I’m Proud of My 9-Year Employment Gap
I don’t care how it looks— staying home with my children was worth it
Nothing I did in the second half of my 20s was resume-worthy. My 30s were headed down the same path, but I was ready to change that. When I dusted off my LinkedIn profile hoping to return to the workforce, employers were understandably nervous about an undocumented decade.
Where had I been? Had I been fired and collecting unemployed this whole time? Was I in jail? Worse — was I so technologically stunted I still used a flip phone?
No to all of it.
I was a stay-at-home-parent.
And to some employers, that’s the worst option of all. According to a 2018 study, well-qualified applications submitted by moms with no employment gaps were interviewed 15.3% of the time. Those that were fired and unemployed for over a year got called 9.7% of the time.
Just 4.9% of stay-at-home-moms trying to re-enter the workforce earned an interview.
Yeah. I would be twice as likely to get hired if I’d’ve been fired instead of choosing to stay home with my children.
Stay-at-home-dads suffered approximately the same fate.
