Does taking time off work with depression or stress affect your future job prospects?
Any personal experiences or thoughts from managers or HR departments would be fantastic. Anything with a slant towards the education sector and schools would be even more helpful!
To best answer the question I would need some more information but I can tell you my thoughts. I am a management recruiter for the Hospitality industry so not an expert but experience with hiring practices. IF you are leaving a position and taking time off for depression or stress and then searching for a job when you are up to it...YES it could affect your prospects. Not necessarily because of the depression or stress but because In an interview you will always have to answer the question....why did you leave your last position? You will also then be searching for a job while unemployed which is also difficult to explain. It will be tough to say why you didn't seek employment before leaving your post as well as why you did not work. Sadly, employed folks always have it easier than a job seeker with a "gap" on their resume. If it is documented medically as a condition then you also will need to note this on many job applications which will come up during an interview. BUT...if you are simply taking a leave of absence - returning to your job-then seeking new employment....it shouldn't affect you! When doing employment history checks employers will typically ask about your dates of and duration of employment, salary, and maybe performance. Many companies have even made it policy to give no information except a simple--yes or no they are eligible for rehire. Hope that helps!
I was a manager for a long, long time handling many employees. I was always for helping a person and giving them the benefit of the doubt. But in this country we don't treat mental issues as diseases. We look at them mainly as some kind of character issue or something along those lines.
I have been in a position to recommend people for jobs after they left my firm. Many times, if the person had some mental issues, I tried to be fair and honest about it all, but once that gets out about a person it does affect future job prospects. It should not, but it does.
My personal experience on the influence of taking time off with depression (and Bipolar Disorder) is simple.
It affected my carreer in such a way, that I never worked again after leaving the school I worked for as a teacher. I'm saying, I never got hired again by any employer because I was recovering for over 4 years. That's a big gap on your CV.
Whatever I tried, whatever level I applied for or whatever my motivation was, to get a job again, employers in Holland see a huge NO GO when they know about your medical history.
Especially when it's a Mental medical history. For receiving a pension because of it, I always had to tell employers the truth. So does time off work affect your future carreer? In my case it sure did but I'm one lucky bastard too.
I live in Spain, I'm an online writer (read Hubber) and I'm a great lover of life with all the freedom in the world!
As long as you have the time on the books probably not. HIPPA protects the reason you are off, it's Federal so it's protected information.
by Grace Marguerite Williams 12 years ago
If you were fired from your job, how did it affect you? Did you feel relief, angst, and/or totaldesolation that your life is over and all chances are well........over? Being fired from a job, either from layoffs and/or termination affect people in different ways. ...
by TINA V 15 years ago
I just want to share this information to everyone who might be interested to look for a job.The United States Census 2010 are now looking for the following positions:1. Census Takers2. Crew Leaders3. Crew Leaders Assistants4. Recruiting Assistants5. Census ClerksFor more information, you may visit...
by Grace Marguerite Williams 7 years ago
obtaining employment for a recent college graduate? Many job counselors indicate that it takes AT LEAST SIX MONTHS between graduating from college and finding a reasonable job. Many recent college graduates want to rest before pursuing any type of employment. Others want to...
by Allen Donald 7 years ago
I'm actually asking for somebody else, but I would love some feedback on this question.Let's say you have been out-of-work and you accept a new position, but that new position pays less than you were making and requires a commute that you didn't have before.Within a week of taking the job and...
by Alecia Murphy 12 years ago
Do you think a mistake on the first day should lead to you being fired?If it was your first day on the job and you had a slip of the tongue, do you think you'd understand your boss' need to fire you? A newsreader was recently fired for dropping the f-bomb on the air and it was his first day. Do you...
by Stephanie Launiu 11 years ago
Do you think someoneʻs Facebook page should affect their chances for a job?
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |