Banker with Two-Year Gap on Resume

Question
I worked in the Banking industry for nearly 30 years, and for the last 15 years, worked at fairly senior level positions with a title of VP or higher - almost exclusively in commercial or consumer lending. I'm still too young to retire, and have many good years left in me.

In Sept 2005, I was with an employer where the position I held had lost all interest to me. My employer had made an evident (but unannounced to all but a select few of us) decision to significantly change our division's focus and charter in a direction I had absolutely no interest in. As a result, I made a decision to leave the job and pursue outside personal interests. These included learning to trade securities and foreign currency on my own, as well as rehab and sell some personal real estate holdings that I held from my parent's estate.

Over the ensuing months, I took several classes, or attended seminars, on how to trade. Additionally, I commenced the real estate rehab projects, actually doing much of the required work on my own - taking one property at a time, finishing the work, and then selling the property while I went to work on the next project. I finished selling the last property (thankfully) just before the mortgage implosion last summer.

Meanwhile, my trading activities have been OK, but after several months of consistently crazy hours (the FOREX market is open 24 hours daily), I decided I didn't want to do this for the remainder of my working life. I like being around and interacting with people, and there just aren't many people around at 10PM to 2AM overnight - including my family.

I have decided I want to return to the Banking industry. But, I'm now left with this employment gap of 2 plus years, and I'm struggling a bit on how best to portray my activities in a positive light that will gain some attention from prospective employers. I thouhgt about detailing the time as "Self Employed" with a brief description of what I've been doing, but when I review my resume, this description just isn't "eye-popping". I've thought about leaving dates off the resume, & thus leaving the last 2 years off (the resume then almost, but not quite, becomes a functional resume), but I'm afraid this approach is full of landmines as well. Any thoughts and/or advise?

Answer


In this video I suggest how to handle this two-year gap, using a chronological format.