Sep 20, 2026 · 10 min · 7 segments
Many capable women have a gap on their CV they dread explaining, from family violence, illness, burnout, a workplace injury, or caring. In a job interview, the choice can feel like one of two options…
Jamila RizviHostHelen McCabeHost
Many capable women have a gap on their CV that they absolutely dread having to explain.
Maybe you've sustained a workplace injury or you had some caring responsibilities that were particularly complex.
Now, in a job interview, it can feel like you've got a choice between two options.
Either you overshare and you tell the interviewer everything that happened to you or you lie about it.
So in this episode, we're going to talk about traumatic employment gaps and try and give you some of the tools so that you can share as much or as little about what has happened to you as you feel comfortable with.
And Helen, a whole bunch of research confirms that this is a real challenge for people in job interviews.
Harvard Business School research across the US, UK and Germany found 43 to 48% of employers using applicant tracking systems screen out CVs with a gap of more than six months before a human ever reads them.
UK recruiter surveys rank recent experience in the last 12 months as a top two screening priority above length of experience.
It's often women who face this double whammy where they've got a gap in their CV, they've had some time out of the workforce.
And the reason for that time out of the workforce has been trauma, which can affect their confidence in trying to come back to work.
And so questions about those employment gaps, they can really cause panic for people.
And that's something we're actually going to discuss in detail in the next episode.
But so that you understand, folks, after trauma, the amygdala, which is part of your brain, it's the fight, flight or freeze part, it becomes hyper, hyper vigilant because it has experienced trauma.
So when you're in an interview and someone uses a particularly difficult or harsh tone of voice or there's a really pointed question that's designed to push you, that can tip you into hyper or hypo arousal and you get all panicky and racing thoughts and you could even go blank or numb or even disassociate in an extreme circumstance.
Many capable women have a gap on their CV that they absolutely dread having to explain.
Maybe you've sustained a workplace injury or you had some caring responsibilities that were particularly complex.
Now, in a job interview, it can feel like you've got a choice between two options.
Either you overshare and you tell the interviewer everything that happened to you or you lie about it.
So in this episode, we're going to talk about traumatic employment gaps and try and give you some of the tools so that you can share as much or as little about what has happened to you as you feel comfortable with.
And Helen, a whole bunch of research confirms that this is a real challenge for people in job interviews.
Harvard Business School research across the US, UK and Germany found 43 to 48% of employers using applicant tracking systems screen out CVs with a gap of more than six months before a human ever reads them.
UK recruiter surveys rank recent experience in the last 12 months as a top two screening priority above length of experience.
It's often women who face this double whammy where they've got a gap in their CV, they've had some time out of the workforce.
And the reason for that time out of the workforce has been trauma, which can affect their confidence in trying to come back to work.
And so questions about those employment gaps, they can really cause panic for people.
And that's something we're actually going to discuss in detail in the next episode.
But so that you understand, folks, after trauma, the amygdala, which is part of your brain, it's the fight, flight or freeze part, it becomes hyper, hyper vigilant because it has experienced trauma.
So when you're in an interview and someone uses a particularly difficult or harsh tone of voice or there's a really pointed question that's designed to push you, that can tip you into hyper or hypo arousal and you get all panicky and racing thoughts and you could even go blank or numb or even disassociate in an extreme circumstance.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
