The technology industry moves fast. Certifications, job titles, employer expectations, and even the platform you are trained on can change very quickly, so stepping away for a year or two can seem very daunting for even the most seasoned Salesforce professionals. A challenging hiring market and the rise of AI can also seem like restricting factors for someone wanting (or needing) to step away from work for a while.
But is a Salesforce career gap really career suicide? Speaking bluntly, it can pose a challenge to your prospects – pretending otherwise would be unhelpful. There is a genuine recency penalty, and some employers may well filter out candidates who do not have experience in the most up-to-date system. But at the same time, there is a real difference between a challenge and an impossibility.
Some Hard Truths
In the Mason Frank 2023-24 Careers and Hiring Guide, Salesforce Consultant Jennie Brockbank said: “I have more than 12 years’ experience in design, development and
Administration, but despite this, a short career gap proved challenging when trying to re-enter the workforce.”
She added that she was able to find a good Salesforce role with the help of recruiters, but it serves as a warning to anyone looking to step away from their career for a while. Even if you have more than a decade’s worth of experience, it might not be easy coming back to the workplace. Even highly experienced candidates can encounter a recency penalty.
Still, none of this amounts to ‘career suicide’. It’s hard to argue that you won’t be sacrificing anything by stepping away from your career – even if your core skills remain sharp – especially in tech. The tools you are using today might not be the same tools the ecosystem is using in two years’ time. If you decided to take a career break in 2024, and were only coming back now, you’d have a lot of catching up to do, like getting to grips with Agentforce.
One candidate, Yaramala Navya, from Hyderabad, India, wrote on LinkedIn about completing a full selection process for a Salesforce Developer role, including a written test, two technical phases, and a managerial round, but was not selected “due to my career gap”.
Yaramala said that the experience helped boost confidence, adding that a career gap is “not a limitation – it’s just a step in the journey” – some might find it off-putting to be found to be technically qualified, but to still have the career gap held against you.
For the broader job market, the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s recruitment guidance (2025) provides a stark warning to those taking a career break.
In it, Julianne Miles MBE, CEO of Career Returners, warns: “Experienced, skilled professionals returning after a career break are at a huge disadvantage in the UK job market. Our Career Returners Indicator 2024 found that 92% of returners are finding it challenging to return to a professional role, with 40% seeing recruitment bias against a CV gap as the greatest barrier.”
Cause for Optimism
Salesforce itself explicitly states that it welcomes people with career breaks, running a six-month returnship covering areas like engineering, sales, marketing and operations. Its India Return to Work Program provides women with resources, mentorship, and opportunities to step back into the workplace, or start something new.
It gives examples of seven women who restarted their careers after stepping away for reasons like layoffs and caring duties.
Sushmita Srivastava, who returned from a two-year break from her IT career, said it was difficult at first, but advised others in a similar position not to give up, wait for the perfect job, or be afraid to pursue roles and companies where you work best.
“In the beginning, my attempts to apply for roles were unsuccessful,” she said. “I came across Salesforce, applied, got an interview, and luckily was selected. Overall, the whole experience of the RTW program from the assessment to getting a permanent role has been an absolutely amazing journey so far.”
Aside from Salesforce itself, community programs like Supermums in the United Kingdom offer similar opportunities to get back into the workforce.
So, if you are going to go ahead with the career break, how best can you mitigate the damage?
Stay Visible and Up-To-Date
Stepping away from your Salesforce career can feel risky, especially in a market where layoffs and AI supposedly replacing staff have been dominating the headlines.
But those who have taken a career gap suggest that it’s far less damaging than some might fear – particularly when there is a plan attached.
Last year we spoke to Christine Stevens, who told us about taking a career break to address burnout, after being laid off in 2023. Crucially, she said that she was deliberate about how she would present herself to employers afterwards, rather than it being an afterthought.
“I had a clear plan for re-entering the workforce,” Christine said. “I created a portfolio on Notion to showcase my past experience and personal core values, which helped me eliminate roles that didn’t align with my goals. As a Salesforce professional since 2014, I also focused on demonstrating that my skills remained relevant despite the influx of professionals with advanced AI and process analysis expertise.”
