I've been working as a Software Engineer for around 2 year for a company, and I'll be leaving soon. This was my first job out of college and was a bit of a disappointment, since it didn't require so much coding and I didn't learn much related to software development. Now I feel my skills need some "updating", and I have some side projects planned that motivate me much more. I also have some savings and would like to spend some time learning something new (German, for example) and reading some books I've been stacking through these years. My biggest concerns are whether these side projects can be useful or if I would learn more in a real job as a programmer, and mainly how bad it would look in the CV having an "empty" year. Anyone ever did this? Did you have any issues finding a new place afterward?
I have lots of several-month-long "empty" spaces because of graduate school unrelated to the tech field. Nobody seems to care. I've had 2 new contracts and 1 full-time job since then, and about 6 interviews where people occasionally asked about it but seemed perfectly satisfied with the idea that I was just doing something else. After one year you will not be seriously behind in any technology, even if a substantial new version comes out. If it were 3 years it might be problematic, or if you were unemployed because you were looking and couldn't get hired.
In you CV be ready to have a good explication. Say that you take full time improvement time or something that do not look that you haven't be able to get a job. I think it's respectable and I would not have any judgment on you about 1 year off. You also say that you haven't wrote anything because it wasn't related to computer. I prefer blank in CV than job or other stuff that has not any sense.
I've had a similar, but slightly different situation. I worked for a company overseas for a couple of years and had trouble finding a position back home afterward. This wasn't because of the position, but because I had lost most of my contacts in the industry locally.
A year off in your resume can be easily explained, but it might be a little bit early in your career to take a year off unless you are updating your skills. I think it should be development related at this early stage of your career. Your current skills are still fairly new and the industry is changing very quickly. It may be hard to keep up if you are not forced to with your current job.
Instead of asking how bad this might be, think about how good it will be. Travel is invaluable, even though you might be doing less technical things and more social things.
In New Zealand, most young people do this sometime after (or during) their school - it's called an OE (Overseas Experience). Take a year off, travel to somewhere interesting. Sometimes people find work on their OE, sometimes not. I know a guy who worked for 21 years for the same company straight out of university, and last year he took off to Germany to take up a job there. When he left, all he could say in German was "ein Bier, bitte".
I think its not so bad if you have sufficient experience. For instance, after my first 4 years as a developer, I spent nearly an entire year (2003) unemployed, but finally did not have trouble finding work when the economy improved, due to my experience in a half dozen or so languages during those first 4 years. More recently, I've been developing primarily with PHP the last 2 years, but still was able to find a Java position despite 2 years without using it much.
Anyway I hope I'm right, I just laid off last week.
Consider doing some freelance work on Craigslist during your time off. That way you can stay up-to-date and also have something to show future employers. It helped me get my first job.
While you might be able to explain a year gap in your resume, a lot of employers are looking for stability. If you have a short history or a choppy history (changing jobs after short durations), this is only going to make your resume less appealing.
You say that you have a single two year position out of college. If you are planning on taking a year off, you might find that your experience (which you admit was not an optimal position to begin with) will not greatly differentiate you from fresh college graduates who are willing to work for less money.
There is one more thing, and I do not know what languages / platforms you work with, is that if there is change within your language / platform in the year that you are off and you haven't stayed current with it, it will be even harder to play catchup.
I did. I'm off for more than one year now. I wouldnt matter a lot about the CV. If you do stuff you like that shows that you have some initiative ate least. In my case, Ive got a lot of freelance jobs and my CV is much better now than at the beginning of the year.
And a great sideproject can go a long way.
Cheers
Having just done this, I would say it can be invaluable, if you can afford it financially.
Once you're back on the job market, it's mostly about spin. Your reasons for taking time off were good, you just need to make them look good on your CV as well. First and foremost, don't call it being "unemployed" — that implies that it wasn't by choice. Instead, call it a "sabbatical" and list any open source / pro-bono work that you did during that time, as well as a list of skills added/expanded.
I just returned to work after taking eight months off to shift the direction of my career. The skills I've learned and experience I've gained — even if I wasn't paid for it — allowed me to change from a focus I merely tolerated to one I'm genuinely eager about and raised my pay considerably in the process. Just emphasize the fact that you weren't "out of work" — you just didn't get paid for the work you did.
I did it also, i took extra time to write thesis, because when i worked i had no time and will to do it. It didnt matter, because Im great at job interviews and like always i picked the company i liked the most.
As a hiring manager, I can honestly say that your technical ability, skill, insight, and creativity are far more important than the number of consecutive years of service that you've had. I was happy to interview a candidate who took off 9 months to hike the Appalachian Trail because his skills were so strong.
