Until recently, employers have tended to treat candidates with long periods out of work with a degree of scepticism. However, the impact of Covid-19 has altered perceptions of gaps in CVs.

The natural tendency to avoid the longer-term unemployed

When recruiting and skimming a CV, hiring managers have often assumed that someone who has been out of work for a period has been so for a negative reason, such as:

They lost their most recent position because of poor performance

They have been overlooked by other employers

They lacked the motivation to find work

Another unexplained circumstance the candidate was unwilling to disclose

The changing attitude to CV gaps

We all know that recruiting in the pandemic era is challenging, particularly for certain sectors, such as hospitality, showing record numbers of vacancies across the industry.

The number classed as ‘long term unemployed in the UK peaked in early 2021 and has since slowly fallen. But at the end of October 2021, there was still a third more people out of work for over six months than there had been before Covid-19 hit.

However, we are seeing an increasing willingness from employers to invite people who have been without work for a period to an interview. There are now new and good reasons for a gap in employment history for many. Lots of people were forced to choose not to work because of health concerns or family responsibilities.

The very employers who are now struggling to recruit did - by no fault of their own - create a significant number of those breaks in continuous employment. Many hospitality businesses for forced to lay off large numbers of their workforce during periods of lockdown and economic uncertainty. In doing so, employers may be responsible for those gaps they used to filter out applicants.

But what next?

As recruiters in the hospitality sector, we’d still expect a candidate to acknowledge a period of unemployment and offer an explanation. A good interviewee might even twist it to a positive particularly those soft skills that we value in hospitality. For example, if they were caring for a loved one then they were able to brush up on their empathetic skills towards others. They might even have taken the time to learn some new recipes or cooking techniques which could be an asset to any catering venue.

So, perhaps the stigma of a CV gap has diminished, but for how long? With labour market shortages in so many sectors, at some point, we might once again start to consider that people we’d consider employing could and perhaps should have been in work prior to applying to our vacancy.

Are you seeking the right recruitment strategy in the hospitality industry in the current stage of the pandemic and are looking to learn about its impact on the jobs market? Get in touch to find out how we can tailor and manage your own approach to finding the right people.