So I need to accept this job offer this week....

[mtgordon]

As someone who's interviewed people for jobs before, a year gap in a resume doesn't look very good. It throws up an automatic yellow flag. If you do take a year off, make sure you have a good way of explaining what you were doing (or carefully word what you did for a year and put it on the resume).

Secondly, it's easy for us to sit here and tell you to go for it, say things like "you'll regret it if you don't", etc. However, if it sets back your career substantially you may regret that for the rest of your life too.

Finally, I'm not trying to say what you should or should not do; I just thought this input might be useful to you.

[D.H.]

[ QUOTE ]
As someone who's interviewed people for jobs before, a year gap in a resume doesn't look very good. It throws up an automatic yellow flag. If you do take a year off, make sure you have a good way of explaining what you were doing.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the person answers something like:
"I was just travelling around, doing whatever I felt like, having fun. I could afford it."

Is that terrible? I'm just interested to know...

[JohnnyHumongous]

Why don't you just say you were an entrepreneur? If people really want to get into it you can explain what you were up to. Poker has really become a great deal more 'acceptable' in society to the point where I don't think that saying you took a year off to make 200K or something playing poker would look bad at all.

Based on my (limited) experience in the work world it could even look quite positive especially if you're going to work in a heavily-analytic field, where half the people in the office probably already play poker.

[ QUOTE ]

If the person answers something like:
"I was just travelling around, doing whatever I felt like, having fun. I could afford it."

Is that terrible? I'm just interested to know...

[/ QUOTE ]

The rule of thumb is that you should never ever tell the truth on a job interview.

[mtgordon]

I really hope that was a joke. If I ever found out that someone lied to me in a job interview there was nothing that they could do to get hired at my company. Although my company did not share lists of "blackballed" job hunters, I wouldn't be suprised if other companies did.

Saying that you were just doing whatever shows a lack of desire to do the job you are applying for. Companies are looking for people that want to work for them rather than people that would rather be doing other things but have to make some money somehow. A better answer would be "I have always wanted to travel so I took a year off to do so. Now that I have seen the world I'm ready to start working." The last part of the second sentence is a bit lacking, but I think you get the idea. It should sound more like something that you wanted to do at some point in your life so you took the chance to do it but now you're ready to bunker down and do some work.

[colpres]

Yes, you have just lost virtually any hope of getting the job unless you're pursuing some low or entry-level position

[JohnnyHumongous]

What I don't get is when I asked on these boards if I should play poker or get into strategy consulting more than 90% of people said I should take the job, and that it wasn't even a close decision. Now I realize consulting is a good field but these guys were saying that even if you could make $500K a year playing poker that taking the job would be better... even better than playing for one or two years, then getting back into the work world because you don't want gaps on your resume and stuff like that...

I don't get why people's advice has changed? It seems that the prevailing advice now (like 6 months later) is to go the poker route... What's up with that...

[lehighguy]

You said you liked your job. That it was what you want to do in live. That is a huge difference from those of us that hate our jobs.

[JohnnyHumongous]

I don't think Craig said he hated his job... he hasn't started it yet.

[lehighguy]

Well you made a comment about why your advice was different from the forum in general, I know my post has been around a lot this week.

He doesn't seem thrilled, though I suppose niether of us can conjecture.