More than half a year of job hunting is seriously hindered, why does the window period become the "black history" of job seekers?

"After graduating from the new year, I wanted to take the postgraduate entrance examination, but I didn't get in, and then I ran into a wall everywhere because I had a one-year gap to find a job. ”

"I took a break after quitting my job, and when I looked for a job, I was rejected because I had a few months of gap. ”

"Submitting resumes online, because there is a window period, is often 'read back' by HR (corporate personnel), and some directly tell me that although they are very suitable for the position, they will not be considered according to the company's regulations because the window period is more than half a year. ”

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A recent interview with a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" found that many job seekers were affected by the gap period when looking for jobs. The so-called "gap period" refers to a period of time after a job seeker has graduated from school or finished his or her previous job for a variety of reasons. Many job seekers have reported that this period of lack of work experience has become an obstacle that cannot be ignored on the road to job hunting.

The interviewed experts pointed out that the so-called "window period for job hunting" does not have marking significance, which is meaningless to the employment of enterprises themselves. A company's forced rejection of job applicants on the grounds of a window period is actually a form of invisible workplace discrimination. Enterprises should follow the principle of fairness, objectivity and equality in recruitment, and focus on the individual abilities of workers. At the same time, workers should also face up to the existence of a gap period, during which they should make a good plan, enrich themselves, and turn disadvantages into advantages.

Comics: Li Xiaojun

See the window period to card the resume

More than half a year will not be considered

Beijing-based Xiao Shuang (pseudonym) has been working as a programmer at the same internet company for more than five years since graduating from university in 2017. In September 2022, the company will lay off employees, and Xiao Shuang is impressively listed. And just a week before she was laid off, she found out she was pregnant.

"Being laid off and getting pregnant, I had to give myself a stop. Xiao Shuang said that in the process of pregnancy and childbirth, she was also supplementing the latest industry knowledge, so after giving birth for a period of time, she thought she was fully ready to return to the workplace. At the end of 2023, she began to submit her resume, but she didn't expect that this window period would become her "black history".

"In the process of submitting resumes, most corporate HR companies do not reply directly when they see that there is a gap period of more than a year. Only a few HR people will ask me what I am doing in the intervening period, and I usually answer truthfully, and many of them will not be able to read it back. Some HR even told me directly, 'The resume meets our requirements very well, but we don't consider it if the window period is more than half a year'. Xiao Shuang said.

She told reporters that in the more than four months she was looking for a job, she received few formal interview opportunities compared with the last employment. Even if there are a few interview sessions, the window period will be repeatedly mentioned by the interviewer, as if this is already a "brand" on the body, "Is it inferior to others with the window period, but no one cares about my previous work experience and learning accumulation during the window period".

The job search process was not smooth, and the window period was getting longer and longer, so in desperation, Xiao Shuang could only adjust her job search goals - not long ago, she finally received a notice of entry at the cost of a salary cut of nearly half.

Like Xiao Shuang, there are not a few job seekers who are dragged by the label of window period.

According to a survey of 1,000 respondents conducted by the media, 64.5% of the respondents believe that it is difficult to find a job after experiencing a gap in the workplace. 76.3% of the respondents expect companies to provide equal employment opportunities and comprehensively assess the ability of job seekers.

In January last year, Liang Sanke (pseudonym), who was doing engineering-related work in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, submitted his resignation because he could not accept being forced to transfer to a job and reduce his salary.

After resigning, Liang Sanke's first thought was to give himself a long vacation: "I used to work very intensively, and I worked for 34 hours in a row, and it was common to repair and repair overnight." I haven't taken a long vacation for nearly 7 years, so I took the opportunity to adjust my physical and mental state and improve myself through learning. ”

However, after nearly a year off, she was poured cold water when she was confident and ready to return to work. "I joined the world's top 500 foreign companies as soon as I graduated, and I have worked for nearly 10 years and also achieved a management position. Liang Sanke said that a good work experience made some headhunters take the initiative to contact him, but after the other party further learned that there was a gap period of nearly a year, he said "It's not good to push" and "the company generally doesn't consider it".

There is no role in headhunting, and it is even more difficult to submit your resume. Liang Sanke has submitted his resume on the online recruitment platform for several months, and most of them have been lost. "In terms of the situation I encountered in the process of applying for a job, the company did not consider the window period of more than 6 months without exception. Even if you pass the resume screening level, you will still encounter the same problem in the interview process, as if telling the job seeker that the window period is your stain. ”

Liang Sanke, who has become a "ruthless resume throwing machine" who laughs at himself, does not understand the company's "one-size-fits-all" rejection of the window period: "Being discriminated against because of the window period, unable to find a job, and the window period if you can't find a job is longer, isn't this a vicious circle?"

