In Cover Letter: How to Address Unemployment

With jobseekers now changing positions 10 or more times throughout their careers, gaps in employment are becoming more prevalent amongst the pool of jobseekers. Try to avoid it, certainly. Depending on the length, you may not need to address the gap within your cover letter. You don’t really need to address a small gap, such as a couple weeks, or maybe two to three months. The gap may come up in an interview, yet the timeframe isn’t large enough to be concerned with when writing your cover letter. A larger gap, however, maybe a year or more, is a different issue. Readers will wonder why the gap is so large, whether you’ve been blacklisted in your industry, or maybe there are some other extenuating circumstances that anyone considering you for employment should worry about; i.e. incarceration. Anytime you feel the gap may become an issue with the employer, plan to dedicate 1-2 sentences of your cover letter to address the reason for the gap. Quickly touch on it; then get off it.