How to get a job with gaps in your CV

When you're job hunting with a gap in your CV, your application needs to highlight your skills and any relevant recent experience.

Use a skills-focused CV

Our free CV Builder tool helps you create a skills-focused CV that highlights your technical and personal skills, instead of your work history.

You can also use our CV templates and read examples of skills-focused CVs.

• CV Builder – build a new CV step-by-step
• Skills-focused CV for changing careers or gaps in work history - templates and examples 
• How to describe skills in your CV

Show your employability skills

During your gap from paid work you probably gained some employability skills – the seven personal skills employers want, such as communication and self-management. In your job application, show how you developed and used these skills during your time out of the workforce.

• Find out more about the skills employers are looking for

Show how you’ve stayed current

In your cover letter or CV, refer to anything you've done to stay up to date in your industry, such as:

• keeping up your professional registration
• attending conferences or seminars
• writing or reading information about your industry.

Explain the gap in your cover letter

Consider talking about reasons for the gap in your cover letter, for example:

• “I’ve been the main caregiver for our children for the last three years.”
• “I've spent six months retraining to change my career.”

Lying about your gap could lead to dismissal from your job if you were found out.

What you did during your gap may have taught you new skills or created a new interest relating to the job applied for. Here are some examples of what you could refer to in your cover letter, CV or interview.

Caring for others

After a gap looking after children or other people, explain how you've gained valuable skills such as empathy and resilience.

Studying

Explain why you enrolled in a course of study, what you learned and how this made you interested in the job.

Volunteering

Describe volunteer roles in your CV in the same way as paid roles.

If you’re struggling to find a new job, there’s free help available.

• Contact us for career help
• Job hunting after health problems, prison or convictions
• WINZ website – help with training and work experience
• Workbridge website – help with finding work if you have a health condition or disability

• Hays website - 7 common CV gaps, and how to explain them in an interview
• Seek website - Four tips for explaining gaps in your resume
• Sign up to our e-newsletter for job hunting tips delivered straight to your inbox

Sources

• Hays, ‘Career Breaks – Friend or Foe?’, 2 April 2019, (www.hays.co.nz).
• Ross, K, ‘Tips to Avoid Ageism during Your Job Search’, accessed June 2019, (www.wiseones.co).