He's right about it being harder to get a job while unemployed. You finish your gap year and then spend another 6 months trying to get hired. Maybe if you lived in SF it'd be easier.

Key thing, when you quit, don't burn bridges. I took a year off, did some traveling after working at my job for 8 years. At the end of the year, I applied to a few jobs, but my old boss contacted me to rehire me. I went back as if I never left. I am in a different field, so you experience may vary, but if you are in a good team, your old boss is likely to rehire you instead of investing in someone they don't know and have to train.

It was easier for me to get into Google when I had lots of free time for leetcode.

There are 200 resumes in this pile. 199 of them need to go for one reason or another. 'no recent experience' is one of those reasons.

My experience with tech hiring is getting three decent resumes for 5 open positions, everyone qualified gets an interview and serious consideration. It's not that way for junior people in entry level positions and non-IT staff (there the "200 resumes, no reason to interview most of them" scenario often applies), but if we're talking about e.g. mid-level developers, then every decent manager I know is in a "always be hiring" mode.

Old economy jobs in the midwest, sure. I applied to FAANG jobs after a year off and no one even brought it up.

I don't care about this at all, I'd assume you still remember how to do things after a year (or even two.) Of course before it gets to the team it might be filtered elsewhere.

>Your experience doesn’t ‘expire’ in a single year

You're right, it doesn't. But it brings up all sorts of questions in the mind of your interviewer as to the true nature of your departure, and it immediately puts you at a huge disadvantage.

Assuming I would even notice a six month gap, if someone told me they had taken a year off to work on an open source project, hike the Appalachian Trail, or whatever, I'd find it far more of a conversation starter than a negative. Maybe you're either imagining things or talking to the wrong employers.

As an interviewer I recognize people might take time off work for a variety of reasons and never give a lot of thought to unemployment gaps. I’ve found very short stays at previous positions (say less than a year) to be more of a warning; I want people who are likely to stick around.

> and it immediately puts you at a huge disadvantage.

Great - it can add to the list of disadvantages I have with companies I would never want to work for.

I can’t imagine wanting to work for someone who thinks this way, and it’s certainly not a common mindset in my experience.

Depends how you present it.

Being open-minded, seeing something different, meeting other people, working hard to be able to follow your objectives and take calculated risks. That can be a valuable experience and an advantage over ten similar candidates.

I've done about a 10 mo break after my first job and after my second and it has never been an issue with employment. You're overestimating how much hr and hiring managers care.