I have some gaps on my resume. So, apparently I am the antichrist.
I told one recruiter about a co-worker I had who had no gaps on his resume. He would come to work and spend the entire day playing games or texting and calling his girlfriend. I am certain he would get chosen for numerous jobs over me even though I am a workaholic.
Gaps are meaningless! The world is too random and using your imagination to imagine the worst when there is a gap on a resume is foolish.
I had one recruiter annoyed with me because I have a large gap on my resume for the time when I was a full-time student in college. I’m not making that up. She wanted an explanation for why I wasn’t working. Recruiters are ridiculous!
Just like with other forms of discrimination people could still judge you silently and withhold a job from you but at least it would stop the harassment by recruiters about gaps.
lol “full time student” isn’t an employment gap.
It is an issue, primarily because it disproportionately affects women (because stay at home moms), but it’s sincerely something you can’t legislate. An employment gap is time where you aren’t gaining experience someone else is.
You might be gaining different experience, and it’s unfortunate that in a lot of cases you won’t be able to get to an interview to talk about it, but being in the workforce, and fulfilling the requirements to keep your job (even if they are just show up and don’t be such a toxic mess your employer is forced to fire you) are things that directly have a bearing on your ability to be a good employee for their company. If you could exclude stay at home parents, I’m pretty confident that you would see a measurable difference in quality of employee between people who have steadily kept a job and people who haven’t, even if it’s a higher percentage of bad apples and not a lower median performance.