Advice for interviewing after medical LoA
Posted by MajorAssMoon@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 2 comments
Looking for some advice as I feel my situation is a bit unique. Going to be a little vague to avoid identification
Basically, I'm a little over 5 years into my career and have been working at the same company that whole time. After 4 years in team A (including a promotion), I transferred to team B. Almost immediately after, I needed to take a leave of absence for about a year due to some medical issues. Upon returning to work a few months ago, I was moved to team C.
My question is how I should bring this up during interviews? Ideally I feel like this is the sort of thing that shouldn't be brought up at all, as I don't technically have a gap in my resume and I could see there being concerns about whether I'm fully recovered or will need additional leave in the near future. However, given the recency of the leave, I'm worried I'll get to a later stage in the interview and be asked about projects I've been working on, and it will be pretty much impossible to discuss that without being honest about the situation (without going into specifics about the medical issues, of course). In that case, I don't want it to come across as if I was intentionally withholding information earlier in the process.
Regardless of how you feel about lying in an interview ethically speaking, I'm also a terrible liar in general and probably wouldn't be able to successfully do so even if I wanted to (for example, saying I moved straight from team A -> C a few months ago). So I'm moreso interested in ways I can avoid the topic being brought up, or at the very least ways I can frame it to not seem like a yellow flag to interviewers.
Any input here is very much appreciated!
ExperiencedDevs-ModTeam@reddit
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akornato@reddit
I’m afraid the best approach is to keep things simple for your interviewers and say you moved straight from team A to team C a few months ago. When discussing recent projects, focus on what you accomplished before the break or what you’re doing now on team C - interviewers care far more about the quality of your experience than the exact dates. If you need help for these kinds of tricky questions, I built interview copilot to help people answer tough interview scenarios and get real-time guidance on how to frame their experiences effectively.