LinkedIn’s New Feature To Highlight Career Breaks

With the latest feature by LinkedIn, you can now display your career breaks on your profile. And at the same time, you can detail your skills and experiences acquired at the workplace.

All About the New Feature

• The new LinkedIn feature is introduced in response to the users' queries about how they can highlight the positive aspects of breaks in their careers. 
• It emphasizes that the skills and experiences gained by individuals during the break period could occur significantly to some recruiters.
• Allows candidates to describe their time spent away from the workplace to the employers, via an open conversation.
• Allows candidates to mention the reason for their time off from work, such as full-time parenting, a gap period, firing, loss, etc.
• Clear doubts that employers have on their minds.
• Emphasize what makes them more valuable as a candidate, after the break.
• Allows recruiters to look specifically for candidates who chose a career break.

The Survey Says…

Individuals are increasingly taking career breaks, however, this negatively impacts their reputation among employers. Let’s look at the outcomes of a survey performed on 23,000 workers and over 4,000 hiring managers:

• Employees who took a break at some point in their careers- 62%
• Employees planning to take a career break in the future- 35%
• Hiring managers preferring to reject candidates who took career breaks- 20%

So, why did LinkedIn decide to spotlight Career Breaks On LinkedIn Profiles?

The following reasons should be noted here:

• LinkedIn comments that professionals opt for career breaks with the objective of refining as well as acquiring skills. 56% of employees stated the same.
• When it comes to the women employees, 54% stated that their performance at the job has improved than before.

As a result, a change could be witnessed in the employers’ opinion for career breaks:

• 46% of them now think that candidates who opted for career breaks are truly competent.
• And 51% can consider calling them back after knowing the reason behind time off from work.

Steps to emphasize Career Breaks on LinkedIn profile

You can do that by following these simple steps:

Step 1: Log in to your LinkedIn account and visit your LinkedIn profile. 

Step 2: Tap on ‘Add Section’. Here, choose ‘Add a career break’.

Step 3: Fill in the required fields: the start and end time of the break, a title for the break, and a description.

Step 4: Then choose the ‘type of break’ from the following given 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
• Once you add a career break, you can find it in the ‘Experience’ section of your LinkedIn profile.

Conclusion

The introduction of this LinkedIn feature is surely foresighted to render a lot of benefits to the professionals who are on a career break. In the small-time only, we shall know how it is going to help them with their professional journey.