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A Better Way to Address Career Gaps

More than 2.5 million women left the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, many voluntarily, due to a sudden lack of childcare or to manage virtual learning for their children. Additionally, a disproportionate amount of women’s jobs were affected by the pandemic, and our global labor market data finds that women’s hiring is more vulnerable, and prone to economic shocks, and business disruption than men’s. 

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. To make it easier for moms, and all parents, we’re making some important changes to the Profile. We introduced new job titles, including “stay-at-home mom,” “stay-at-home dad” and “stay-at-home parent” to allow full-time parents and caretakers to more accurately display their roles.

Additionally, in the coming weeks, if you use one of these new stay-at-home job descriptions and set the employment type field to “self-employed,” you will no longer need to specify a company or employer.

career gap

And in the near future, we’ll also add a new field specifically for employment gap types to the Profile like “parental leave,” “family care” or “sabbatical,” so that people can address any gaps in their career journey. 

The stigma of employment gaps is already starting to fade. While 72% of job seekers believe there’s a stigma associated with having a career gap, 79% of hiring managers today would hire a candidate with a career gap on their resume.

These Profile changes are just a few of the many we’re rolling out over the next few months. In addition to the new titles and separate employment gap sections, our Chief Product Officer Tomer Cohen announced more Profile updates last week. These new tools, such as Cover Story and the ability to add Pronouns, are about creating an environment at LinkedIn where everyone can express themselves and their career journey in the ways they most want so that they can find opportunities that most allow them to be who they are at work.

Every person’s career journey is different and we’re working hard to make sure LinkedIn provides an inclusive experience for everyone. Stay tuned for more here in the coming months.