[suzzer99]

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In my experieince, it is very difficult for someone who takes 1 year off from work to get back into the work force.


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this is field dependent, and in suzzer's field (which is mine also) not really the case at all.

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Also, what have you been telling HR when they ask you why you were out of work for a year?

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uhh, "I took a year off off work to play poker/travel/whatever"? from an employer's perspective, would you rather hire an excellent engineer who took a year off or a mediocre engineer who didn't?

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This is all true. The job market for web developers, at least in LA, is so white hot right now they really don't care. I've been telling them I played poker, but also trying to illustrate how much work it was. And trying to get across that it was a nice sabbatical from programming but I'm ready to get back into it, yadda yadda. It's all in how you sell it. I'm not embarassed about poker and I'm proud of how hard I worked to get good at it. If I acted ashamed and sheepish about it maybe they would pick up on that too.

But like I said, they probably still wouldn't care. One thing I noticed, no one even asked for my professional/personal references this time around. That seems kind of weird to me for a senior position.

Also if I had taken a year off to be a crack addict or something I really didn't wan't to admit to, I could just tell them I was doing contract work. When I was in my early 20s I told a potential employer I was working on a gold mine in Alaska for the summer. That was harder to pull off than I thought. But once I started I had to see it through. I forget why, some job I'd gotten fired off of I think.