How to start working after a break. How to look for a job after a long break in work experience

Working after a long break: highlights

your good reasons

Working after a long break is not only sometimes emotionally difficult, but also requires certain explanations for a potential employer. In addition, you need to be prepared for the fact that the employment process may be significantly delayed.

One way or another, at the interview, most likely, you will be asked a question about the reason for the pause in labor activity, and here it is important to be able to answer it correctly. We list the main types of reasons that are acceptable to the recruiter and the employer:

Personal and family circumstances. This most often includes pregnancy and child care. It is much easier for women to explain stagnation by personal circumstances than for men.
Moving, staying in another city or country - these processes may require some time to adapt.
The learning process that may be associated with moving to another country.
The health status of the relative and the availability of the relevant certificate.

Understanding that you have a justification for a pause in your work activity, you can proceed, taking into account some rules.

You are not a priority

The employer much more often makes decisions in favor of those employees who do not have a break work experience. If you are interested in working after long break, for example, at least two years, this significantly reduces your chances. Which leads to various conclusions, including the need for more active actions and the presence of possible compromises.

Expand your geographic scope

It is quite possible that luck will smile on you in another region. At the very least, this will significantly increase the likelihood than if you try to find something in your city, and even closer to home.

The interview is your way

If it comes to a meeting with an employer, your main task will be to convey to him that you are keeping up with the times and have not fallen behind professionally while you were not working. After all, even while at home, it is quite possible to study the news, certain market trends, read relevant literature, etc. Working after a break is not that difficult, and your task will be to show your reasonable readiness to a potential employer.

Fewer requests – more chances

Considering the above, it would be quite logical to somewhat moderate your ambitions and financial appetites. You must realistically evaluate not only your professional level, but also the views and interests of the employer. After all, to some extent, work after long break is equivalent to lack of work experience. Therefore, you should be prepared to work at first, catching up, getting into the right direction and picking up the pace.

Many employers know that they can hire an employee who has had a long break on mutually beneficial terms. The former are well aware that they can reasonably save on wages without losing much in quality, while the latter may give in at first, and after a few months or a year apply for a new position or a significant increase in their income.

Working after a long break, as well as finding it, may not be the most pleasant and quick process. However, you need to develop and demonstrate your strengths, sacrificing their ambitions at some stage so as not to lose even more time, and in the near future have good chances for new professional achievements.

I have been sitting at home for almost a year now, although I am actively looking for work. At interviews with companies, they are increasingly asking why I have such a long break from work. I explain this by the crisis and the lack of vacancies, but it seems to me that after the interview the managers think that since I still haven’t gotten a job, it means I’m not such a valuable specialist, and they also refuse me.

What to do in such cases, what to say to HR? What reasons for a long break in work will not scare away a potential employer, but will be perceived as valid? I also think that for different terms there are “excuses”. Which ones work? For example, you can just rest for a month, but how can you explain a year and a half so as not to fall in the eyes of the recruiter?

Olga Besedina, Moscow

Yuri Efrosinin, commercial director of the international recruitment agency Kelly Services:

— A break in work for six months during a crisis is not perceived by a professional recruiter as a candidate’s problem. For a recruiter or HR specialist, it is much more important to understand what the specialist’s previous experience was and what are the reasons for changing jobs. Therefore, when preparing for an interview, it is better to focus on your achievements, successful projects and positive feedback managers with former places work.

There is no point in inventing reasons for forced absence from work. An experienced recruiter will probably understand that your answer is insincere, and may simply not want to get to the bottom of the reasons. Not being confident in the candidate, the recruiter stops considering him as a potential applicant.

Yulia Lysenko, head of the personnel supply department of the Moscow branch of the leasing company ANKOR:

— It makes sense to change the focus of the question somewhat. Recruiters are well aware of the job market and know that a six-month job search is not uncommon these days. They understand just as well that with the proper perseverance and willingness to be flexible with market conditions, they can find work faster. The question they ask you first of all makes sense to ask yourself: why?

Once you understand what exactly is standing in the way of getting an offer, you can give recruiters a more specific answer that will satisfy them. You may not be willing to lower your compensation requirements, or you may be missing a key skill that everyone in your profession needs. Perhaps you only consider offers from a narrow range of companies or otherwise narrow the range of available options.

