Resume gaps may no longer carry the same stigma they once did, but they are not entirely free from negative impacts on hiring and compensation, according to research by Harvard Business School professor Boris Groysberg and Oberlin College associate professor Eric Lin.
In recently published research in Harvard Business Review, Groysberg and Lin highlighted three primary reasons behind what, at first glance, seems to be a cultural shift in attitude about resume gaps:
- Pandemic-driven unemployment: The Covid-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented spike in unemployment. Many firms reduced their workforce due to sudden drops in demand, and some workers shifted to caregiving roles due to school shutdowns and health care disruptions. This widespread impact helped normalize resume gaps.
- Generational perspectives: Gen Z, which makes up nearly one-third of the global workforce and is projected to be the largest group by 2035, has a more positive attitude toward work gaps, according to a McKinsey & Co. study. This generational shift indicates a growing acceptance of non-traditional career paths.
- Social media transparency: Professionals are increasingly open about their career interruptions on social media. From professional announcements to personal stories, sharing experiences has become more mainstream, helping reduce the stigma associated with resume gaps. In fact, a 2022 survey by LinkedIn showed that nearly two-thirds of 23,000 global workers said they had taken some kind of a career break. LinkedIn released this survey data while introducing a new “Career Breaks” feature, “allowing its users to showcase non-employment experiences and skills acquired during a professional pause,” Groysberg and Lin noted.
That said, the larger question raised by the researchers is whether we’re seeing an actual cultural shift or if there still are hiring behaviors affected by a candidate’s work history. Here’s a closer look at what they found.
Work pauses and hiring
To understand how attitudes have changed in recent years, Groysberg and Lin first looked at a 2019 study by ResumeGo in which fictitious applicants were created with varying resume gaps for more than 36,000 openings posted on popular job boards.
Among their findings: Resumes with no gaps had a call-back rate of more than 11%, while resumes with one- or two-year gaps had a 10% call-back rate. However, three-, four- and five-year gaps had a more significant drop, with call-back rates of 4.6%, 3.7% and 3.1%, respectively.
Interestingly, providing reasons for gaps — such as training and education, or family and health issues — improved these rates slightly but did not eliminate the bias.
To see if attitudes have changed in recent years, Groysberg and Lin polled more than 400 managers on LinkedIn in 2023, and their responses showed that there’s still reasons to be skeptical of a major sea change regarding resume gaps. In fact, 61% of those respondents still considered resume gaps to be a negative sign, with reliability as the top concern (29%), followed by motivation (27%), retention risk (25%) and skill atrophy (19%).
The data also showed some gender differences in how resume gaps are viewed. While 60% of both men and women viewed resume gaps as a negative sign, 10% of men thought that resume gaps were a positive signal and 30% thought there was no impact. In contrast, only 4% of women thought that resume gaps were a positive signal.
Resume gaps and lower pay
Another critical question addressed by Groysberg and Lin is whether those with resume gaps receive less pay than those without them.
Using data on job transitioning executives between 2004-2011 — a period with similar economic pressures as today — the researchers found three key findings related to compensation:
- Executives with resume gaps received a 14% pay raise, compared to a 22% raise for those without gaps. This effect was more pronounced for younger executives.
- The negative compensation effect was significant in large firms with more than 1,000 employees, but smaller firms did not show measurable negative effects.
- Women faced a consistent 9% pay penalty for resume gaps, both at their previous and new employers. For men, the penalty appeared only during job switches. “It suggests that while women may be consistently penalized for job attachment problems, men may be able to diminish this negative impact through demonstrated performance at an employer,” Groysberg and Lin said. “The negative impact comes only during a move, when the job history is reconsidered afresh by a new employer.”
Expert advice on bridging the gaps
The evolving attitudes toward resume gaps reveal a complex landscape, according to Groysberg and Lin’s research. While gaps are no longer considered a career death sentence, they still remain a signal of candidate quality, albeit a less definitive one.
So, then, how do you effectively address resume gaps in order to not find yourself at a disadvantage?
Industry experts agree that a resume gap shorter than a year typically doesn’t raise red flags for employers. Regardless, honesty and transparency remain key when addressing any employment gap.
“Transparency builds trust with potential employers and demonstrates your integrity,” a blog from Inside Icon notes. “Be transparent about the reasons for your gap and what you accomplished during that time.”
It’s also important to come in prepared so that you don’t overshare or divulge too much information rather than concisely explaining what happened, TopResume suggests.
And, finally, a new study recently published in Nature Human Behavior offers an even more intriguing way to explain resume gaps: List years of tenure at an employer rather than the actual dates of employment.
Listing tenure rather than specific dates — i.e., saying that you worked at Company A for 7 years versus listing your employment as taking place from March 2011 to June 2018 — increased the chances of a call-back by 15% compared to a resume with an employment gap and by 8% compared to a resume without a gap, the study found.
But above all, don’t try to hide resume gaps, Stacie Haller, chief career adviser at Resume Builder, told The Playbook.
“You can never go wrong telling the truth but you can go wrong hiding and lying about things," she said. "That will always come back to bite you at some point."