Accounting for time as a caregiver on a resume?

December 18, 2022 11:45 AM

I’m applying for jobs, will have a gap from 2020 to now (was caregiving full time). How should I address it?

Frankly I think I’ve developed skills through caregiving that could be useful in a work setting, but that might look hokey, would it? What should I do to address the gap if it would?

posted by cotton dress sock to Work & Money (16 answers total)

Have a Volunteer/Unpaid Labor section on your resume, and then discuss what skills you've developed and how these relate to the job you're applying to in the cover letter.
posted by coffeecat at 11:49 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: This makes sense - will it harm me not to have time accounted for in the regular work experience section, though? HR people usually read right down the date column and trash any resumes with gaps, afaik, if their scanning software didn’t already. (Or, how much will it harm me and what should I do to compensate for this weakness?)
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2022

Something I saw recently on a resume (of a person who got hired):

Career Sabbatical to Take Care of Children (date-Present)
Responsibilities include: Time-management, coordinating programs and activities, multi-tasking, communication and teamwork; working with doctors and therapy providers across multiple disciplines to coordinate care and schedules; continual on-the-job training as new therapy methods are introduced or applied.

I was honestly so impressed. (Which is why I copied it down at the time, to save it to be impressed by it later.)
posted by phunniemee at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2022 [29 favorites]

I've been doing a lot of hiring in the past 18 months. I don't bat an eye at anyone having a career gap between 2020 and the present. It's not like I am somehow not aware of COVID! This might be different in different industries. I would not hesitate to interview someone who had a career gap during that period if they had the skills/experience I was looking for.
posted by OrangeDisk at 12:14 PM on December 18, 2022 [8 favorites]

I did small amounts of PCA (personal care attendant—in some US states disabled people can get funding for someone, family members or strangers, to do this and be paid by a third party, though people must hire & train attendants themselves) work this year (for strangers/friend of a friend) between some other jobs and on my resume I listed something like “PCA/personal care attendant, private clients” and the date range. This seemed legible to interviewers.
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:50 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

you won’t need to explain your current work gap

how much do resume gaps matter?

should you put stay-at-home parenting on your resume, I don’t want to train my new manager, and more

can I put running my household on my resume?
posted by lapis at 12:53 PM on December 18, 2022 [10 favorites]

Don't worry about it. EVERYBODY had a gap between 2020 and now.
posted by kschang at 2:03 PM on December 18, 2022 [5 favorites]

The traditional advice is that you do not list your home duties on your resume, as it is really a record of employment—but that you mention it in your cover letter to explain what you’ve been doing with yourself, and that you can use a relevant example or two in an interviews as long as they’re directly relevant and you have plenty of professional examples as well.

Not saying I 100% agree with that advice because it’s very traditionally gendered, but I see the logic. Most of us have duties at home that may have even directly taught us our professional skills, and we’re not listing them on resumes.

Also, beware there is unfair bias against people who seem to have too much going on at home to commit to the job. You don’t want to inadvertently give the impression that your home duties will cut into your job duties.

As a manger, my response to seeing that on a resume would not be as positive as others’ here, because how do I measure that against other candidates? It’s not like I can rate your success as a caregiver or check references who will have any objective idea of how you’d perform at the job. I would not be comfortable with comparing —or able to compare—someone caring for a sick parent full time to someone caring for a disabled child while working, for example.

I’d like to see it in a cover letter, and while I would never ask you about it in an interview, I’d listen to what you had to say about what you’ve learned. If ALL your examples were related to caregiving I wouldn’t have enough information to make you the offer.
posted by kapers at 4:06 PM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you, everyone!

Ok - so I’ll perhaps leave it off the resume, and make brief mention of it in the cover letter.

(I will be freer to work because a) my 89 y/o dad’s now medically stable for the time being, though of course that could change, and b) senior daycare places are opening up again - haven’t tried them out yet, got him on a waitlist, hopefully optimism isn’t misplaced. Optimally, he’d be there several days a week and with friends by pre-arrangement another two days. I’m seeking part-time employment for now, so should be able to schedule most medical appointments outside of work. Does this seem reasonably resolved or would I still be too much of a risky hire?)
posted by cotton dress sock at 4:25 PM on December 18, 2022

I would say that if you mention the caregiving, you should also mention there’s no longer a need for you to provide full-time caregiving so you’re excited to be seeking outside employment, and and are available x days at y times—they don’t need to know the particulars of the care arrangements, and if they ask, run.
posted by kapers at 4:35 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

I didn't put my gap on resume, but explained it as "I was fortunate enough to take time to be with my family"
posted by Ftsqg at 4:53 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Being a full-time carer is a job, whether you get paid for it or not. I would just include it in the correct sequence of your work chronology, listing the duties etc the same as you would for a paid job. In the same way, I would not distinguish between paid jobs and volunteer jobs in a resume - they're all jobs and they all contribute to your skills and knowledge in the same way. If you feel uncomfortable with this, just add (volunteer) after each volunteer position, but still list the duties or whatever you include for each job.

Despite volunteer jobs being real jobs (albeit often part-time), lots of employers look down their nose at such jobs as not being 'real work'. This is really unfair and disadvantages people who often have developed great skills through volunteering.
posted by dg at 6:26 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Formatting a resume chronologically doesn't do the best possible job of representing someone as a candidate. I was once given this feedback by a recruiter at a recruiting agency, and have found it really helpful. She also told me that with the amount of time hiring managers typically spend looking at each resume, you want yours to fit on a single page, at a comfortable sized font. Sounds impossible at first, but not if you redesign the format to:
- only include the most important info about you
- write just what you'd be happy to wax on about if you're asked a question
- never list the same thing twice, even if you did it at multiple jobs
- optimize for reading at the top and skimming at the bottom

For my resume, I have sections on Objectives and Skills right below my name and contact info. These are geared toward things I want to do in the role I'm looking for; not a comprehensive list. I have advanced skills in some areas, so I try for a shorter list of advanced skills that imply more basic ones, unless those basic ones are highly desirable in my next role.

Under those sections I've got a section on Accomplishments. It's a mixture of things I'm proud of having done, across a couple of jobs. True career highlights and headlines. Sometimes it's a synthesis (ex: worked with Fortune 500 clients to...) rather than an individual one.

I have a left-hand column where I list the companies I've worked for and the years, but it's enough. Honestly, no one cares about the 3 bullet points about a job I had 10 years ago and can barely remember the details of. The left column also has my education on it.

Resumes were designed at a time when people stayed at one company for 30 years and a gold watch. They deserve to be redesigned for the reality of modern careers, and for the hiring managers who review them.
posted by nadise at 8:29 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Does this seem reasonably resolved or would I still be too much of a risky hire?

It does seem kind of risky, from your description.
posted by trig at 2:15 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Great.
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:10 AM on December 19, 2022

I didn't mean that in a bad way! Just in the sense that it's probably not worth foregrounding before you're hired. (With any employee there's a risk they'll be dealing with lots of personal stuff at one point or another; no reason make your particular risk seem higher than average.)
posted by trig at 7:24 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]