LinkedIn's new feature offers people 13 ways to explain their career gap — including full-time parent, gap year or personal project

• LinkedIn has released a new tool enabling people to highlight their career breaks on their account.
• Despite a long-held stigma among recruiters, career gaps can provide people with new skills.

LinkedIn has long been a platform where people highlight their achievements in work — now it wants to help professionals highlight the occasions that they're out of work.

The platform has released a tool enabling members to share that they're on a career break, and detail the reasons why on their profile.

The company said it wants to better reflect the career journeys of its members, and normalize the idea of taking a career break, which has held a stigma among recruiters.

Camilla Han-He, senior product manager at LinkedIn, announced the launch in a blog post on March 1.

Users will be able to use the Career Breaks feature to indicate that they're on a career break within the experience section of their profile — with any reasons why — alongside their wider professional experience.

There are numerous reasons why someone may temporarily take time away from their career, including caregiving, health conditions, or simply to pursue a personal project. They'll be able to select 13 options, including bereavement, career transition, and retirement as reasons, per Han-He's blog.

Lay-off, voluntary work, professional development, relocation, gap year, travel and full-time parent are the other options.

The long-held stigma associated with career breaks is changing

The idea of a career break has been overshadowed by negative perceptions, Charlotte Davies, career expert at LinkedIn told Insider.

Davis said: "When it comes to returning to the office after taking one, people can easily feel overwhelmed, particularly with the added pressure of having to prove to colleagues that they're still on top of their game."

That stigma can acutely affect women, who still bear a larger burden of caring responsibilities. According to a LinkedIn survey of 22,995 workers in January 2022, 60% said they believe the stigma still exists.

The pandemic, labor shortage, and subsequent war for talent have potentially softened the view among recruiters as companies are forced to widen the talent pools they recruit from.

Career breaks can provide returnees with a range of transferable skills they wouldn't otherwise have gained, but could provide benefits when they return to the workplace, Davies said.

It's still important that returnees highlight the reasons behind their career break, as well as any skills they may have picked up during that time.

An unexplained career break was one of the most common mistakes job seekers make on their résumé last year, alongside bad spelling and lack of personal summary.

LinkedIn accounts are increasingly being used by recruiters to assess candidates and to attract them to apply — applicants should think of it as being akin to a living, breathing CV.