If you’re one of the millions of Americans forced back into job hunting, you’re also probably dusting off your resume for the first time in a while. Wondering how you can account for this time not working due to the coronavirus? Have you contemplated writing ‘because COVID-19 sucks,’ but realized it’s unprofessional? Here’s what to do instead.
How about this instead. You can sneak it into your first humblebrag sentence. Lead with something you’re proud of and then tag the reason you got hit with unemployment at the end. For example, you could say something like “I grew my department’s revenue by 30% until the department was eliminated as a result of COVID-19.”
How you word it is very important. You don’t it to sound like you were the only one cut so write something like ‘the division was cut’ or ‘a large percentage of staff was cut.’ Also, job search coach Ashley Watkins recommends including your coronavirus layoff into your cover letter to double the chances the hiring manager actually sees it. She also says it’s cool to take credit for anything you were working on before you got kicked out of the door. It’s the least they could do.