A form of invisible workplace discrimination

Violation of equal employment rights

Ms. Li, 26, of Hunan Province, had a clinically related job in her last job. Frequent overtime work and a bad working environment have drained her passion for work and made her think "I must take a good rest". After nearly two years of rest, at the beginning of this year, she began to look for a job again, but even if she lowered her salary and job requirements, she still rarely received further replies or interview invitations from HR.

"The existence of the window period seems to be a complete denial of my ability to work as a person. Ms. Li said helplessly.

Ms. Bi from Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, has been preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination after graduating from her undergraduate degree, but she failed to make the list. After failing the graduate school entrance examination, she began to look for a job in the local area, but because she lost her status as a fresh graduate and had a gap period of more than half a year, it was difficult to find a job.

"Almost all HR people have to ask me what I am doing during the window period, and to be honest, most of them have no follow-up. Ms. Bi tried several companies, but finally found a job with a salary of 2,300 yuan a month. After weighing it, she gave herself a third option - to take IELTS to apply for graduate school.

"There are a lot of people around me who didn't get into the graduate school entrance examination for a year or two after graduation, and most of these people are struggling to find a job because of a long window period. Ms. Bi said that in the process of applying for an overseas master's degree, she learned that it is actually very common to have a gap year (a gap year (meaning to take a break for a period of time before entering the job to experience life), and that with this interval experience, people will have a different feeling about life and prepare their body and mind for work.

The reporter searched for keywords such as "window period" and "window period for job hunting" on social platforms and found that there are a large number of job seekers with similar experiences, and there will be various difficulties in finding a job if the window period exceeds half a year. Some job seekers even have only a window period of two or three months, and they will be considered by HR to be "too long" and eventually rejected.

Some job seekers said that they had been out of office for 3 months, and when they were looking for a job, they were ridiculed by HR: "You must not be short of money if you haven't worked for so long, and you don't have any desire to make money." "Eventually, HR rejected it on the grounds that he was not motivated to work.

The reporter noticed that these job seekers can be roughly divided into several types: one is that when they just graduated, they decided to take the public examination and graduate school entrance examination, and after failing, they wanted to find a job but lost their status as fresh graduates; one was reemployed after leaving their jobs due to personal reasons, such as illness and family reasons; and the other was that after resigning from their previous job or being dismissed, they still failed to find a new job after a period of time, so there was a window period.

In this regard, many netizens complained, "Because my family was sick, I had to empty the window, but I was rejected one after another to find a job", "At least I should give people an interview opportunity", "Is it not possible to work if there is a window period for job hunting"......

An enterprise HR in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province told reporters that when his company recruits, job seekers with a window period of more than half a year often directly card their resumes, "long-term window will be recognized as work ability and rhythm disjointed." "There are limited positions but there are many job seekers, and we still strive to recruit the right people efficiently, and the window period will definitely be seen as a big minus point, and when there are other job seekers to choose, the window period will not be considered. ”

"As far as I know, most of the other companies are the same. The HR said.

Li Haiming, an associate professor at the Law School of the Central University of Finance and Economics, said that the so-called "window period for job hunting" does not have a symbolic significance, which is meaningless to the employment of enterprises themselves. If an enterprise explicitly uses the window period for job hunting as a screening condition, it constitutes employment discrimination and is certainly not in line with the Employment Promotion Law and the Labor Contract Law. There may be two considerations for enterprises to pay attention to the window period in recruitment: first, it is difficult to carry out background investigation during this period and risks cannot be ruled out, and second, whether it is an active window or a passive window, the company may have concerns about the future work status of the job seeker.

According to lawyer Guo Zheng, a partner at Beijing Tiantai Law Firm, no matter what the reason is, the window period is the free choice of workers, and refusing job seekers to join the job due to the long window period is undoubtedly a relatively invisible and new workplace discrimination. Workplace recruitment should be fair, objective and equal, and Article 3 of the Mainland Labor Law makes it clear that workers have the right to equal employment. This means that employers are not allowed to include factors unrelated to the job position, personal ability or performance as a hiring condition when recruiting. Of course, the length of the gap period has nothing to do with the job, the individual's ability to work or work performance.

"If an employer refuses to hire on the grounds that the employee's window period is too long, it violates the employee's right to equal employment to a certain extent, and if it sues, it may be found by the court to be employment discrimination and bear tort liability. Guo Zheng said.

