EXPLAINING EXTENDED VACATION

If you took care of family members out of state, you could add that to your "Work Experience" section of your resume.

Something like this:

Caregiver (November 2018 - December 2018). City, State

Provided in-home care to elderly family members. Responsibilities included medication set-up, meal preparation, and transportation to and from medical appointments.

For hurricane disaster relief, if that was provided on a voluntary basis, you would want to add a section to your resume titled "Volunteer Work" and describe the work the same way as above.

I'd recommend leaving off all the other activities, including the care you provided to your dog [I'm very sorry about his/her illness ?].

Explain nothing on your resume. Save it for the interview and here's why...

Firstly, it's not particularly unusual to take some personal time off to do other things while between jobs.

Secondly, the thing about resumes is they will never paint the big picture, and they never will. Any such explanations can only occur during an interview in person so if asked, just save any such explanations for the interview.

Simply put a resume is just a "sales brochure." So just focus on selling yourself and your positive accomplishments rather than using a resume for explaining or justifying reasons for this, that, or the other thing.

Some experts suggest you shouldn't even put dates of employment on a resume at all for that matter. Rather, you should simply indicate your months and years of experience instead. It's the years of experience you have they are really interested in looking at anyways.

Important: Your only objective is to qualify for the posted job position and your resume should only be about doing that. You're resume is used as recruiter shark bait, so tell them exactly what they want to hear.

If they need to know the actual dates you have worked on a job, they will ask you later. Which is a good thing and exactly what you want them to do. Make them curious to learn more about you. Give them a reason or two to make them pick up the phone.

Things like background checks and verification of dates of employment occurs after the interview, and not before.

Again, a resume is not an "application form," it's a sales brochure about you. So use it to sell yourself and nothing else. A resume is not a document intended to chronologically record history or anything else for that matter, because that's what employment applications and personal interviews are used for.

So just give them just enough information (shark bait) to make them become interested in you as a potential candidate. Your only goal is to use your resume to make them call you on the phone.

Also, if they do call you on the phone, don't attempt to answer everything they ask about you during this time. Rather, simply suggest it would be more appropriate for you to answer and present information about all of their questions with them in person during an interview instead.

If they call for any additional information... ** Ask them for the interview! **

Statistically speaking, you are not likely to get the job or even an interview by simply answering questions over the phone. So request a date and time they can arrange to meet with you in person to discuss things further.