I think the more limiting factor is to take a year off before you settle down, get married, get a mortgage, have kids, etc - if that happens to be in your future.
I'm doing it right now. Two weeks ago I left my company because I was fed up. I've been working there for 7 years. First of all, as Ben Blank said, you have to think of financial sustainability. My intention is not to take a year off, but to reroute my career as a developer because I became sort of a consultant, which to me it means the kind of people who doensn't develope anymore and disrespect developers. At least that's what I see when I look around and I don't want to be that way. I like developing, I hate wasting time doing useless piles of documents.
Now I will have time to selfteach new things I want to try and then find a job about what I like. I think it's a good idea to stop and think for a while. Not everybody realizes that. It is important to take charge of one's career.
In ten years or so the non-technical skills in your CV will probably be of more importance than the technical ones.
Regarding using the time to learn German, or anything else, read this:
AJATT: Why do people who have all the time in the world get nothing done?
I'm currently learning Chinese (without taking time off work) and I find this site has a fair bit of useful advice.
I took 20 months off to travel around the world. That was after 5 years of post-college work experience. Nobody seems to care. Sometimes I think I detect some jealous resentment, but for the most part it has had no effect on my career.
As a hiring manager, a 1-year break would not be a huge deal to me, but you would have to convince me you are still current with your skillset. If you spent the year not programming, you'll have a hard time landing a job. This isn't because of your resume, but rather your ability to perform in the interviews. You'd be amazed how quickly the details leave you. It is this lack of details that many interviewers will pick up on. It will likely be interpreted as a lack of knowledge rather than just being rusty.
In short, take the year off, but make sure you have a plan for brushing up your skills before you start searching for jobs again.
I've been hiring engineers for a while & have had to wade through a lot of resumes. How bad is a gap? Well, there's no black & white answer. It depends on when it was, why, and the rest of your resume.
If the gap is a few jobs ago, honestly, I'm not going to care that much. At most, I might ask in the phone screen. Your last 2-3 years are generally the most important.
If I'm looking at your resume immediately after returning to the market, it definitely will draw attention. What I'm going to try to figure out is it you haven't been able to find a job (not a good sign), or is it because you took time home, had personal matters to attend to (e.g., a sick family member, etc.)? Proactively explaining the situation is a good idea so folks don't assume the worst.
So how much attention will it draw and how will it affect you? Well, if you were a rockstar, with solid accomplishments, a great track record, etc., not much. Even if it was to travel or what have you for a year, I'll just think he's an asskicker who needed a break. We've all been there. Props to him for acting on it.
On the other hand, if your resume is weak/mediocre, there's just a big gap between now & your last job, with no explanation, well... I have a million resumes and only so much time, so it's hard to justify putting that one on top of the others.
So my advice:
- Leave your current position strong. Ideally strong enough, that when you come back, they'd be willing to take you back. (A safety net doesn't hurt.)
- or -
- Take of 11 months instead of 12. Use that last month to kick ass on something open source. That'll show your skills are sharp, you're motivated, and passionate. Then you're definitely worth that next step.
I did a number of months of not working at one time as I wanted to oversee a second home I was building that was a custom design that I came up with. Used that time too, though, to learn new computer software programming skills and research some Internet biz ideas. It's nice to have the freedom to go in technology directions that one chooses.
There are plenty of open source projects that you could get involved with. At some point you'd learn enough to become a primary contributor. Definitely a resume experience.
Now if you'd like to get involved in an open source project from the ground up, then I've got one that is getting to the cusp of going public.
My problem is that these days I'm a dev mgr over multiple products and dev teams, and that in itself is a major time sync. When I get some hours to work on this project it is usually at a late night hour and I'll be up to 2:30 AM. Alas, a lot of the act of creating software takes time.
At any rate, if you're interested in something like that, check out these links (this effort will ultimately require doing work in: Java, ActionScript3, C#, language parsing, learning some of the details of Spring-Framework, Prana, and Spring.NET, documenting code and APIs, and writing end-user documentation):
is JFig language syntax efficient and clear (and better than Spring-Framework’s XML DSL)?
or
I am just going to do the same - it seems as if you took away words from my mouth!
Take a year off and start a micro-ISV. Whether you succeed or fail, its like business school on crack.
I think it's a brilliant idea. But make sure you will learn some new languages and technologies. For that you need be very disciplined because being at home can lead to laziness. In that mean time you can work as a freelancer to make your CV look nice ;).