Have you had career gaps? This LinkedIn feature helps you explain

For some employers, career gaps can be a sign of a red flag. Years or even months of unemployment can be questionable because new technologies and methodologies are constantly advancing and changing. Someone out of the workforce might be viewed as out of practice and not up-to-date with the skills needed today.

However, employment gaps aren’t necessarily “bad”. They offer people time to explore new opportunities or interests. Someone might use that time to go back to school and pursue their passions. Someone else might use it to finally start a family, or they might just have had the misfortune of being let go. According to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.5 million women left the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nonetheless, unless you’re in the middle of an interview or asked straight out, there isn’t an easy way to justify the reason for your time spent away. Well, at least there wasn’t, until now.

According to LinkedIn, “79% of hiring managers today would hire a candidate with a career gap on their resume.” But, that doesn’t mean these employers don’t want to know why. So, to help answer the question before it’s even asked, LinkedIn has added a new feature that allows users address their career gap on their LinkedIn profile.

The social media platform for professionals now offers new job titles that can better reflect your title status. For parents who’ve left the workforce to focus on childcare responsibilities, “stay-at-home mom,” “stay-at-home dad”, and “stay-at-home parent” titles are all available job title options now.

“We’ve heard from our members, particularly women and mothers who have temporarily stopped working, that they need more ways to reflect career gaps on their Profile due to parenting and other life responsibilities,” the company said. “To make it easier for moms, and all parents, we’re making some important changes to the Profile.”

In addition to the new job titles, LinkedIn will also soon stop requiring people who use one of the titles above to specify a company or employer name. When a user sets the “Employment type” field to “Self-employed”, that field will become optional.

To further address a person’s type of employment gap, the company is planning on adding an employment gap section later on. In this new field, someone can specify the reason for their gap, such as “parental leave,” “family care”, or “sabbatical.”

For the most part, LinkedIn’s gap feature seems beneficial in that it will help fill in the holes you might not want left blank. For sure, self-employed people and freelancers will benefit from this new feature because they don’t need to be attached to a company to add in their work experience.

On the other hand, what is considered too much information? Your information is public so everyone will see what you decide to share about your career gaps. And, how will this information be beneficial in helping you grow your professional network and further develop your career?

Only you can decide what’s best for you. In the meantime, LinkedIn is providing you with options that weren’t available before. And, they say they will roll out more in the future.

“Every person’s career journey is different and we’re working hard to make sure LinkedIn provides an inclusive experience for everyone,” the company blog post read.