Suppose a postdoc spent 3 years going through a heavy divorce but was still working full time. But it meant he didn't focus on good career development. Can and should he include this in his CV when applying for assistant professorship jobs?
Sometimes in applications they ask "include details of career breaks". But this doesn't count as a career break.
No.
I understand you are trying to get the equivalent of a golf handicap, with the hope that you will be evaluated on your potential and not your actual production. The problem with that approach is that almost nobody lives a 'clean' life: if you were to poll all postdoc applicants, you'll find that they all have gone through at least one major setback: serious illness, divorce, death in the family or of a close friend, abusive relationships, unwanted pregnancy or miscarriage, mental health issues, estrangement from parents (e.g. being cut-off from financial support), etc. There's a misconception, particularly in US culture (where I live, I don't know where you live) that everybody has a 'clean' life and a few, the exceptions have setbacks. This attitude is not as common in other countries, e.g. countries in Latin America or Germany, where people more openly talk about their problems.
Trying to get a handicap because of a stressful divorce might work against you, because it will mark you as the type of person who wants to be evaluated on potential and not results. A prospective employer will then ask themselves what will you do when the next thing happens, e.g. when one of your parents inevitably dies, your child goes to the hospital, you end up in a bad relationship, etc. Will you be the type that sends an email message mid-project saying you will take a month-long "mental health break" (this has started to become more common in the past few years)? This is not to say that you should not take time off work when you need it, but that presenting yourself as someone wanting to be evaluated on potential and not results is a big red flag.
No, I would say this is unlikely to reflect well on you. There's a chance you might get someone sympathetic to your situation. However, it very well may also reflect badly on you - the person reading the application may infer that you are difficult to get along with and cause conflict, or that you make excuses when things don't go as planned in your career. Whether these interpretations are fair or not is immaterial if the person reading the application believes them.
Nope.
Your prospective employer doesn't need to know this and generally you want to avoid providing any superfluous information that could be a cause to discriminate against you.
That's not to mention that what an employer cares about is your ability to do your job regardless of everything else going on in your life. It's your output that matters, not your output modulated against how hard your life has been.
It sounds unfair, but everyone has their issues and it's the only fair way to do it. How could an interviewer reasonably assess whether Person A who has some great evidence of being an above average employee but has no life drama is better for the job than Person B who was an average employee but their dog died and their brother was hit by a car that year? For all the interviewer knows, Person B is a complete sociopath who hated their brother and doesn't care about their dog whilst Person A is actually, unbeknownst to them, secretly suffering through depression. The only thing you can go off is evidence of ability to do the job.
Now, if you did actually take a career gap and it was questioned in the interview, you could reasonably excuse it by saying you were dealing with family issues and they should say no more about it. However, you didn't take a career gap.
No. If necessary, mention it in the application cover letter. But not in the CV.