You need to answer questions from HR managers truthfully. Undoubtedly, you can come up with a lot of plausible and witty explanations for what you did for a month, three, six months, or a year “in isolation from production.” But, firstly, recruiters hear them every day and have long successfully distinguished fantasies from reality, and secondly, even the most high-quality, but fictitious reason will not help you figure out what is not working out when looking for a job, and also what to do to change this.

Galina Polunova, HR manager:

— A break of less than six months often does not raise questions at all, but I, as a rule, ask about the reasons to collect Additional information about the candidate. I am always impressed if the applicant simply lists his achievements and the things he accomplished during his forced rest. It is important to me whether he filled this time with useful and meaningful activities. For example, I quit smoking, passed the next language level, completed renovations in new apartment etc. And even though these are completely everyday events, they say a lot about a person.

Any situation can be presented in a favorable light. Finish with the fact that you have already completed everything that you didn’t get around to before and now completely devote yourself to work, without being distracted by the same repairs and without running to language courses in the evenings.

I often hear from job seekers that during the break they worked as a freelancer. Unfortunately, when it comes to details, which company, where you can see the results of the work, it turns out that the candidate has essentially nothing to say. So if you don't have real examples your work, do not mislead HR. This is perceived as a lie and causes a negative reaction.

Much depends on how long a person has not worked: a month, six months or several years. In the latter case, fears that the candidate has lost the necessary skills are not unfounded. This is especially true for IT specialists, accountants, lawyers - technology is rapidly developing here, software is being updated, and the legislative framework etc.

A long break from work always requires an explanation. It’s one thing if a person was actively looking for suitable job, negotiated with companies, maybe even reached an agreement, but at the last moment the employer withdrew the vacancy. Other - if the candidate started own business. In this case, I find out why the person left his business, whether he can return from freedom, etc. At the same time, I always try to listen to the candidate and understand his reasons. A break in experience in itself cannot serve as an argument for refusal to hire, but it is important to understand what is behind it and how well the candidate meets the requirements of the position for which he is applying.

Pregnancy, illness - own or loved one, studies sometimes force us to leave work for a while. AND we're talking about not about months, because here you can always take a vacation without saving wages, somehow come to an agreement with the manager. We're talking about years. Returning to work after a long break is never easy. At this moment, our professional image in memory has almost been erased; it is very difficult to pick up a career where we left it. Especially if you need to look for a new job, but don’t want to be demoted. How to convince an employer that you have not lost your skills or lost your qualifications? Just updating your resume won't be enough here. We'll tell you what steps to take if you have to go back to work after a long break.

Assess the situation

Before you start preparing to go to work, you need to think about what situation you are in. If you're looking for a new job, potential employers will ask why you haven't worked for so long, what you've been doing all this time, and why you want to come back. You must know the answers to all these questions. And in this case, honesty, as they say, is the best policy. These are not trick questions, but you better prepare for them in advance, because if you think about them for a long time, you will look suspicious.

The next thing to consider is what type of work you want to do. You shouldn’t send out your resume in a panic and apply to every more or less suitable vacancy. Pay attention to the industry, employment and location of potential jobs. Again, if you do not approach this issue seriously, you will not write detailed cover letters, then the employer will immediately think that you are preparing to take another break, and will reject you in favor of another candidate.

Prepare thoroughly

Try to find as much information as possible about the job and field you plan to return to. The most a big problem that people face in a similar situation is technical progress, new computer programs to master, new trends in the market. Stay informed and improve your skills if required. Read professional blogs and forums, subscribe to the newsletter, join relevant groups on social networks. By the way, get your profiles in order. Less cats and stupid jokes, provocative photographs and statuses. Sometimes . A good preparatory lesson is volunteering. After working for a couple of months on a good basis, it will be easier for you to integrate into everyday work life.

Work on your resume

If you haven't worked for an impressive amount of time, it will be strange if you don't write about what you've been doing all this time on your resume. Make sure your qualifications match what the potential employer is looking for. If you took a part-time job, list the skills you mastered. But don’t forget about the experience you gained before the break. Focus on your achievements, no matter when they happened - yesterday or a year ago. The result is important here - you have achieved something, coped with some difficulties.

