Women at Greatest Risk of Career Gap Stigma, According to Our Research

DID YOU KNOW? Women are more likely than men to face “career gap stigma” in the workplace due to gendered attitudes to women’s caregiving responsibilities. 

‘Career gaps’ (which we define as six months or more out of work) have long been associated with a lack of ambition or a lapse in skills. This is despite the fact that according to our research, 51% of people with career gaps believe they gained new or transferable skills during their break. Yet the stigma persists and continues to hold people back.

‍

The results: here's what our survey tells us about career gaps

Our national survey of over 2000 people found that nearly one in five women (18%) have been asked whether or not they have children (or plan to have children in the future) at some point during a recruitment process. Among senior managers, the number of women who said they’d been asked this question rose to two in five (40%).

The findings suggest this line of questioning stems from the stigma attached to the increased likelihood that women will need to take time out of work for childcare. The study found that women are three times more likely to take career breaks for childcare, compared to men. Almost four in ten (38%) women who’d taken a career break of 6 months or more cited childcare as the reason, compared to just 11% of men.  

You can see the full breakdown of this data below...

Yet almost half of women found their career gap to be valuable. When asked whether they believed they had gained new or transferable skills, or enhanced their existing skill set, during their career break, 45% of the women surveyed for this study believed they had. This points to a disconnect between employers’ and employees’ perceptions of the impact and value of taking a career break.

Our research shows that 1 in 3 Brits have taken a career break overall.

And of these people, 53% would rather not tell prospective employers about their time away from work due to the stigma attached.

‍

What can employers do to end career gap discrimination?

Whether you’ve taken time out of work to have a baby, are recovering from illness or have travelled the world, we believe you should never have to discuss or justify your career gap to an employer.

At Applied, we recognise that people take time out of work for many reasons and that a gap on a CV does not equal a lack of skills or ambition. We want to ensure all candidates entering and returning to the workforce are given an equal chance.

So, given the results of our research, we’d urge employers to assess employment histories 'blind'.

This means evolving the application process so that candidates aren’t asked to specify the dates attached to their previous roles, but to disclose the ‘number of years’ they spent in each role instead. For example, instead of saying they worked in a job from February 2020 to April 2022, they'd say they worked in that job for two years.

This means evolving the application process so that candidates aren’t asked to specify the dates attached to their previous roles, but to disclose the ‘number of years’ they spent in each role instead. For example, instead of saying they worked in a job from February 2020 to April 2022, they'd say they worked in that job for two years.

We know that this works. Research from the government’s Behavioural Insights Team found that when CV dates are replaced with number of years experience, call-back rates for candidates improved by 14% compared to candidates with an ‘explained’ or ‘unexplained’ gap on their CV. This is one of the best ways to end the stigma around career gaps at its source. It’s as simple as that.

It’s easier than you think to remove unconscious bias from your recruitment process. And ending the stigma around career gaps is an important place to start.

The first step to moving the dial is to stop asking candidates to disclose the start and end dates attached to their previous roles. Just ask them how long they were in each role for instead. This means candidates cannot be screened out early due to unconscious bias about their break away from work.

‍

Applied is the all-in-one platform for fairer hiring - purpose-built to reduce bias and reliably predict the best talent.

Start transforming your hiring now: book in a demo.