Featured: Forbes: Expert Advice For C-Suite Job Seekers With Résumé Gaps
- Forbes
- 17 hours ago
- 5 min read
Expert Advice For C-Suite Job Seekers With Résumé Gaps
Forbes Councils Member
Aug 18, 2026, 08:15am EST
A gap on an executive résumé doesn’t have to be a liability—especially when it’s framed with honesty, purpose and a clear narrative of continued growth. In reality, not too many career paths are totally linear, and most organizations recognize that senior leaders sometimes take time away to navigate major transitions, pursue personal goals or expand their expertise.
What matters most is how candidates communicate their unique experiences and connect them to the value they’ll bring to their next leadership role. Below, Forbes Coaches Council members share advice to help C-suite job seekers address résumé gaps confidently and effectively.
Address Résumé Gaps Proactively
Executive résumé gaps draw more scrutiny, not less. This is because a senior leader's exit, whether by choice or not, affects the business far more than one employee leaving. Don't wait for an executive headhunter or hiring manager to surface it. Often, it's best to address the gap directly and briefly on your résumé before they ask; otherwise, you risk them making up stories that are worse than any truth. - Dr. Kyle Elliott, MPA, CHES, CaffeinatedKyle.com
Demonstrate Continued Executive Impact
I will often discuss strategies for providing consulting or fractional services with actual clients, projects and outcomes. Board or volunteer leadership also work well. The trick? We must be able to show and discuss real executive-level use of one's skills and, when possible, strong outcomes. This strategy, when done right, not only fills in résumé gaps, but also strengthens their experience too! - Emily Kapit, MS, MRW, ACRW, CPRW, ReFresh Your Step, LLC
Turn Career Gaps Into Growth Opportunities
The gap isn't the issue. It's how the gap has been leveraged. In an ever-evolving business climate, especially within an AI frontier, embracing this key tool will be critical for C-suite leaders to fully understand and embrace. You are never too long into your career to learn a few more competencies along the way. If fractional or consulting work isn’t filling the gaps, offering your expertise on a board or nonprofit demonstrates leadership being embraced for greater good. - Sherre DeMao, BizGrowth Inc
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Use Time Away To Build New Skills
Use gaps for growth. A gap period is a great time to enhance your skills. Taking classes, workshops and gaining certificates can help not only fill the time in a gap, but show your ability to take ownership of your expertise and skills. It shows a commitment to growth. - Susan Bortone, Noble Talent Group
Explain Gaps With Honesty And Outline Growth
As a former executive recruiter and advisor to DHR, I recommend that being honest and explaining your gaps is the most important thing to do, as a good recruiter will unearth the gaps anyways. What I would suggest is to outline what you are doing or learning to reduce the size of the gap. Everybody has things to learn! - Catherine Bell, The Awakened Company
Clearly Highlight The Value Of Time Spent Away
Be intentional about the benefits that came because of the gap. Highlight how your executive performance capacity is now strengthened from what you learned during your gap, through board leadership or community involvement, for example. This provides the executive recruiter with speaking points and brings them along to clearly see how your strength will advance the company's success. Don't assume they will make the connection you want them to. Speak to it with confidence. - Linda Allen-Hardisty, Allen-Hardisty Leadership Group
Lead With Resilience And Lessons Learned
Here are three tips: Be unapologetic and savvy, own your impact and share a leadership story strategically, safely and transparently. When gaps exist, illuminate the strengths plus lessons learned. Amplify how you invested in growth, served others, gained new skills or led triumphs, change or pain. Revealing the strategy, agility, confidence and resilience will outshine chronology. - Mariama Boney, Achieve More LLC
Focus On Judgment Over Chronology
Stop apologizing for the gap and start naming what it built. Boards do not hire timelines; they hire judgment, and judgment is often sharpest in people who stepped away long enough to see a system clearly instead of just running inside it. Reframe the gap as evidence of deliberate decision-making, then anchor your pitch in outcomes you can prove. Executives who explain themselves poorly get filtered out before anyone reads the substance. - Dr. Nore Salman, The Heart Centered Leadership Institute
Articulate The Value Of The Pauses
Ironically, a résumé with no gaps can raise as many questions as one with them. Executives who never pause rarely demonstrate reflection. If your gap was intentional, articulate what it enabled you to see, learn or reset. At senior levels, thoughtful pauses can signal judgment, not weakness. Thus, offer insight into the intentionality of the gap and the outcomes that resulted from the time away. It could be a powerful story that garners your next role. - Arthi Rabikrisson, Prerna Advisory
Align Your Résumé With Your Current Story
Résumé gaps are only a real concern if they are current and unexplained. If the gap is in the past, and if you're asked, offer a clear, concise story. If it is current, you need a strategy that aligns your résumé with your story and reinforces your judgment, priorities and readiness for a C-suite role now. - Cara Heilmann, International Association of Career Coaches
Lead With The Value You Bring Today
My advice is not to try to justify a gap in your résumé, but rather to focus on the value you can bring today. Standout leaders ask insightful questions, understand the company's direction and connect their experience to those challenges. Ultimately, a strong strategic conversation carries far more weight than a missing line on a CV. - Veronica Angela, CONQUER EDGE, LLC
Use Career Gaps To Build AI Expertise
Whenever I speak to a senior leader between roles, I encourage them to invest time in understanding how AI will reshape their industry or function. You don’t need to become a vibe coder, but you do need to understand AI strategy, workflows and transformation. In interviews, that career gap becomes a competitive advantage because you can demonstrate one of the most valuable leadership capabilities for the decade ahead: the skills to turn AI into business value and growth. - Gabriella Goddard, Brainsparker Ltd
Fill Gaps With Evidence Of Meaningful Contributions
Don't try to hide the gap. Fill it with evidence. A résumé can skip a year, but your thinking shouldn't. Publish articles, mentor founders, serve on advisory boards, earn a certification, speak at industry events or lead meaningful projects. Executives are hired for judgment, not continuous employment. The strongest candidates make it obvious they never stopped growing, even when they stopped collecting paychecks. - Alla Adam, Adam Impact Institute
Own Your Story With Conviction
Before I help executives explain a résumé gap, I make sure they've come to terms with it themselves. The most polished story still feels unconvincing if the speaker hasn't fully accepted why the gap happened or what they learned from it. Boards rarely challenge the facts—they notice the incongruence. Credibility comes from conviction, not just a well-rehearsed narrative. - Samuel Rodrigues, Baxtter Corporation
Frame The Gap As A Deliberate Choice
On the gap: Don’t hide it. Frame it as a deliberate chapter—for example, "stepped away to advise boards and reset." Don’t avoid it. Show you are still current through advisory roles, board seats or a fresh certification. Lead with quantified outcomes so tenure year gaps recede as footnotes. And make peace with it before you interview. - Naila Qazi, Deloitte Canada
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