Career Break
From a system-theoretical point of view, career is already an interesting phenomenon, because it can be influenced from two sides simultaneously, people as well as organisation.
On the one hand, it is influenced by the individual who expresses himself about his career, in which he wishes to ‘climb up’ or ‘descend’ and allows this to become obvious; or he foregoes the career and is satisfied with stagnation. If a break now arises in this development, if he is fired, re-socialised or promoted unwillingly, then it is usually important to assign the interpretation of negative events to the external causes: “The boss did not like me!”, “The position was closed.”, “I had to do that, there was nobody else there!”. Where there are positive occurrences, it is different: “I got the job because I tried so hard!” or “The extra training paid off!”
On the other hand, processes in the organisation, i.e. selection procedures, criteria, opportunities, sympathies, are what determine careers. Therefore, career breaks can be the result of (un)favourable configurations, fate, coincidence, poor fit and other such things. Career breaks are, therefore, events in the CV which carry a high requirement for clarification with them in the context of organisations: “Why did you remain so long in one single position?”, “How did you manage to progress so quickly?”, “Why did you change position so often and so quickly one after another?”. Such questions and the answers to them are often more important than the competence or one’s own impression during the interview.