Should You Hire Someone With a Gap in Their Resume?

The hiring manager at Crestwood Terra - I'll call her Diane - met me in the lobby with the energy of someone who was excited about finishing an important task.

"You're going to love her," Diane said, handing me a resume in a manila folder as we walked to the conference room.  "Sharp.  Experienced.  Great references.  Tom did the technical screen last week and said she nailed it."

I opened the folder.  Strong background.  Solid progression.  Then a gap.  Two years, ending eight months ago when she landed a short contract role that had since concluded.

"What was the break?" I asked.

"Sabbatical," Diane said, waving her hand the way people wave at small dogs.  "She needed some time.  Who doesn't, right?"

She laughed.  I smiled.

The candidate - I'll call her Claire - was already seated when we walked in.  Mid-forties.  Polished.  Confident handshake.  The kind of person who has clearly interviewed before and knows how to open well.

We exchanged pleasantries.  I mentioned her commute.  She laughed about the parking.  Diane hovered near the door for a moment, gave me a thumbs-up Claire couldn't see, and quietly disappeared.

I took out my Remarkable tablet and stylus.

"Claire, before I ask you anything, I want to be upfront - I'm not here to pry into your personal life.  My primary objective is to understand who you are today, and why this role is a great career move for you.  If it is, then I want it to be the best one you've ever made.  If it's not, I'd rather we both know that now."

She nodded warmly.  "I appreciate that."

We talked for about twenty minutes.  This gave me an opportunity to confirm some of the notes from her prior interviews with the company.  This also helps build her confidence - in herself, and trust in me.  Then I shifted gears to my main agenda.

"I notice you made a decision to step away for a couple of years.  What can you tell me about it?"

A pause.  Not long.  But noticeable.

"I needed a reset," she said.  "I'd been going hard for twenty years.  I wanted to travel, decompress, figure out what I really wanted."

"Sounds great.  Where did you go?"

"Portugal.  Some of Italy.  A little time in Costa Rica."

"Sounds wonderful," I said sincerely.  "Tell me - was there a moment while traveling when you seriously considered not coming back to work at all?"

Another pause.  Longer this time.

"I mean…"  She smiled carefully.  "There were definitely mornings in Lisbon where I wondered what it would be like to no longer commute and work every day.  It was so amazing there."

I wrote nothing.  I waited.

"But I knew I'd come back," she added.  "I'm not someone who sits still."

"What specifically brought you back - and why now?"

"The timing felt right.  I'm ready."

I nodded.  "What have you done during the past three years to stay current in the field?"

She mentioned a few podcasts.  A webinar series she had started but - she admitted with a laugh - hadn't finished.  A book she was midway through.

I asked about the contract role that ended eight months ago.

"It just ran its course," she said.  "The project wrapped."

"Was there an opportunity to extend it or move into a permanent role?"

A beat.  "We discussed it.  It just wasn't the right fit."

I wrote something on my Remarkable.  She watched carefully.

We moved into the scrimmage portion.  I had asked Diane in advance to send in Marcus, one of the team's younger leads, to work through a real scenario with Claire.

Marcus was 29.  Enthusiastic.  Fast.

He laid out the scenario - a product launch with a compressed timeline, misaligned stakeholders, and a budget that had just been cut by fifteen percent.

"How do you want to approach it?" he asked her.

Claire sat back slightly.  "Well, the first thing I'd do is get everyone in a room and align on priorities."

"We've tried that," Marcus said pleasantly.  "They don't agree.  Sales wants speed, ops demands margin.  They've been going back and forth for six weeks."

"Then you need executive sponsorship to break the tie."

"Our CEO is hands-off on this one.  She wants the team to figure it out."

Claire smiled.  "Well, in my experience, someone always has to make the call."

Marcus waited to see if there was more.

There wasn't.

After Marcus left, I asked Claire one final question.

"When this role gets hard - and it will - what would make you consider stepping away from full-time work again?"

She looked at me for a moment with an expression I have seen before.  It is the expression of someone deciding how honest to be.

"I don't think that would happen," she said.

"I believe you," I said.  "Help me understand why."

The answer that followed was long.  It was not unconvincing.  But somewhere in the middle of it, she briefly mentioned something new.  The past two years had included "some personal things" she had needed to work through, and that she was "in a much better place now."

I thanked her sincerely.  I meant it.

In the hallway afterward, Diane was waiting with the energy of someone ready to pop a champagne cork.

"Well?"

"She's impressive," I said.  "And I don't think she's a fit."

Diane's face cycled through three emotions in about two seconds.

I walked her through it.  The technical currency gap that Tom's screen hadn't caught because he'd been evaluating past capability, not present readiness.  The contract role that ended ambiguously.  The sabbatical that wasn't quite a sabbatical.  The moment with Marcus where experience substituted for engagement.  

Plus, her final answer that was a little too long, too careful - and where she was finally candid about her time off - although still withholding details, which are probably none of my business.  I did not ask for more information on her “sabbatical.” 

"She might be a great hire for someone," I said.  "She's not ready for the pace of the role, the pressure, and the dysfunctions between your teams right now.  And she has something she's still working through that she isn't ready to name - which is fine.  But it could be something that affects her performance or tenure."

Diane leaned against the wall.  "Tom was so sure."

"Tom tested what she knew two years ago," I said.  "I tested who she is right now."

We stood there for a moment.

"I really thought this one was done," Diane said quietly.

"I know," I said.  "That's why you have me do these interviews.  Everyone has a bias - to find someone as quickly as possible.  My only bias is to confirm your hiring team’s conclusions and see what they missed - positive or negative."

What This Story Is Really About

A resume gap is not a disqualifier.  An unexamined resume gap is risky, possibly high risk.

Here is what the right questions reveal before you make an offer:

• Why someone left tells you about their judgment.  Why they came back tells you about their commitment.

• Vague answers to direct questions are data.  So is the pause before the answer.

•  Technical screens test past capability.  Hiring tryouts test present readiness.  Both are required.

• A player who has something unresolved is not automatically the wrong hire.  A person who won't acknowledge it - even a bit - carries hidden risk.

• The scrimmage reveals what the interview conceals.  Watch how they engage with your team, not just with you.

• The question most hiring managers never ask: What would bring you back to not working?  Ask it.  The answer will tell you everything.

• Body language and tone during discomfort are as important as the words.  Discern both.

• The final interviewer's job is not to confirm what earlier interviewers found.  It is to find what they missed.

If you want to know how to build a hiring tryout that catches what most people miss, then let's talk.

Note.  The names in this story are changed to retain confidentiality.

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