LinkedIn has created a new feature that allows professional profiles to show that they are at a pause in their career and to offer more context about the skills and experiences that we may have acquired during this type outside of the workplace.
This new functionality is available now for users in the United States, although it is not available for other regions of the world. For now, there is no official information on when it will be activated in other countries, although it may be soon.
LinkedIn has pointed out that this new feature has been introduced in response to repeated requests from users , who needed a way to highlight the most positive aspects of a work break or a momentary interruption in their professional careers. In this regard, users wanted a way to show that life experiences and skills gained during such a break can sometimes match what employers ask for to fill certain open positions.
This feature is designed to encourage an open discussion between candidates and recruiters about what they’ve been doing during those periods when they haven’t been working. In this way, thanks to the new functionality, it will be possible to indicate if during the time between one job and another we have taken time to be full-time fathers or mothers, if it has been a break for health reasons, if we have wanted to start a new training or if we have simply taken a gap year to rest, travel or care for someone.
LinkedIn has noted that professionals taking career breaks often do so to hone their skills or develop new ones.
To use this function (in those regions where it is already activated), once it has been activated in Spain, we will have to access our LinkedIn profile and click on “Add Section”. From here, we will select the option to add a Professional Break and we must fill in the indicated fields, as well as the start and end time of the break, a title and a description of it. To finish, we will have to select the type of pause between the options offered by LinkedIn and publish.
