Redundancy is one thing. But when six months passes and you’re still looking, does the gap itself start becoming a problem?

Dear Amelia,

I was made redundant six months ago and I still haven’t found another job. At first I wasn’t too worried. My whole team was affected and I knew plenty of good people in the same position.

But six months feels different. I’m starting to worry that employers are looking at my CV and thinking, “If this person is so good, why hasn’t somebody hired them yet?”

I’m also getting more nervous in interviews because I feel like I have to explain myself. Is a six-month gap actually a red flag? And how do I talk about it without sounding defensive or desperate?

Best,
Starting To Panic

Dear Starting To Panic,

First, six months unemployed after redundancy does not automatically make employers think there’s something wrong with you.

In my time I’ve met lots of amazing candidates who have, at some stage, been made redundant. In this day and age, it happens A LOT.

Redundancy is not a performance review

Companies restructure. Budgets get cut. Teams get merged. Work gets outsourced, centralised or shifted somewhere else. Good people lose their jobs all the time (trust me on this one). 

I’ve seen brilliant people made redundant and fairly average people survive restructures simply because their particular role stayed on the organisational chart.

Redundancy tells me your role disappeared. It does not tell me whether you were good at it.

The bigger problem can be what the gap does to your confidence

Six months is a long time when you’re living through it. At month one, you’re updating your CV and feeling fairly calm. By month six, one unanswered application can suddenly feel like evidence that you will never work again.

That anxiety can then follow you into interviews. You start over-explaining the redundancy. You become apologetic. You try so hard not to say the wrong thing that you stop sounding like yourself.

And suddenly a perfectly ordinary redundancy has turned into a seven-minute defence case.

You don’t need to do that.

Say what happened clearly and simply: “My role was made redundant as part of a wider restructure. A significant part of the marketing team was affected: - and then, move on. Nobody needs the Netflix documentary

Being available immediately can work in your favour

You can start immediately. Employers LOVE this.

Recruitment processes can move at the speed of continental drift, then suddenly somebody decides they need the new person yesterday.

If two candidates are equally strong and one can start next week while the other has a three-month notice period, immediate availability can absolutely help. So don’t think of your employment status purely as a disadvantage.

The interview is about the job in front of you

Your goal is not to spend 20 minutes convincing the employer that redundancy wasn’t your fault. Explain it. Be comfortable with it. Then talk about what you can do for them.

Interviewers take their cue from you. If you act as though your gap is deeply suspicious, they may start wondering whether it is. If you explain it calmly as a normal business event, most will accept it as exactly that.

And please don’t invent a consultancy to fill the gap unless you’ve actually been consulting. There is nothing wrong with saying you were made redundant and have been looking for the right next role.

That is considerably better than suddenly becoming Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Susan Smith Consulting because you helped your brother rewrite his website.

So, is six months a red flag?

In the employment market we’ve just been through, I really wouldn’t catastrophise it. Yes, employers may ask about the gap. That’s normal.

What matters is whether you can explain it confidently and then bring the conversation back to your skills, experience and why you’re interested in this particular job.

You are not “the unemployed candidate”. You are a marketer who was made redundant and is currently available. That is a very different sentence.

So, Starting To Panic, explain what happened, don’t apologise for it and don’t turn it into a bigger story than it needs to be.

The six-month gap probably isn’t the biggest risk.

Walking into every interview convinced everyone thinks there must be something wrong with you probably is.

Got a question for an upcoming #AskAmelia? 

Email me at askamelia@campfirerecruitment.co.nz, and your question could be featured in the next post.

Author:  Amelia Cranfield, Founder, Campfire Digital Recruitment, 7th October 2026