Artificial barriers are not advisable

Recruitment should be based on competency

The reporter interviewed and found that the window period for job hunting has become a major obstacle for job seekers, so that many job seekers who meet the job conditions have to significantly reduce their salaries and lower their standards in order to find a job. Not only that, in order to avoid the problem of the window period, some workers will deliberately "beautify" their resumes.

Under the topic of the window period, many netizens shared their experience of coping with "how should the interviewer answer when the window period asks", and some directly suggested "extend the resignation time of the previous job and shorten the window period", "add a period of part-time experience that cannot be found out during the window period", "if you have acquaintances, it is best to give you a certificate to prove that the work has not been interrupted during this time", etc.

Chen Chen (pseudonym) from Shenzhen, Guangdong, has repeatedly hit a wall when applying for a job because of a window period of nearly a year. After being told directly or euphemistically by more than one HR that "the window period is too long", she came up with a countermeasure - modified the timeline on her resume and delayed the departure time of the previous job by more than half a year. After revising her resume, she soon received an interview invitation from a company of her choice, and a few days after successfully passing the interview, she was notified that she would provide a social security statement and salary certificate.

"This company is the best one I've had since I applied for a job, and if it weren't for the window time, I might not even have had an interview. I thought about it, but I told them the truth, and there was no more follow-up. Chen Chen said that he regretted "beautifying" his resume.

She posted this experience on the Internet, originally to remind job seekers who have the same idea, but she didn't expect that there are still many people in the comment area sharing "cheating experience", "you can P social security flow", "If the window period is long, find a company that has recently been cancelled and write a position casually, just say that this company does not pay social security".

In this regard, Guo Zheng said that honesty and trustworthiness are the basic requirements for both employers and workers. Article 3 of the Labor Contract Law stipulates that "the conclusion of a labor contract shall follow the principles of legality, fairness, equality, voluntariness, consensus, and good faith". The principle of good faith should run through the entire existence of the labor relationship, so if a job seeker falsifies his resume, it is a violation of the principle of good faith.

Lawyer Yang Baoquan, a senior partner of Beijing Zhongyin Law Firm, told reporters that this kind of behavior is a resume fraud, which is problematic and hidden. When a job seeker applies for a company, he or she must go through at least several procedures such as resume screening, interview, background investigation at the time of hiring, and transfer of labor relations after entry. The practice of "beautifying" resumes is easy to be discovered by the company's human resources department.

He explained that first of all, when screening resumes, HR, which has "read countless people", will judge the reasonableness of the content through the working hours, department changes, and position changes described in the resume. Then there is the interview stage, and in the face of the interviewer's inspection, it is easy to reveal the content of the story. Even if the interview is obscured, the subsequent background check, especially for some higher-ranking positions, can reveal fraud when you ask the employee's former employer about it.

"Employees in ordinary positions may not have a background adjustment, but no one can avoid the transfer of labor relations after joining the company. The start and end time of the previous company's labor termination procedures must not match the resume. Therefore, in the face of layers of barriers, it is simply not feasible to fake. Yang Baoquan said that after being found to have used a resume to falsify his entry, the company also has relevant laws and regulations on the rights of employees. If the enterprise finds that the content of the resume is inconsistent with the actual situation, it may claim to terminate the employment relationship with the employee.

The interviewed experts agreed that the "one-size-fits-all" rejection of job seekers during the window period is an artificial obstacle to workers, which is not advisable, and should be based on ability and job suitability as the main assessment criteria when recruiting.

From the perspective of compliant employment, first, it should ensure that the legal and reasonable background investigation can be carried out smoothly and truly understand the reasons for the vacancy; second, the enterprise should standardize employment through the probationary period and other aspects to avoid setting nonsensical window periods.

In Guo Zheng's view, the gap period should not be an obstacle for job seekers. As an employer, it should improve the recruitment process and recruitment requirements of the enterprise, focus on the individual ability of the employee, respect the right of the employee to equal employment, and improve the internal rules and regulations of the enterprise to prevent dishonest workers.

Yang Baoquan suggested that job seekers in the resignation stage should also have a reasonable plan for their careers during the window period, and can use the window period to learn more about the industry they are engaged in or hope to engage in, and at the same time take the initiative to learn further studies in order to improve their professional skills and competitiveness, adjust their mentality, measure and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and clarify their development direction.

"Job seekers should respond to the gap period with a positive attitude, do not let the gap period become a real 'gap', enrich themselves, and at the same time respond to the gap period questions in the interview with honest answers, confidently show their learning, communication, deep thinking and long-term planning skills, so that the disadvantages of the gap period become advantages. Yang Baoquan said.

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