discussing this matter any further.”
- Fuck 'em: “No.”
I am not required to disclose medical information, and will not be discussing this matter any further.
Why the combative/legalese tone though? Why not just say “It was for medical reasons, I don’t want to go into it” like a normal person? The interviewer would go “Oh ok fair enough” instead of thinking “What’s wrong with this guy, did he get out bed with his left foot today?”
Another good one is to mention there being health issues in the family that necessitated you take time to help them with.
Only a very nosy employer will question that further. If they give you grief for helping your loved ones in such a situation, they probably aren’t worth working for
No2 will make any interviewer exclude you as they don’t want to hire a “lemon”
Lemon is right…but not because they have medical problems. I’m left as hell but I’d get so annoyed if an interview candidate snapped back like that. I’d think “this person is going to escalate any minor inconvenience”
Yeah it’s much better to begin with a more polite “It was medical in nature and I’d prefer not to discuss it.” And only pull out the “hey, legally you can’t ask about my medical issues” if they continue.
Thank you. You’re one of the only people in my replies who gets what I’m saying lol
Other people are acting like the interviewer is demanding answers.
Lemon is right…but not because they have medical problems.
It’s because they have boundaries.
No, it’s because of how they choose to respond to a tiny bit of friction.
They’re the type of person who wouldn’t take 2 minutes to help you with something that’s not explicitly outlined in their job description.
They’re the type of person who wouldn’t take 2 minutes to help you with something that’s not explicitly outlined in their job description.
Yeah.
Boundaries.
A completely inflexible person.
Someone who isn’t willing to be taken advantage of.
Acting their wage.
It depends, I know people that would be glad to help on the work but will not tolerate out of work pondering. Gaps on the résumé are sort of more of the latter, imo
You know what I do when someone casually asks me a question I don’t want to answer? I keep it vague and give them a chance to pick up the hint. I don’t give them a stone cold “I’m not going to answer that.” like a defensive weirdo.
Feels like a lot of people in this thread don’t realize an interview is a conversation. Or they just don’t know how to have a conversation…
I think a more productive and empathetic approach would be to probe such a person on practical job-relevant hypotheticals of a similar nature, in order to actually get an idea of how they would handle those situations - if that’s really what you’re worried about. Why be so quick to label people negatively based solely on personal boundaries? Do you think it’s better to skirt one’s way around an issue than to address it?
Its a conversation that determines whether you can collect enough credits to have food and shelter. Defensiveness seems like a natural reaction, no?
I would hate to be interviewed by you, asking for respect of medical privacy is “snapping back”? No wonder it sucks so fucking much to find a new job.
Legalese style “I will not be discussing this matter any further” in an interview does give off future lawsuit vibes.
Yeah, a much more normal way to say that is “I was dealing with a medical condition. It’s no longer an issue, but it’s a bit personal, so I’d prefer if we didn’t get into more than that.”
I wouldn’t even say that much. Any interviewer asking about a ‘gap in my resume’ is already coming off to me as a micromanaging cunt.
I mean, you asking to explain my medical history is lawsuit vibes.
“I didn’t know this gap was for medical reasons” Why the fuck are you asking about a gap in my work history in the first place? What I did 5 years ago is irrelevant to this interview today.
It’s so weird to draw weapons in response to that. Do you really always assume the absolute worst intent when someone asks open-ended questions? If so, it’s hard to feel bad for you. You are one of the worst kinds of coworkers to have.
“Hey tocopherol, do anything fun this weekend?”
“How I spend my weekends is none of your business and I’m offended that you even though asking was appropriate!”
“Ok dude have fun sitting in your car at lunch”
A professional interview in which personal questions are being asked inappropriately is not even close to friendly banter between co-workers.
It’s the same type of person ready to pick a fight over any perceived transgression. They pick stupid fights with their managers and make it a worse place to work for everyone.
What are you talking about? You’re the one assuming the worst and being weird by not respecting a simple request in an interview! You just told me you assume they are going to escalate minor inconveniences because they requested basic respect.
Throwing a boilerplate legal defense in response to a question that’s most likely being asked casually is a total tone shift. No one’s going to think, “wow, this person really knows their rights!”
It almost makes you sound guilty of something. Preemptively defensive when you haven’t been pressed in the slightest
I didn’t assume it had to be stated like a legal disclaimer, whatever kind of response a person makes it’s good to match the interviewers tone. I agree with you that you don’t want to come off confrontational, I didn’t read it that way.
Yeah, casually asking something on a job interview
Lots of people don’t struggle to find jobs. Maybe you could take 5min to reflect on why some people would call this “snapping back”, rather than post a snarky comment.
An interview works both ways. If that’s how they consider humans, then you dodged a bullet.
How have these answers been working out so far?
Pretty good so far. I haven’t had a job that makes me wish for a workplace accident in years.
You see a lot of people who hire want individuals who live to work: workaholics. Those are the kinds of people you can get the most value from.
They don’t care that these people exploit themselves and hurt their families in the process. These are the ones they want; therefore, those are the kinds of people we have to masquerade as.
