From the course: Rock Your LinkedIn Profile
Add a career break
- [Narrator] Have you taken time off from traditional employment recently? Maybe you've taken time to be a full-time parent, provide care to a loved one, or just taken a mental health and wellbeing break. You aren't alone. LinkedIn introduced career breaks to change the narrative and to help remove the negative stigma associated with taking time away from traditional work. With career breaks, you can share context and details about breaks you've taken right within your experience section. Let's take a look at how to add a career break with our friend James. Here we are in James' profile. We'll scroll down to the experience section. To add a career break, James will select the plus icon and select add career break. Next, he'll specify the type of career break. In this case, James took a break to be a full-time parent and care for his three-year-old daughter and new baby. So he'll select full-time parenting. Then he'll add his location. He's based in Sydney in Australia, so he's going to add Greater Sydney area. He's currently on his career break, so he's going to keep this box checked. The start date was actually October of last year, so he'll add that in. Next, he's going to add the description. He recently made the decision to leave his job in web design and focus his energy on caring for his kids full time, so he's going to add that into the description. Next, he'll highlight what he actually did during his break and add that in. He embraced fatherhood, perfected time management skills, gained new skills in empathy and compassion, and really learned the importance of adaptability and how to pivot to meet ever-changing needs. James has the option to add any supporting rich media if he wants to. In this case, he won't, so he'll just click save. Now his career break appears right at the top of his profile. Way to go, James. Remember these tips when adding a career break. If applicable, highlight new skill sets you've acquired while on your break. Many times, these skills are transferable to jobs within companies. Tie your career break into your overall professional story. You can consider adding a line or two about your break into your summary in the about section and also to your profile video to provide additional context. According to a recent survey, 62% of people around the world have taken a career break, and more than half of all hiring managers say career breaks are becoming more common. Add yours today and bring your full life experience to your LinkedIn profile.
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