If you haven’t got anything nice to say about career breaks, don’t ask

Over the last two years, work attitudes and behaviours have shifted dramatically. Remote work policies are now a job spec staple, empowering employees to work from anywhere in the world. The Great Resignation rolls on as workers quit unfulfilling jobs and the push for a four-day week is gaining momentum. Just a few weeks ago, a number of UK firms participating in a four-day pilot said they plan to continue after the programme ends.

The role work plays in our lives is being interrogated and we’re testing - and breaking - outdated myths. Yet there’s still one stigma left unshaken: the career break.

People take time out of work for many reasons. Sometimes it’s a choice, such as the decision to take time off work to travel. Other times it’s a necessity due to myriad reasons beyond an individual's control, including redundancy, caregiving or, increasingly, ill health. New ONS figures show that record-levels of people are currently unemployed due to long-term sickness. Yet the stigma that still surrounds career breaks means the opportunities available to those who seek to return to work will likely be impacted because of their time out.

Career gaps (which we define as 6 months or more out of work) are still a big taboo for many employers, who cling to the false idea that the hardest working, most successful professionals are those with recent work on their CV. But what employers are failing to recognise is that career breaks are, in fact, an opportunity to learn and develop in different ways; and the candidates they’re overlooking are themselves highly-competent and skilled.

In its annual report, STEM Returners found that of the candidates being rejected by employers, 72% had a degree, masters or doctorate, 64% were previously a manager, and 58% had more than 5 years of experience before taking a break. Yet negative attitudes are taking their toll: 35% of those surveyed said their confidence had been affected by the recruitment challenges they faced when they tried to re-enter the workforce.

Not only are employers’ misconceptions doing talent a disservice, but they’re also an exercise in discrimination, as certain groups are more likely than others to take a break. For instance, women (who in some parts of the world account for nearly 90% of paid parental leave) are more likely to experience the negative impact of the career break penalty than men. According to a UK Ipsos Mori survey, almost 3 in 10 women (29%) thought that taking maternity leave had a negative impact on their career, while less than half the proportion of men (13%) said the same after paternity leave. And according to STEM Returners, 39% of women wanted to return to work once their children started school (vs 8% of males), yet 40% felt childcare responsibilities remained a barrier due to employers’ lack of flexibility.

To end the stigma around career gaps once and for all, there are practical changes employers need to make. One critical change is to stop asking candidates to share the dates attached to  the employment histories on their CV, and instead ask for the number of years they worked in each role for. For instance, instead of a candidate saying they worked in a role from January 2018 to February 2022, they would write that they worked for 4 years in that position. Removing calendar dates like this helps level the playing field, ensuring unconscious bias around career gaps cannot cloud decision-making, leading to a fairer recruitment process.

It’s also important to review the way you interview. All candidates should be asked the same set of questions and at no point should they be asked to address or justify a career break, beyond the extent to which it qualifies them for the role at hand. Everyone involved in the hiring and interview process should undergo training to ensure they keep this final stage fair.

There is one exception to these rules. Employers may take the additional step of proactively seeking to recruit returners - such as with a Returner Programme - to counteract the bias they face and benefit from the skills they’ve honed. In this case, a career break becomes an entry requirement as the employer recognises the value they bring; and so discussing them has a net positive impact.

But working to remove bias isn’t just an HR issue. Companies that are serious about making long-term, meaningful change will engage the wider company on the topic of unconscious bias, in relation to career breaks but also to other socioeconomic factors. This may lead to an overall evolution in company culture and a shift in focus to skills-based hiring.

When skills-based hiring is used, ‘work sample’ questions and assessments are used to identify the best candidates by testing their performance in role-specific scenarios, and CVs and cover letters are not used to screen talent. This system removes false predictors of performance, such as the institutions where candidates studied, or where they worked before. This is the fairest system of them all: one that disregards constructed ideas of value (a written employment history and the proxies on a CV) and removes opportunities for bias by focusing solely on a candidate’s ability to do a job.

Attitudes to work may be evolving but our conception of career breaks is still stuck in the past. Viewing them as some form of failure both perpetuates prejudice and means employers are missing out on top talent. The first step in combating career gap bias? If you haven't got anything nice to say - don’t ask.

To find out more about ending career gap stigma, visit www.beapplied.com/dontmindthecareergap.