06. In the search of new beginnings...

Category: Career and Purpose

​06. 

Let´s normalise gaps in the CV.  Life is not linear.
​Neither should be our career.

​Personally, I believe that having a seamless transition from one job to another is overrated.
​And in fact, it is an artificially created expectation.

People have ´gaps´ in their employment for 101 reasons. Here are just 5 of them:

• they took care of themselves - mentally, physically and emotionally. Let us normalise taking time off without seeing it as a lack of ambition or drive.
  
• they took care of someone else. Parenthood is not the only time people need time off to take care of loved ones. I have seen this multiple times and it is sad to see how torn many people feel and pressured to choose. 
  
• they had other interests. Now we know that there are what we call multi-passionate individuals - people to whom several career paths are equally interesting and they do not want to sacrifice one for the other.
  
• they needed more time finding a job. And there is nothing wrong with that. Often that process takes a long time and conscious effort. Let us not forget some of the most successful people we know have struggled with that.
  
• they had other priorities or dared to take a risk and try something new. In interviews it seems like we need to justify every decision we have taken. But life is not a linear experience, and often neither is our career.

The thing is, diversity comes in many forms and past experiences are some of them. With people's lives being disrupted with migration, wars, crises and more - we are yet to see that side of diversity.

We have different reasons to start, change or leave certain roles or jobs.
                  This could be useful to reflect on when…

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