Did they get fired? Did they get a pile of money and go roll around on a beach somewhere? Did they have to take care of family? There can be insanely great reasons... just as easily... insanely bad reasons.
It's an unknown, which adds pure risk. For someone to be out of work for years indicates some sort of ... something. I can't tell with just a gap if that is a problem or just someone living life in a non-career fashion for a while.
I don't personally really view time under a year as significant, as that can simply be time spent in finding a new job. This might particularly be true for someone who doesn't have a faddish skillset.
So in my view, if you took off for a few years, allude to why you did so, along with an explanation of how you kept your skill current.
Example: "I was an early google employee and cashed out after a while, then travelled the world for a few years. I've kept myself current by working on a compiler for my own language with the latest theoretical contributions... you can find it at github/blah/blah. I'd like to resume work at your fine institution". Or that could be restructured into a a line in the resume: "worked on cutting edge compiler as personal project: Last Few Years. See Github Address".
Did they get fired? Did they get a pile of money and go roll around on a beach somewhere? Did they have to take care of family? There can be insanely great reasons... just as easily... insanely bad reasons.
It's an unknown, which adds pure risk. For someone to be out of work for years indicates some sort of ... something. I can't tell with just a gap if that is a problem or just someone living life in a non-career fashion for a while.
I don't personally really view time under a year as significant, as that can simply be time spent in finding a new job. This might particularly be true for someone who doesn't have a faddish skillset.
So in my view, if you took off for a few years, allude to why you did so, along with an explanation of how you kept your skill current.
Example: "I was an early google employee and cashed out after a while, then travelled the world for a few years. I've kept myself current by working on a compiler for my own language with the latest theoretical contributions... you can find it at github/blah/blah. I'd like to resume work at your fine institution". Or that could be restructured into a a line in the resume: "worked on cutting edge compiler as personal project: Last Few Years. See Github Address".