She also advised would-be career gap-takers to make sure they have 6-18 months of savings set aside for financial stability – and to possibly explore independent consulting during the break to build new relationships, maintain industry relevance, and build a bit of a financial cushion.
Salesforce professionals have been asking for advice online about how to get interviews following a career gap. One Reddit user with two-and-a-half years of Salesforce Developer experience wanted to know how best to get back into the job market.
One community member said that the gap itself would not be an issue, but it might be a problem because of how much the tech world has changed over this time. “The market is terrible and all anyone wants right now is to explore AI. As in- no one wants developers because Ted from Product got access to Claude Code so he’s going to do it himself now,” the user wrote.
Another said that it would be best to acknowledge the gap on the resume but make a note of any professional development done during that gap. “It won’t guarantee callbacks, but some employers may be more willing to entertain a conversation if you show you spent that time doing something productive,” they added.
LinkedIn research from 2022 also gave some advice for people coming back from a career break, revealing that 51% of hirers said they were more likely to contact a candidate who provides context about their career break, and 52% of hiring managers believe candidates should proactively bring up their career break during the interview and highlight what they learned during that time.
And another note of quiet optimism from the LinkedIn research: “48% of hirers think the biggest mistake candidates make when discussing their career breaks is undervaluing themselves in terms of compensation or seniority of role.”
The Career Break Gender Gap
It’s worth addressing the disparity between women and men in taking career gaps.
Salesforce itself revealed in a post about its return to work program how one woman, Shikha Sharma, told her children she was going back to work someday. Her daughter told her: “No Mumma! Mummas don’t go office, only Nannas (fathers) do. Who will wash clothes and cook food if you go?” Shikha added this was a hard thing to hear, and she did not want her daughter growing up thinking this way.
While people of any gender can choose to take a career gap, across the globe, the majority of care work still falls upon women – and this is reflected in the career break statistics.
Research from Scottish Widows reveals that 58% of women at or near retirement have taken a career break, compared to just 12% of men. Additionally, women are 12 times more likely to take a break in their careers in order to raise children (36% vs 3%).
According to LinkedIn research, over 43% more women in the U.S. have a career break listed on their LinkedIn profile than men. The most common reason women cite is full-time parenting, with such a break lasting a median of just over three years.
Men are both less likely to take a break and less likely to cite parenting as the rationale – while being more likely to step away for professional development or a career transition, typically lasting less than a year.
There are some steps women, their partners, and employers can take to address these problems.
For partners of women who are intending to take these career breaks: be proactive in considering how best to evenly distribute family responsibilities. Are there adjustments that you can make in your work arrangements or career to support the return to work?
For employers: if you really want to address gender imbalances in the workplace in representation and pay, consider the uncomfortable truth that women are far more likely to step away from their careers to handle caring duties – which is no less challenging work than traditional employment. A career gap does not reflect a person’s work ethic, capabilities, skills, or competence. As a proactive step, consider a return-to-work program along the lines of the program at Salesforce as a way to make a positive impact.
For the women returning to work after a career break: know that you don’t have to do it alone. You might explicitly seek out employers with return-to-work programs like Salesforce, and, as I mentioned earlier, community programs like Supermums can be a valuable resource for coming back after a career break. It’s a common thing, and you absolutely can make a success of your Salesforce career, even with a big gap in your resumé.
Final Thoughts
The biggest lesson here is probably that a career break should be treated as a career decision, rather than just a period where your career is put on pause. You might have to accept that your next role will look a little different to the one that you left, and you might need to spend time rebuilding your network, refreshing your Salesforce knowledge and demonstrating that you understand where the ecosystem has moved.
But these obstacles can be planned for. A portfolio, some independent work, certifications, community involvement or simply a clear explanation of what you learned during the gap can all help turn an unexplained absence into a coherent career story.
We should also address the recruiters here: If experienced Salesforce professionals can pass technical assessments and show their skills are still relevant, how much weight should really be placed on a small break? The Salesforce ecosystem should be mature enough now to recognize that a person’s value cannot be measured purely by uninterrupted employment.
Taking a break might carry a cost, but it should not (and does not) mean career suicide.