Write a cover letter

You need to start with the fact that you have not worked for some time. Explain why this happened and why you decided to return to work. If you plan to continue the career you once started building, write that you want to start doing what you love again. If you want to try something new, notice how this challenge inspires you. It is very important that your arguments are solid, that you sound confident, that there is not even a shadow of doubt in your words. You can start working right away - please note this in your letter.

A good thing is a vacation. You can lie in bed for half a day, and then lazily drink coffee to the news and think about going out today, or you can live without bread for a day. Or take a ticket and go somewhere to distant lands, where the boss will not call demanding to immediately solve some paramount problem right now, and where you don’t need to worry about “daily bread” in the form of preparing breakfast-lunch-dinner, their and so they will serve it to us. But the vacation is so fleeting that it’s just before us whole month rest and doing nothing, and now everything is abruptly like this: life is over and tomorrow you have to go to work. How to force yourself to work after a long break?

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And it seems that they had a good rest during the vacation, and saved up some strength, and it would be possible with such forces to turn mountains, turn back rivers ... But when you come to your home office and see your desk with a bunch of papers and a dusty monitor, you start abruptly understand - I don’t want to, and I can’t. You're putting in a lot mental strength, in order to set yourself up for a working mood, you start to do something diligently for 5 minutes, 10 and 15. And then you realize that your neck and back are numb, your pen has disappeared somewhere (and you just were there, well, here was), colleagues nearby on the phone speak as if they are trying to shout to Mars, the whole office looks disgusting and gloomy and you want to immediately run away from here, although everything was just fine before going on vacation.

Do we recognize ourselves? Congratulations, you have become a victim of post-vacation syndrome. And this phenomenon is by no means so rare: it affects about half of all workers. This manifests itself in the form of stress, irritation, an incomprehensible feeling of anxiety and nervousness. This syndrome causes frequent headaches, chest pains, insomnia, and if it is present, most importantly, you absolutely don’t want to work! And I don’t want it to such an extent that American researchers even calculated: approximately 80% of all resignation letters are written after a vacation, when a person returns to work and understands that something urgently needs to be changed right now.

Although not everyone suffering from this syndrome does this. Some try to extend their vacation time and go on sick leave or additional vacation at their own expense.

Well, the most conscientious ex-vacationers are trying to fix this situation, and help yourself overcome both decreased performance and deteriorating health and mood.

According to psychologists, this syndrome appears in people due to the following reasons:

During vacation, a person completely stops adhering to any specific rhythm, goes to bed late after midnight and gets up when the workers have even had time to take a lunch break.

Fans of extreme types of recreation get so tired during their vacation that their body simply requires a period of rest and sleep.

During the vacation, I developed the habit of doing everything slowly, “lazily,” and my body lost the habit of “rushing” around the apartment at half past six in the morning in search of clothes.

A person also manages to get used to choosing on his own - what to do first, and what can be safely put off until later. When he goes back to work, he loses this freedom of choice - there is something that needs to be done, and done right now.

Well, after a vacation, a person begins to clearly understand that he doesn’t like his job, he doesn’t get any satisfaction from it, which means his “legs don’t carry him there.”

So, in order to protect yourself from getting a post-holiday syndrome, you should spend your vacation in such a way as to disrupt your usual rhythm to a minimum (do not go to bed very late, and get up an hour or two later than usual, and not at sunset). In case you are leaving somewhere, do not go to work immediately upon return, calculate the date of your return so that you still have a day or two to rest and recover. Well, the day before going to work, try to “go down to earth” and read corporate news, brush up on some of the data that you worked with before going on vacation, contact colleagues and ask what happened in your absence.

On the day you go to work on the road, try to remember what good this job gives you, try to plan your day so that every hour you have 10 minutes to rest. During the break, do not stay at your workplace - it is better to go outside and get some air. And do not take your vacation photos with you - only disturb your soul with them, and you will not be able to tune in to the working mood. And, of course, praise yourself for every success, for every task completed (even if it was very small) - after all, you may not wait for such recognition from your boss.

