Turn Resume Gaps and Job Hops Into Fair Questions

When to use it

The prompt

Help me prepare fair, job-relevant questions about this candidate's career history. THE PATTERN I NOTICED: {{e.g. a two-year gap, four roles in three years, a step down in title, a career change, contract work throughout, a long tenure at one place}} THE ROLE: {{Job Title}}, {{level}} WHAT THE ROLE ACTUALLY REQUIRES THAT THIS RELATES TO: {{be specific — e.g. "we need someone who'll stay through a two-year platform migration"}} Give me: 1. The legitimate, job-related concern underneath what I noticed — stated precisely. If there isn't one, tell me that instead of manufacturing one. 2. Two or three questions that get at that concern without asking about anything protected: health, caring responsibilities, family, immigration status, age. 3. What a reassuring answer sounds like, and what would genuinely deepen the concern. 4. The common wrong inferences recruiters draw from this pattern, and what else explains it. 5. Anything I should simply not ask about here, and why. 6. How to raise it in a way that doesn't put a good candidate on the defensive and lose them. Flag anything that varies by jurisdiction and should go to HR or legal first.

Tip

Write down the job-related concern before you write the question. If you can't state what the pattern would actually cost the role, you're about to spend screen time on a bias rather than a risk.

How to use it

Paste the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or whichever assistant you use, then replace every {{bracketed}} part with your own detail. The more specific and messier your input, the better the output — a model given raw notes has more to work with than one given a tidy summary you wrote first.

More Screening prompts

Open the full tool for all 87 prompts, the glossary, and the JD decoder.