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I used to be a tenure-track assistant professor. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out because I failed to publish, and so my job perished two years ago. Even more unfortunately, the stress and unhappiness of my life circumstances led me into a vicious cycle of depression.

Fortunately, after a bit over a year, I have recovered quite a bit from this depression, and am now feeling confident and motivated enough to look for a full-time teaching job. (My previous job was on the research track. I had struggled with the research part of my job, but excelled in the teaching part, so I feel that a teaching job is a good fit for my skills and interests.)

One question I have is whether to mention, and how to refer to the gap year in my employment. There is a one-year gap in my employment history between my previous full-time job, and starting a part-time adjunct professor job at my previous employer, thanks to help from some of my former colleagues (I get by with a little help from my friends).

When I am writing a cover letter for a job application, should I make any references to a gap year in my employment history due to depression?

  • Should I pretend there is no employment gap or just not mention it?
  • Should I make a note of it and explain what happened briefly?
  • Or is there another better way to explain the situation?
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No. It's nobody's business. People take breaks for all sorts of reasons, including having children, caring for family members, to travel, and also for (mental) health reasons -- but these are all legitimate reasons and I see no cause why you need to explain yourself in your CV.

Most people will know better than to ask you during an interview about it, because there are so many possible pitfalls. But if someone does, just say "I took a year's leave for personal reasons", and leave it at that. Any of the ones above are "personal reasons", and so people should not infer anything negative about you from the statement. If they press, just say "I'd like to leave it at that". It's none of their business.

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    This is a good answer. I know some people may be thinking that with all the messaging out there about removing stigma from mental illness, this should be okay, but that's naïve and foolish. We may have come forward a bit with our understanding and (sy/e)mpathy for such things, but it will likely never happen that you can broadcast this kind of information about yourself with zero fear of a negative outcome. More to this answer's point, it simply isn't NECESSARY to include it, so why take the risk?
    – bubbleking
    Commented May 6 at 19:35
  • Yes, precisely.
    – Wolfgang Bangerth
    Commented May 6 at 19:44
  • In addition, depression in particular is sensitive because it carries a risk of relapse, and no employer no matter how nice wants to risk having an employee out of service for multiple months at least in case of a major depressive episode.
    – gerrit
    Commented May 7 at 11:04
  • I don't quite disagree overall, but you say that people "should not" infer anything negative from saying "personal reasons", but if someone is asking in the first place, it's quite possible they consider it important, and may take a vague reply like "personal reasons" negatively whether they should or not.
    – Lii
    Commented May 7 at 23:36
  • @Karen Perhaps, but that's out of your hands. If they're professionals who've been around for a while, they will understand that there could be many reasons behind not wanting to answer the question, some of which are negative, but that in the end they really can't know.
    – Wolfgang Bangerth
    Commented May 8 at 2:34

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