EVER THOUGHT TAKING A CAREER BREAK WILL BE OFF-
PUTTING TO POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS? A ‘GROWN-UP
GAP YEAR’ IS NOW MUCH MORE ACCEPTABLE THAN IT’S
EVER BEEN — WE REVEAL THE REASONS BEHIND THIS
GROWING TREND. WORDS: JULIA BUCKLEYT
im Potter wasn’t worried about
ramiications for his career when he
embarked on an eight-month trip
around the world.
“I was perhaps overly optimistic,” he says.
“I’d been in the sector for 10 years and knew
quite a lot of people. I thought I’d be able to
get a job when I got back — whether it would
be my dream job would be another question,
but I was OK with taking that risk.”
It was 2012, and Potter, who was in public
relations, had just inished working on the
London Olympics alongside his partner. A
career break to go travelling — or a ‘grown-up
gap year’ — seemed like a natural progression
for them both.
The couple spent four months travelling
around Asia: month-long stints in Nepal and
the Philippines then on to India, Thailand,
Cambodia and Laos. Next, they lew to Mexico
via Canada, worked their way down Central
America, and spent a month in both Colombia
and Brazil — they were planning to have some
2016 Olympics-related meetings there, he
says, but it didn’t work out.
Not that the lack of work afected his
prospects. Within three weeks of his return, he
was in another job (he’d interviewed for it in a
phone booth in Colombia). Today, he’s MD of
marketing agency Hunt & Gather, and wouldn’t
swap his year of for the world.
But is Potter’s experience common or did
he get lucky? Some people assume taking a
career break will automatically be of-putting
to potential employers, but according to Emily
Bain, MD of secretarial and PA recruitment
agency Bain and Gray, it can actually be quite
the opposite.
“As a recruiter, I see it as a positive,” she
says. “Our job is to educate our clients so
they’re on the same page.”
Bain goes on to say that taking a grown-up
gap year is more common than you’d think
— in fact, it’s been a steadily upward trend
since the 2008 recession. “People couldn’t get
work so they just took of,” she says.
Donna Jeavons, sales and marketing
director for Contiki, which specialises in
travel for those aged 18 to 35, agrees the
crash heralded a cultural change. “Since that
recession, it’s been much more acceptable to
take time out,” she says.
Jeavons thinks there’s been a shit around
career breaks in more ways than one. “Half of
my friends have settled down, the other half
are still single — and they’re the ones taking
the opportunity to go travelling,” she says.
Tim Fryer, UK manager at STA Travel, says
grown-up gap years can only have a positive
efect on your career. “Taking a break gives
travellers time to refocus on work as well as
the space to relect on what exactly it is they
IMAGE: GETTY want to do,” he explains.
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