I like to just say “That period isn’t relevant to my work history, is personal, and I won’t be discussing it further.”
I’ve learned through many shitty jobs that any company that brings it up is one I probably don’t want to work for anyway. If they feel they have a right to know what I’m doing with “non-productive” periods of time before I even work for them, what other boundaries will they want to cross if I don’t meet some unspoken arbitrary metric? But if they accept that answer and move on, I consider the question a yellow flag rather than red.
I haven’t had a recent gap in ages and haven’t been asked in a while but when it came up I would just say I was either a freelance property manager or a semi pro gamer trying to make it at the time. Non are complete lies and it could even make you seem more interesting.
Heck you could totally fill in the resume gap with freelance whatever so there isn’t a gap. Freelance photographer could work too, or freelance ‘insert your hobby here’ to make it easier to lie about it.
I like to just say “That period isn’t relevant to my work history, is personal, and I won’t be discussing it further.”
I’ve learned through many shitty jobs that any company that brings it up is one I probably don’t want to work for anyway. If they feel they have a right to know what I’m doing with “non-productive” periods of time before I even work for them, what other boundaries will they want to cross if I don’t meet some unspoken arbitrary metric? But if they accept that answer and move on, I consider the question a yellow flag rather than red.
Fair enough, I’ll find some way to say if in my own words, then.
You could also just lie.
I haven’t had a recent gap in ages and haven’t been asked in a while but when it came up I would just say I was either a freelance property manager or a semi pro gamer trying to make it at the time. Non are complete lies and it could even make you seem more interesting.
Heck you could totally fill in the resume gap with freelance whatever so there isn’t a gap. Freelance photographer could work too, or freelance ‘insert your hobby here’ to make it easier to lie about it.