Essentially, a career break is a time in your life when you put aside your career to pursue your personal passions and interests.  While it can mean time for you to make a change in your life and figure out a new career direction, it often means just putting your career aside completely for a brief time.  A career break can last as short as one month, but can last for up to a year or more.  For most, it lasts 3-6 months.

People often use the terms sabbatical or gap year to describe what they are doing. But, a career break implies that you already have a career and are going to be returning to it in some form or fashion.  We prefer the term career break because it is more precise in its description of what the person is doing and why they are doing it. The term sabbatical is often too closely associated with religious or academic meanings to apply to the working professional.  And, gap year is often too closely associated with students just leaving their undergraduate studies.

So, if you already have a career and just want to get away from it for a while to focus on your interests, the career break might be just what you’ve been looking for.

Tags: career break advice

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.