GUEST COMMENT: Dealing with tragedy and its impact on your CV

A small % of the people who come to me as a headhunter have had awful things happen in their lives, knocking them out of employment, and now they want back in.

I have to be coldly objective with them, partly because I'm not a counsellor, I'm a recruiter, and also because they seem to have had enough of empathy, and prefer to focus on things they can actually do something about.

My advice is usually as follows. First you need to deal with the gap in your CV. Forget lying because banks check for gaps, so you need a short clear reason for leaving work with as few gory details as possible. So bureaucratic is the CV checking process these days, that it's worth getting some paperwork to prove the issue.

Second, you need to show that it is over. All employers emit the industry standard lie that they care about you as an individual, but the reality is that no manager wants someone on their team who is going to take lots of compassionate leave. Do not ask about the company policy on this.

Show closure, don't demand sympathy

At interview, you need to show that you've reached closure. Whereas I have sympathy towards the original case, banking is a relatively stressful occupation and back when I was a hiring manager I came across various people who had 'issues', and it seriously conflicted with hiring them. In a tough market that could hurt you, so you need to make sure that you convey the position, if the subject comes up, a plausible approach is to cite a specific point where you knew that you had got past it.

Employers vary in their treatment of issues. On the morning of my father's funeral my old boss got a lackey to ring my home at 7:00 AM, followed by a call to my mobile during the ceremony, so I know who crap they can be. I share this because when I started interviewing for different jobs soon after, I never mentioned it as a reason for considering other opportunities, and my advice is to do the same, though if you ever get to write for a mass market website, feel free...

Don't criticise former employers

The reason is that criticizing your ex-employer is never good, even when it is true. In fact, truth makes it worse because it can make you sound excessively emotional.

You need to spin your departure from your last job with particular care. It is better to follow the line that you could not give your full focus to the job than to talk about the way you walked out of the office unable to talk to people any more.

There is more sympathy from managers, than you might think; it's hard to avoid being close to some sort of tragedy as years go by. But bringing it out explicitly in a business context typically makes people feel awkward.

Be aware that HR managers work for the firm, not the staff, and their job is to spot people who are going to lose the plot, so do not under any circumstances let their friendly manner lead you into unloading on them, that won't end well.

Dominic Connor is a quant headhunter at P&D Quant Recruitment