We’re Still Judging Resume Gaps? Be SO Serious!

Noelle pushes back on the idea that resume gaps are some kind of red flag, calling it what it is, a lazy, bias-driven shortcut that tells you very little about how someone will actually perform.

Instead of using gaps as an easy filter, she challenges hiring managers to ask better questions, drop the judgment, and evaluate the whole person. She also calls out applicant tracking systems that auto-reject for gaps, pointing out that all they really do is scale bad hiring habits. And yes, unpaid caregiving is still work, whether it shows up on a resume or not.

Transcript

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Welcome back to We Lead Anyway. I'm Noelle, senior leader, career coach, and your host. Let me ask you something. If someone applied for a job at your company and their resume had a gap, let's say three months, six months, a year, what would you do? Be honest. Would you pass them over? Would you put them in the maybe pile and never actually come back to it? Would you send that polite little rejection email, the one that says we've decided to move forward with other candidates? They're getting really intense, by the way. We know how much time and energy and how disappointing. Anyway, would you do that without once picking up the phone to find out why the gap is there? Because that's exactly what I see. That's exactly what so many are doing. And today I want to talk about why that's one of the most short-sighted bias-driven habits in modern hiring. I'm going to walk through why people have gaps. And it shouldn't, it shouldn't be rocket science, but I'm going to do it and I'm going to ask you what exactly about that disqualifies them from doing a good job for you. And I'll wait. I'm not worrying. There's an assumption baked into how a lot of hiring managers read resumes. And the assumption is a gap means something went wrong. The person is hiding something. They've checked out. They're a risk. And that assumption is not based on data. Do you say data or data? I say it both ways. It is not based on research. Studies have consistently shown that resume gaps have little to no correlation to job performance. And you're filtering people out based on bias that has zero proof. And what you're actually doing is just pattern matching, right? You're looking for a resume that looks like every other resume you've hired from. And anything that deviates from that makes you uncomfortable. So we'll talk about what's behind the gaps. People leave the workforce to care for a sick parent, a child, a spouse. They step away to manage medical diagnoses, surgeries. They're under no legal or moral obligation to tell you what that was. Their medical history is none of your business. Shout out to HIPAA. And people get laid off in mass layoffs driven by mergers, like economic decisions that had nothing to do with their performance. And then they spend six months to a year in a market where a single posting gets over 500 applications in 24 hours, which is bananas. Okay. They raise kids, they finish degrees, they leave toxic workplaces that were doing real damage. Those are the gaps. That's the list. People living their lives, dealing with real things, and then coming back. Jesus didn't show up in the Bible till he was in his 30s, and no one questioned that. Too far. Sorry. So the question isn't what happened during the gap. The question is why you've decided that any of that makes someone less qualified to do the job. And here's what's actually happening when a hiring manager flags a resume gap. It's not diligence. It's just easier to use the gap as a filter than to evaluate a human being. And I'll just make that assumption and we'll call it good. And you're not even filtering accurately. You're rejecting qualified people based on a bias with no, again, empirical support. Meanwhile, you're hiring people with a clean, uninterrupted, you know, timeline who were phoning it in barely because their dates lined up and that felt safe, I guess. What are you actually afraid of? That someone who took time away is out of touch or they're they've checked out? Ask questions. Don't assume. If you see a gap, ask about it. Openly without judgment. Can you tell me what you were doing during this period? That's it. How someone answers that question will tell you whether or not you want to go forward or if it makes sense. Were they on trial? Maybe you'll have some follow-up questions. But evaluate the whole picture. What did they accomplish before the gap? How did they show up in the interview? And I recommend also auditing your ATS, your applicant tracking system. If it's automatically screening out candidates, you're literally automating discrimination. Now you're shady and lazy. Turn that off. And recognizing that caregiving, raising children, and other unpaid work is still work. It just doesn't come with a W-2. And behind every resume gap is a person who went through something real and came out the other side and decided to get back in. And that is exactly the kind of determination and grit you claim you want in your workforce. And sending them a rejection email because of a date range, weird. Be human. Hire humans. Ask questions. It's not that difficult. Listen, if this landed, whether you're a job seeker who's been on the receiving end of this or a hiring manager who's willing to be vulnerable and share, please drop it in the comments. Share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you have a topic you will like me to discuss, email me at noelleadsanyway at gmail.com. And if you're interested in personal or professional development or coaching, visit leadwithnoelle.com. Until then, go take up space.