Have you heard of the changes that LinkedIn is making in providing more flexible language and profile options for women who have left the workforce?

One planned change will allow users to create separate sections for employment gaps and choose one of 10 different types of hiatus, including “parental leave,” “family care leave,” or “sabbatical”.

Why is this important?

I see this as progress in normalizing work pauses.

With schools and day cares shutting down, over $2.3 million women opted out of the workforce just in the last year. We are going to see more and more stay-at-home-parent titles on people’s resumes and LinkedIn profiles.

This is a step forward to accepting work pauses and no longer penalizing parents for taking time off to take care of their family.

Millions of people, not just women have been affected by the pandemic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: “The unemployment rate edged down to 6.0 percent in March 2021. The rate is down considerably from its recent high in April 2020 but is 2.5 percentage points higher than its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.” All these millions of people, men and women who lost their jobs, will have a pause in their work history on their resumes.

A silver lining to the pandemic

Numbers make a difference. Perhaps the silver lining of this pandemic is that with so many people having work pauses on their resumes, work pauses will be accepted as normal. Recruiters will no longer identify each pause as a red flag and penalize the candidates.

Have you listened to my  my conversation with Jodi Flynn on the Women Taking the Lead podcast?
Normalizing career pauses was just one of the things I mentioned that we can be optimistic about. Yes, there is more to be optimistic about too! 

Listen to the podcast and I would love to hear your thoughts about this important topic!