Adding a Career Break on LinkedIn

Whether you were outside the workforce for six months – or six years – adding a career break on LinkedIn helps to address one of the most common insecurities amongst job seekers: employment gaps.

In March 2022, LinkedIn rolled out new ‘career break’ functionality, giving users the ability to spotlight a ‘career break’ on their profile to compensate for an employment gap.

Read: Adding Job Location Type on LinkedIn

Related: Is LinkedIn Premium Career Worth It?

The following article provides an overview on adding a career break to your LinkedIn profile.

Career Break Overview

Employment gaps are a long-standing and prevalent source of insecurity for job seekers. So, how can you best communicate your reason(s) for being outside the workforce on your LinkedIn profile?

Here are the types of career breaks on LinkedIn:

• Bereavement, career transition, caregiving, full-time parenting, gap year, layoff/position eliminated, health and well-being, personal goal pursuit, professional development, relocation, retirement, travel, and voluntary work.

Adding a Career Break

Adding a career break to your LinkedIn profile is easy! It’s just like adding a new position to your profile.

Simply choose the most appropriate ‘type’ of career break for your circumstances. Then add relevant details like dates, geographic location, and a written description (up to 2,000 characters). You may also include media such as external documents, photos, websites, videos, and presentations.

Here’s how a blank career break form looks on LinkedIn:

Career Break Example

For example, imagine taking a multi-month career break to travel across Europe. While spending time in Italy, you might need to know the best way to send money to Italy to cover short-term housing, transportation, or everyday expenses. In situations like this, using the career break functionality on your LinkedIn profile is a smart way to show recruiters and hiring managers what you were doing during that time.

In Conclusion

Whatever your reasons – employment gaps are a normal part of being a professional. Whether you’re sightseeing across Europe, providing care for an ill family member, or pursuing a personal goal – now you’re able to communicate the context around your employment gap to hiring managers and recruiters.

Want professional assistance with adding career breaks to your LinkedIn profile? Have a look at our LinkedIn Optimization service which includes a top-to-bottom redevelopment of your entire LinkedIn profile.