Putting your gap year on your CV

Putting your gap year on your CV
How to make sure your gap year enhances your career prospects.

Your gap year is likely to be one of the best experiences of your life. And, with a little bit of thought, you can make it work for you for years to come - something you might want to bear in mind over the next 12 months.

After uni, or perhaps even during it, you'll be applying for jobs and your gap year can add a bit of sparkle to your CV. Employers look for people with transferable skills who've done something different - as someone who's had a gap year, that's definitely you!

After the welcome home drinks and the photo marathons, sit down and think how what you've done can show employers that you're a bright, independent-thinking and motivated people-person whom they should be desperate to employ.

Specific examples, like “I set up an after-school drama club, which put on a play for the parents”, makes what you're saying more convincing.

If you're reading this page after your gap year, here's a few suggestions to jog your memory.

• Using your initiative
  • If you were teaching or coaching or volunteering in a developing country, were you faced with a lack of resources? What did you use instead? Did you arrange new activities that other people hadn't thought of? If you did any independent travelling, were you faced with any unexpected circumstances, like a bus not turning up? How did you deal with it?
• Organisation
  • If you took part in sports coaching, did you put children into teams or draw up training and competition schedules? When you were working out how to fund your gap year, how did you organise your finances? How did you prepare for your gap year?
• Team work
  • Did you work with local volunteers or other participants to achieve results?
• Communicating
  • Did you learn to relate to people of different ages and backgrounds?  Did you learn another language or learn anything about communicating when language failed?

• Speaking in public
  • Maybe you were quite nervous about standing up in front of children or adults when you first arrived, but got used to it and even enjoyed it. What did you do to improve your confidence?
• New skills
  • Did you learn any new skills on your gap trip? Any new skills learnt, whether they were the basics of a new language, a new sport like surfing or scuba diving or whether you developed a new confidence with making friends, teamwork or organisation, get them down on your CV.