Career gaps can happen for any number of reasons, even in an engineering career. For example, individuals may take time off for family matters, to go back to school, or to cope with health concerns. Engineers may simply decide to take a break from the work to pursue another career type for a while. Whatever the case may be for you, if you have a gap in your engineering career, it’s not too late to move past it and gain a rewarding job.
Here are some tips for getting around a career gap as an engineer.
Review some current engineering job advertisements to determine how far behind you are in skills or experience. If you have a gap in work history as an engineer that’s lasted more than 6 to 12 months, you may need to update some of your skills in order to qualify for a position.
Be ready and willing to discuss the reason behind your career gap. For example, you may want to just indicate that you had to take a hiatus for a short period of time in order to take care of a family matter. If you have gone back to school or changed careers and want to go back into engineering, you must have a compelling reason for this decision. You could indicate that you have a specific passion for an area of engineering that you’d like to explore.
Consider taking on some temporary engineering assignments while you look for a more permanent solution. Temporary staffing agencies are accustomed to seeing engineers who have a variety of work backgrounds, therefore you will be able to be placed in a temporary or temp-to-perm assignment quite easily. Use this time to boost your skills and regain your confidence as an engineer.
Indicate on your resume a brief reason for a gap in your career history. Recruiters will often red flag resumes that show periods of time with no work indicated. You can simply state the dates and something to the effect of “took time off from career due to personal responsibilities.” Again, if you were attending college or working on an engineering certificate you will want to indicate this as well.
Worried about a gap in your engineering career holding you back from your dream job? Let the staffing experts at Venteon help you find your next great engineering career today — gap or not!
