How to explain a career break on your CV (without apologising for it)

If you've spent any time at home raising children, you've probably stared at that stretch of your CV wondering how to make it disappear. Here's the truth: you don't need to hide it. You need to reframe it.

Applicant tracking systems — the software that scans your CV before a human ever sees it — don't penalise gaps. They penalise missing keywords. So the fix isn't to disguise your career break; it's to make sure the rest of your CV speaks the scanner's language.

Name it plainly, then move on

Start with a single line that names the break: "Career break — full-time parenting, 2022–2025." No apology, no euphemism. Then get straight back to your skills, using the exact phrases from the job advert you're applying to.

In our founding-member reviews, this one change — naming the break and moving on — has been the difference between silence and interview invitations. The gap was never the problem. The framing was.