LinkedIn profiles now have a new feature that allows you to highlight career breaks and provide more context about skills and experiences gained outside of work.
According to a LinkedIn announcement, this feature was created in response to users’ requests for ways to highlight the positive aspects of career breaks.
While on a break, people’s life experiences and skills can sometimes match what employers are looking for in open positions.
This feature is intended to encourage candidates and recruiters to talk openly about time spent away from the traditional workplace.
You can now specify whether you took time off between jobs for full-time parenting, bereavement, caregiving, a gap year, layoff, or any other reason.
According to LinkedIn’s data, the number of career breaks is on the rise, but there is still a stigma associated with them among employers.
Based on a survey of 23,000 workers and over 4,000 hiring managers:
- 62 percent of employees have taken a break from work at some point during their careers.
- In the future, 35% of employees would like to take a career break.
- A candidate who took a break would be rejected by 20% of hiring managers.
Why does LinkedIn think it’s a good idea to highlight career breaks, given the stigma attached to them?
Read How to Succeed at B2B Marketing on LinkedIn.
Why Should You Highlight Career Breaks On LinkedIn?
According to LinkedIn, professionals who take career breaks are frequently refining or developing new skills.
- During a career break, 56% of employees say they learned new skills or improved on old ones.
- Women who took a career break say they are now better at their jobs than they were before.
Employer attitudes toward career breaks are shifting in a positive direction.
- Employers believe candidates with career breaks are an untapped talent pool, according to 46% of them.
- Employers would be more likely to call a candidate back if they knew why they took a break (51%).
The new Career Breaks feature for LinkedIn profiles allows you to initiate a conversation and address any concerns that an employer may have.
You can also emphasize how your time away from the workforce has improved your value as a candidate.
Recruiters will be able to search specifically for candidates who have taken a career break as this feature becomes more widely available and more people add it to their profiles.
How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out When It Comes To Career Breaks
This feature can be accessed by going to your LinkedIn profile and selecting Add Section.
Select the option to add a career break from there.
LinkedIn will ask you to fill out a few fields, including the break’s start and end times, a title, and a description.
The form asks for a “break type,” and you can select from the following options:
- Bereavement
- Career transition
- Caregiving
- Full-time parenting
- Gap year
- Layoff/position eliminated
- Health and well-being
- Personal goal pursuit
- Professional development
- Relocation
- Retirement
- Travel
- Voluntary work
A career break will appear in the Experience section of your LinkedIn profile after you add it.
Learn more from LinkedIn and read LinkedIn allows freelancers to advertise their services for free.
