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Comment by umichguy | Hacker News Reader

What's the take on people who have had a career break of 1 to 2yrs? Through travel or medical situations or whatever. A friend of mine took a year and half off after having worked non-stop for ~15yrs (burnt out), went exploring and is now trying to get back into work but is having some difficulty for recruiters to call him back after applying. He never had any breaks in his work history before the recent and only one.

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I’ve taken 6 months off, a year off, even 5 years off (!) to have different life experiences in between IT gigs. In the case of your friend, perhaps suggest that they add an 18 month block of “consulting” work to the resume, rather than leave it as a gap, and see if the response rate changes.

Huge red flag. Put for the last job "2016-Present," and then if they ask about it, say "oh, I actually don't work there anymore, I need to update my resume, thanks for pointing that out." If they ask when you left, be honest and say "yea I must have missed that bit, it's been "to present" forever haha."

That just sounds shady and wrong. Plus, I don't think anyone is really going to believe that a person who is actively looking for jobs has left his CV that sloppy. If it's a couple of months sure, but 1.5yrs? Hmmm..

So basically, people see a one and a half year break, and wonder when he’s going to have his next burnout.

It’s not really fair, but I can see the reasoning.

Well, they can't/ shouldn't deduce that he had a burnout. That's something I know as a friend. He went traveling around the world, ticking off places from his list. It's a simple career break. People aren't/shouldn't be expected to work non-stop through out their lives.

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