Recruiters see gaps constantly. What causes problems is not the gap, it is an unexplained gap — because the reader fills the silence with a guess, and the guess is rarely generous.
Name it briefly and move on
A single line in your experience timeline is enough. “2024–2025 — Career break: full-time caring responsibilities; completed AWS Solutions Architect certification.” No apology, no long explanation, no hiding it by switching to a year-only format.
- Redundancy — “Role eliminated in a company-wide restructuring” is neutral and common. Say it once.
- Health — you owe nobody a diagnosis. “Personal health leave, fully resolved” is sufficient.
- Caring or parental leave — state it plainly. It is a normal part of a working life.
- Travel or study — say what you got out of it if it is relevant, otherwise one line.
- Job hunting — if the gap is short, no comment is needed at all.
Changing field
A career change CV should be organised around transferable evidence rather than job titles. Lead with a summary that states the change explicitly, then let your bullets carry the skills the new field cares about — the industry context becomes secondary detail.
- 1Write the summary as the change: what you were, what you are moving into, and the bridge between them.
- 2Reframe achievements in the vocabulary of the target field.
- 3Put relevant training, projects or freelance work in a section of its own so it is not buried under unrelated roles.
- 4Keep old roles, but shorten them to one line each once they stop being relevant.