How to force yourself to work after a long break? If all these tips did not help, and there is still no desire to work ... Then maybe you should think - what if you are among those very 80% of vacationers, and it's time for you to think about changing your activities?

How to get a job if there was a long break in your work experience? We answer the most popular questions.

1. I want to go back to work after maternity leave. How can I convince an employer of my professional suitability?

First of all, the employer will doubt not your professional suitability, but that you will regularly go to work. “You can say that in the event of a child's illness, the grandmother is ready to take care of him,” advises Alexander Tyulin, managing partner of Avtoritet LLC. “You can admit that there is no one to sit with the child, but you are already enrolled in kindergarten and that now you need a reliable and stable job for many years.”

Tell us at the interview that during maternity leave you've been tracking everything related to your industry. “I personally encountered this issue 2 years ago, when I decided to return from parental leave to work,” Ekaterina Khachatryan, doctor at the Allergomed clinic, shares her experience. - In my specialty, as in almost all areas, constant self-education is necessary, so the first thing I told my future employer was that for almost the entire year I studied numerous literature in my specialty, went through training and know all modern trends. During this year, a lot of strength has accumulated to achieve new goals, so I am ready to actively take up work and support the initiatives of the future boss.”

2. I was sick for a long time. I'm afraid that the employer will not want to accept the applicant who spent so much time on sick leave. What to do?

Convince the employer that you are now healthy. You may need to show certificates and doctor's reports. However, if you have any health restrictions, it is better to warn about it right away.

It will be useful to tell the employer that during the illness you were interested in what is happening in your industry, and your competencies are enough for the position you are applying for. Appeal to your experience, be sure to say that you are ready to develop further.

3. Why don’t employers like applicants with a long gap in their work experience?

“The employer does not react to a break in work as such, but to the fact that this is a possible signal that the candidate has problems ( long illness), insufficient level of adaptation to stressful situations(long-term way out of difficult life situation), - comments Anna Belokhonova, head of the career development center Career-way.center. - The reason for the break may also be a higher priority to the side personal life, family, desire to travel rather than dedicate oneself to a career, lack of need to earn money, which can affect the level of motivation, performance and, finally, simply the involvement of the future employee. In all listed cases the basis for making a positive decision will be the availability of relevant professional experience, level of development professional competencies, confirmed results of work and absence of stagnation in professional development. In addition, it is necessary to take into account that the employer asks big amount questions before offering a job to such a candidate, so he will play it safe by carefully checking references from former colleagues and employers."

4. I have a diploma and want to work in my specialty. But the break in experience is more than five years. Do I need to study something additional or is a diploma enough?

Yes, you need to study additionally. Nowadays changes are happening very quickly in almost all areas of activity. Therefore, it is important to convince the employer that you are aware of all innovations in your industry and have knowledge of the latest knowledge and tools.

5. What if, according to my documents, I have a long break, but in fact I worked unofficially. How will this affect the interview results?

The employer may be interested in the reasons why you chose informal employment. But if your level of competencies is suitable for the proposed vacancy, problems most likely will not arise.

6. What reasons for a long break in work experience are considered the most suspicious by employers?

The biggest concern for HR is the interruptions associated with self-discovery - there are fears that the candidate is not sure of what he wants to do, and at the first difficulty he will leave to look for a new calling.

An employer, of course, understands a break in work due to illness. But such a break raises concerns: what if health problems recur?

The most acceptable reasons for a break in work are maternity leave and training. If your break is related to receiving additional education or internships (especially in large foreign companies), this characterizes you as a career-oriented and passionate employee. And such a break in experience is already considered a plus.

7. What should I tell the employer to convince him that I am ready to work well after such a long break?

The most convincing thing is your motivation. Tell the employer why you are interested in this job. What can you offer the company, what competencies do you have that will allow you to cope with the assigned tasks. Young mothers, as a rule, are well aware of what multitasking is. Long-term treatment gives the skill of patience, consistency and attention to detail.

But most importantly, you need to convey to the employer the idea that you are a professional in your field and are ready to develop further.