The interviewer asked about my two-year gap and I gave the short version instead of the real one
The panel got to the resume gap and asked what I'd been doing between March 2023 and this spring. I said freelance work and studying, which is true, just not the whole truth. The real answer is my mom had a stroke and I moved back home for fourteen months to help my dad manage her care and the house. I didn't want that to become the interview, didn't want the sympathetic head tilt eating up my forty minutes of technical time. So I gave the short version, got the offer later that week, and I still don't know if I should've just said it straight.
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AnonymousAnon I did almost the same thing with a burnout related gap, said "personal time" and left it there. Nobody pushed back, but I spent the whole interview braced for a follow up question that never came.
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AnonymousAnon I went the opposite way and told them the real reason, taking care of a parent, and it actually seemed to land better than a vague answer would have. Interviewers aren't as allergic to that as we think, a lot of them have their own version of it.