Full Transcript for Explaining a traumatic gap on your CV

00:00:00 Speaker 1: This episode of Shortlisted does deal with questions of trauma and in particular, violence and coercive control. Please know that there is support available for you, and if you need to, you can always skip this episode, if it's not relevant for you, or if it just doesn't feel right to listen. 00:00:16 Speaker 1: To right now. I also wanna make the note that Helen and I, while very skilled people, we're not psychologists, so we're not best placed to support you with formal therapeutic advice. So take this for what it is, it's helpful, but go and make sure you're talking to someone with the right skills to help you if that's what you need. 00:00:34 Speaker 1: Nothing makes a person go weak at the knees quite like a job interview. Enter Shortlisted, a podcast by Future Women where Helen McCabe and I hold your virtual hand, walking with you every step of the way, right to the interview door and straight onto the shortlist. 00:00:53 Speaker 1: Many capable women have a gap on their CV that they absolutely dread having to explain. It might be because of family violence, it might be that you've gone through a period of serious illness, or burnout, maybe you've sustained a workplace injury, or you had some caring responsibilities that were particularly complex. Now in a job interview, it can feel like you've got a choice between two options. Either you overshare and you tell the interviewer everything that happened to you, or you lie about it. 00:01:22 Speaker 1: It does not have to be that way, in fact, it should not be that way. So in this episode, we're going to talk about traumatic employment gaps and try and give you some of the tools so that you can share as much or as little about what has happened to you as you feel comfortable with. 00:01:38 Speaker 1: And Helen, a whole bunch of research confirms that this is a real challenge for people in job interviews. Yes, 00:01:44 Speaker 2: research confirms this. The penalty gap is real and structural. Harvard Business School research across the US, UK, and Germany found 43 to 48% of employers using applicant tracking systems screen out CVs with a gap of more than 6 months before a human ever reads them. 00:02:01 Speaker 2: UK recruiter surveys rank recent experience in the last 12 months as a top 2 screening priority above length of experience. 00:02:11 Speaker 1: You're right, Helen, and also this is overwhelmingly a women's issue. It's often women who face this double whammy, where they've got a gap in their CV, they've had some time out of the workforce, and the reason for that time out of the workforce has been trauma, which can affect their confidence in trying to come back to work. 00:02:27 Speaker 1: And so questions about those employment gaps, they can really cause panic for people, and that's something we're actually gonna discuss in detail in the next episode, but, 00:02:35 Speaker 1: So that you understand folks, after trauma, the amygdala, which is part of your brain, it's the fight, flight or freeze part, it becomes hyper, hyper vigilant because it has experienced trauma, and it often gets hypervigilant at a lower threshold than it did before. So, when you're in an interview and someone uses a particularly difficult or harsh tone of voice, or there's a really pointed question that's designed to push you, that can tip you into hyper or hyperarousal, and you get. 00:03:03 Speaker 1: Or panicky and racing thoughts and you could even go blank or numb or even disassociate in an extreme circumstance. So interviews can get really tricky in those circumstances. 00:03:13 Speaker 2: And this is why, just be honest, in most cases it's bad advice in these situations. Trauma narrows the window of tolerance. Questions about an employment gap can actually feel physically dangerous within the body. 00:03:28 Speaker 1: So here's the good news folks, the good news is that, 00:03:31 Speaker 1: Most employers understand that gaps in employment history are normal, and that there's a range of reasons for them. So there are a lot of public figures that have spoken out about returning to work after trauma or breakdown or burnout, before stepping back and returning and coming back in a way where they then thrived in the workforce. And those sort of stories start to permeate in the public consciousness, and it means that there are more employers who get it, who understand, and who. 00:03:58 Speaker 1: Have a positive story of returning to work somewhere in the back of their head that they've read or heard somewhere else. The career break field that LinkedIn has formally added, and it's been there for a few years now, I think it's a really good cultural marker, right? The fact that LinkedIn is actually saying, yes, people take breaks from their careers, and sometimes there isn't an obvious next job for that 3 year period. That person was taking a period out of the workforce for a very legitimate reason. I think that suggests that the. 00:04:26 Speaker 1: The tide is turning on this stuff, Helen, and that employers are more accepting and more understanding. 00:04:32 Speaker 2: I absolutely agree, and I think one of the things that have forced employers to be more accepting is they have roles that they need to fill, and so they're actually, particularly in key areas where there's a critical skills shortage, so they are thinking about these things a little bit differently. So how to manage a panic response? Before the interview, work with a psychologist or mental health professional. 00:04:54 Speaker 2: If you don't have one of those, maybe do some research about these things, but ask yourself or them how to recognize the signs of hyper or hyperarousal and develop a rapid regulation approach, e.g. long, slow exhales or on floor grounding before and during the interview. Breathe deeply is great advice Jam in almost any situation, and it can still apply in in a case where you are, 00:05:22 Speaker 2: Concerned that this is the response