What should I do about my employment gap? Should I just my put recent jobs?

[Sweety2087]

I had a 4 year gap around the time that I had depression and on top that had a medical condition. The job that I'm applying for is the first job that I have ever worked in. Should I just put my recent jobs and not put the job I worked for? The other problem is that the older jobs I worked for were more impressive than the last two that I had recently especially since one was fast food. The job I worked for is more than 10 years ago. I would also like not to speak about my depression as I have overcome this part of my life and now am a completely different person thanks to finding my faith again.

Updates

+1 y

Thank you all so much for your help. I will take all of them in consideration.

[Gent207-2]

As a recruiter for a staffing agency in the US, I examine A LOT of resumes. I can tell you that I am not so concerned about an employment gap especially since COVID and economic trends. My only concern is what does your resume say about you and how you fit a particular role.

Do you meet the requirements both academic and character?

Your job experience provides evidence of your skills and abilities to do a job. But how does your job history tie to my job requirements?

My best piece of advice is to run your resume by your local community college's job/career department. Everyone has one including your local library, getting their input can help shape and strengthen your resume.

Lastly there are also free templates online and in Microsoft Word.

Good luck

[razelove]

If the job is doing a background check tell the truth, if they are not, just lie about one of the jobs you were on good terms with, or that had poor book-keeping and stretch that time to cover everything.

You could also say you were self-employed. My biggest gap in employment was because I was working a lot of contracts for different companies, but I had opened by own company, mostly for tax purposes, either way it filled the gap in for several years pretty well.

It's really cheap to open your own company as well, at least the S-class corp. filing is.

[jennifer_bloom]

Say you were nursing a sick parent or grandparent or sibling or husband. Say you were studying. Say you were working as a pastor. Say you were in China selling wine.

[BarryLiverstone]

Don’t create a resume based on chronology. Instead shape the resume based on the skills needed for the job you are applying for. Also if you have a 4 year gap you can speak on that in an interview with projects you worked on and any training you did. Bottom line the resume doesn’t get you the job it’s only meant to screen out anyone who isn’t qualified.

[Billlewis]

I've been in this situation before, and I just added some time to the two jobs I worked to make the time closer.