It almost seems like decades ago when news of COVID-19 broke, and Americans everywhere assumed the storm would pass within a matter of weeks, yet today the scars of a nationwide trauma still remain. As life began to have some semblance of normalcy again, many people who experienced a change in their work situation were able to pick back up and recover. However, for healthcare providers, the effects of the pandemic on their work history has now become a barrier to their return to work as usual.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, as schools and businesses shut down, so did a great deal of outpatient services and private practices. In addition to those closures, all elective surgeries were canceled. As a result, masses of qualified healthcare providers were suddenly out of work, and had to find alternative options to their normal employment in order to pay the bills.
At the same time that healthcare professionals lost their normal employment, they were also being called on by the nation to help in COVID research, treatment, testing, and vaccination centers. Many of those who stepped up simultaneously had to transition from their current positions. Nurse practitioners reverted back to registered nurses, doctors certified to work with all ages switched their focus to only adults and providers who typically worked as clinicians found themselves doing research, testing and vaccination work
What providers thought would be a temporary pivot ended up lasting much longer as the nation realized that COVID is here to stay.
Fast forward to years later in the present day, and the time these providers spent contributing to the de-escalation of the pandemic is now coming back to bite them in the form of gaps and changes in their CVs. As healthcare providers now attempt to return to the same types of positions they held pre-pandemic, they are getting turned away from job interviews due to a lack of recent work experience in their own field.
It is understandable for healthcare organizations to require recent experience in order to find the best fit and ensure the highest quality of patient care, however, facilities should consider adding more flexibility to their requirements due to COVID related work changes and gaps of employment.
We urge hiring managers in the healthcare industry to look further back in candidates’ work years of experience before making a hiring decision, as these gaps are not the faults of the providers themselves, and do not take away from the credibility they earned with their degrees, or their relevant experience prior to the pandemic.
What Healthcare Providers Can Do
Though we encourage healthcare facilities to make the appropriate adjustments to their expectations and requirements for recent work experience, this is not to say that providers don’t still play an active role within their own hiring process as well. If a hiring manager sees an unexplained gap in related experience on your CV, how are they to know the reasoning behind it?
This is why it’s important for health care professionals to take care in properly updating their CVs, and ensuring that they include work gap explanations and/or any change in job function explanation.
Before you begin writing your explanation, first conduct a simple audit of your CV to make sure it is up to date, less your explanation, and thoroughly outlines all of your relevant work experience, responsibilities, and achievements. Then compare your CV to the requirements and responsibilities of the job/s you’re applying for to be sure that you have included any and all relevant experience that you may have missed in your first draft.
Now that your professional resume properly and comprehensively reflects your work experience, you are ready to write one of two types of explanations depending on your situation: a work gap explanation, or a role change explanation.
Keeping your CV itself in mind as well, both can be broken down into the same 3 steps:
- Conduct an audit of your CV
- Compare your CV and skills section to job descriptions
- Create role change or work gap explanation
Role Change Explanation
If you were previously working in a different role and went through a “role change” during the pandemic, such as an NP practicing as an RN, or an all-ages physician only seeing adults, in addition to listing your relevant experience for this change, you can also explain why you stepped into a different role right in your CV, or on a cover letter or professional summary.
Having to explain a change in your career in healthcare is frustrating, so before you get to writing, be sure that you take a moment to sit and process any negative emotions so they are not reflected in your explanation, which should be honest, but objective.
In the same vein, use language that changes the narrative around taking on a different role to be positive. For example, use words like “transferred”, “relocated”, or “reassigned”.
Be truthful and factual about how the circumstances leading up to your decision to take the change of role was out of your control, then take a positive outlook by describing what you learned from the experience. First emphasize hard skills you used that are similar to the job you’re applying for, and then summarize any new soft skills you picked up, and talk about how they are transferable to the job you want.
Work Gap Explanation
It can be tempting to disguise a gap in employment on your CV by tinkering with dates, or to even omit it altogether, however, as employers will likely find out through a background or reference check anyways, it’s important to be honest. COVID-19 led to the loss of millions of jobs, and employers are more likely to make an exception if they see you are being truthful and making an effort.
Similarly to explaining a role change , work gap explanations should be straightforward and objective, and written with the most positive narrative as possible. As described above for role change explanations, you’ll need to first update your current CV to include all of your relevant experience, emphasizing the most important skills and responsibilities first.
For your work gap explanation itself, be sure that you label your explanation with the accurate dates for the beginning and end (if you found another job) of your work gap, a title such as “Unplanned Career Break Due to COVID-19”.
Begin writing out your explanation by concisely explaining how COVID affected the last facility or organization you worked at, and how this led to the loss of your job title. Next, you’ll want to explain what you were doing during your work gap, whether it was searching for a new job, volunteering, or continuing your education, and discuss what you learned, or the skills you gained from these experiences.
Showing potential employers that you make an effort to stay active and involved in your career, even through involuntary unemployment, shows them that you are committed to your professional growth.
Past explaining to employers why you took a different role or a break from work, always be sure to thank your potential employer for considering you for the opportunity.
The COVID-19 pandemic was hard on everyone, but healthcare professionals took an especially hard hit to their careers and are still struggling to recover 2 years after the initial surges of the pandemic. If hiring managers get more flexible with recent experience requirements, and healthcare providers put additional effort into how they present their circumstances on paper, together we can get more jobs staffed, and more providers back to work.
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