Common gaps are for protected things (raising children) and can cause problems if put on CVs. The idea that employers need to treat every applicant with maximum suspicion is frustrating.

The concern is that someone was fired for cause or has a pattern of abandoning jobs.

Taking time off to raise children isn’t a big deal at most companies (at any big company, you’re more likely to find more parents than non-parents in hiring manager positions). Even gaps for things like travel aren’t really an issue as long as the candidate explains it.

You have to consider that hiring managers aren’t only seeing resumes of flawless candidates. There are a lot of candidates out there with things like anger issues, chronic performance issues, interpersonal issues, and so on that have already been removed from other companies for these reasons. It’s difficult to deduce it from a resume alone but small signals like unexplained gaps can be a hint that you need to dig deeper.

just curious - if someone is "fired for cause" (don't feel that this term is universally accurate in its implications but thats another discussion), do you feel they should never get a job again? its some sort of Scarlett letter or brand on them?

The argument I've seen and heard many times is that someone who was been fired before is likely to get fired again. Also applies to medical conditions. You don't want an employee who might get sick and not be able to work.

oh for sure there are examples where people abuse the employment relationship - those who churn jobs simply looking for severance/unemployment, chronic medical issues or absences which lead to very low output, etc. and its understandable that a manager would try to weed those out.

that can also lead to many false positives, IMO. personal example, in my first job out of college my manager and i did not get along. i assume they wanted to fire me and began to build a case against me, emailing HR every morning i was not at my desk by 8:30 AM. i was naïve and the HR rep basically told me i should quit because my manager had "evidence". so i did, and it took a LONG time to find another job because of the "Scarlett Letter".

it then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy since the longer you're without a job the more suspicious it becomes. it all just feels very classically corporate to me, from a time when people stayed in one city/town for a long time and if you had a gap in the resume it was automatically detrimental to you because all the good people already have jobs.

it's illegal to ask about or discriminate on medical conditions though, unless there's a strong, concrete reason to ask - e.g. you don't have to hire someone with uncontrolled epilepsy to be a bus driver, but you can't refuse to hire a receptionist because her lupus might make her call in sick occasionally.

I'm terrified of all this, since I started using a wheelchair. a friend told me she did 10 interviews with no offers, when they were in person, but got a great offer when she interviewed on Zoom. my current job values me a lot, but do I stay there forever? what if I try to switch jobs and nobody wants to hire the cripple?

Are you a developer? There's so much remote work now that you'll absolutely be able to find work. I can't speak to the (illegal) nature of discriminating against you for an in-office developer job though.

I disagree with this reasoning. Not to repeat things that were nicely said elsewhere, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31569160 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31568962, but it boils down to "it's none of your business".

I will absolutely not ever be convinced that I should have to account all of my life to a company I'm considering joining.

I may explain a certain gap if I feel like it. But if I feel I'm being put into a situation where I'm expected to explain it, this isn't a company I would like to work with.