Hacker News Reader

Comment by hollywood_court | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been on sabbatical for 18 months now so my son wouldn’t have to go to daycare and so that I could also tackle some large remodeling projects around the house and re-invent myself as a web developer.

The value added to my home and the time spent with my son was far more than I would have earned during those 18 months.

However, now that I’m ready to go back to work, I’m finding it difficult to land an entry level web development job. We are fine financially but I need to find something with benefits or else I’ll have to keeping spending $1700 per month to insure my family.

View on HN

> However, now that I’m ready to go back to work, I’m finding it difficult to land an entry level web development job.

This is the risk.

A year ago you would have been fine, but in this environment you're competing against a lot of people who have been working the entire time.

From an interviewer's perspective: I've hired a few people after long gaps with very mixed results. Some people get right back into the job with renewed career vigor. Some people really, really struggle to get back to work after a long break. Some of them aren't interested in anything more than collecting a paycheck and benefits to restore their savings for the next sabbatical, which will occur whenever the company finally gets tired of their non-performance and fires them.

That's the risk for employers: It's hard to know the real reason that somebody had a gap on their resume because everyone has a good story to tell in the interview.

What's the difference that you see between people that had a gap and ones that didn't? I would expect an analogous grouping (struggling to continue working without a break, being in the "groove", just being interested in the paycheck) among people without a gap.

I think part of the problem is that very few people have a large gap, or at least very few people are honest about it. It's hard to compare two groups when one of them is N=9997 and the other is N=3.

I’ve still had income during the 18 months. I’ve been doing small freelance websites and also consulting for a friend of mine that owns multiple auto repair businesses.

I helped him adopt a new CRM and completely changed his SOP for his shops all from my computer.

Now I’m aiming for something that will allow me to progress as a web developer. I started coding in the 90s with HTML, QBasic, and IRC scripting. But I chose to pursue a careers in the trades because there simply weren’t any development jobs in my area back then.

I made a decent career out of construction which has allowed me to comfortably be at home for 18 months while handling smaller tasks when I wasn’t busy with my son or remodeling our home.

I will add that being a full time parent was far more stressful than anything else I have ever encountered in my 21 year career.

Wishing you success and a minimum of frustration and despair in your searching. It's taken me 18 months to get a job offer worth taking, and I would not wish 18 months of unemployment on anyone, no matter their ability to survive.

Thank you. My son began school 3 weeks ago and I’m beginning to go a little stir crazy. It’s been far too hot to work out in the yard so I’m presently redoing my portfolio site and working on a unique full stack project that is relative to the construction industry.

I told myself that I’m not employed by the end of the year I’m going to go back into construction management.

I don't wish to minimise your frustration, nor to imply that the following is easy.

But, unless the job search has consumed all of your free time, 18 months off work to pursue your passions is quite a gift.

The lack of income is a downer but if you can compartmentalize that, along with your fear of the future, then that time off could be spent taking up new hobbies, developing new skills, helping out family, working on fitness, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I've tried to make the most of my time for positive pursuits, but in my experience, I'd still rather have had a job and the income to be able to do literally everything else required by modern capitalism to survive while also being able to potentially pursue such passions.

I appreciate your positivity, but I wish you a bit more clarity about the downsides of 18 months without job income.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com