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Settling for the first thing that comes along may solve an immediate cash flow problem. But if you can't afford the downtime, then don't take the extended vacation in the first place. Having taken it, don't settle for the first thing that comes along and sell yourself short to boot.

The best job isn't necessarily the one the pays the most. It's usually the best balance of several things, and which things those are is unique to you and to the job and company.

Machka 

I look at a bicycle tour as a holiday and personally, I don't put my 3-week annual holidays onto my resume. Nor do I put my 3-month or 8-month holidays on my resume.


However, if I spent some time in another country and picked up some of the language and culture, I might mention that. Employers like that sort of thing.

Or if the holiday (er, um, bicycle tour) involved some complicated logistics ... booking flights, trains, hotels, etc. etc., I might mention that. Especially if I were applying for an admin assistant position which included booking things for my employer.

Or if the job was something in a sports or tourism field, I might mention the tour and specifically how doing a tour like that would enhance my ability to work in the sports or tourism field I was going for.


In other words, I would not specifically include "I went on a bicycle tour" on my resume. But in my personal section, I do, very briefly, mention that I like cycling and travel. And details, like the ones above, might be included in an interview situation. After all, you don't put everything you've ever done into the resume ... you've got to hold back some details so that you have something to talk about in an interview.

Happy Feet

As said, it all depends on how you look at it and what the potential employer is looking for. Specific to a long tour; I would not list it as a holiday. I would list it as an achievement but at the same time I would consider what relevance it may have to the job at hand and list/talk about that, not the trip itself. In the OP's case; college, two jobs and a potential career change may not provide a pedigree of direct job related experience so using non paid, but demonstrably valuable lateral experience can be an asset.

My resume is one page, has plenty of white space and generally the following:

1.Personal contact info

2. Education

3. Three employment or skills based listings (depending on the job)

4. Related experience

5. References upon request.

Items 1,2,3 gives the employer what they believe they need to know. Item 4 is designed to make me stand out as unique. Items 1,2,3 get me onto the interview pile. Item 4 is hopefully something interesting they want to ask me about. If, at that time, I ramble on about what a great vacation I had it's a fail on my part. If I use the experience to demonstrate skills that benefit the company, on top of the ones already listed in 1,2,3, it's a bonus.

saddlesores

no, it's not lying. not exactly. but it's obvious BS
and doesn't fool anyone.

buying a slurpee at the 7-11 is not negotiating.
booking a room at the motel 6 or buying a ticket
on the amtrak aren't terribly valuable skills.

it's the janitor putting "sanitation engineer" on a resume.

when you pad a resume with garbage, it usually gets
thrown out in the first screening......unless it's saved
in the "best of" file to be read at the company party.

Yan 

"Holiday".

Happy Feet

If that's how you see your tour that's ok. Leave whatever you want on or off your resume. I think, if someone were looking at applying for a job that had any sort of national reach or distribution, having just done a nation wide bicycle tour wherein one spoke to people across the breadth of the country might be an asset. Especially if one could articulate situations or circumstances where one grew or developed a greater or broad understanding of regional differences and similarities. If, otoh, you think your skills are garbage best not to mention them. I agree.

Btw, no one puts janitor on a resume anymore in Canada. People actually take courses to be Building Maintenance Workers or Custodians. That's what potential employers expect to see on a resume.

jefnvk

Would you still say that if it was just someone who has vacationed all over the US? After all, they are still talking to people in those places, they should have the same skills.

I lived in Europe for five months, and that hasn't particularly been a selling point to any of my companies, even the ones I dealt with European colleagues and customers/suppliers.

saddlesores

bike tour skills: read map, select route, peddle bike, fix flat, carry stuff, watch for cars, make change, talk to peoples.

suitable employment: domino's delivers.

mev

My resume listed years and not individual months, so gaps aren't necessarily as prominent. When I've had room I've had a short one-liner at the bottom, something like, "Interest s: bicycle touring, ridden across five continents"

On my current trip, I decided to have a few more connections (a) my LinkedIn profile lists it as a position and (b) my blog has a pointer to LinkedIn. I did that partially because when the trip is over I'll use it while networking to find the next position.

Booger1

Is there something wrong with riding around on your bicycle for 3 months that needs hiding?

I really don't want to work for somebody that has a problem with bicycle riding....No matter how much they pay me....I'm going to do it again at some point.

Just leave the gap.....If they ask,tell them you were on vacation.....It's a resume,not "This is Your Life"

MRT2

I am in the leave it off camp, unless you know the experience is relevant to the job, or if you know the person who will be reading the resume is into cycling.

As a matter of personal experience, when I was in college, I spent 11 months in Europe where I took a years worth of college credits, and spent 2 months backpacking. It was a life changing experience in many ways. I learned to be resourceful and self sufficient, learned how to deal with different cultures, became proficient in French. But over the years after, prospective employers didn't care, so I eventually dropped it off my resume entirely. It just wasn't relevant.

Additionally, bicycle touring potentially falls into potentially neutral or even negative resume padding territory. While the non bike person might be impressed by the commitment to personal goals, some non cycling HR types might also wonder 1. if the job seeker is likely to want to take 3 months off every year, or 2. Is some kind of loner or tree hugging hippy. As others have said, exceptions to this rule include jobs like bike shop employee (a seasonal job where they might be fine with employees taking off time off season), a bike touring company, or something similar where knowledge of bikes, touring and camping might be more relevant.

MRT2

Nothing at all, but be aware that not everybody feels the same about your hobbies as you do.

alan s 

If I slept late every day, and then sat around eating junk food, watching the news and political talk shows and listening to talk radio for three months, I would put it on my resume as education. Home study of the US Political System.

Happy Feet

I do that too. Put linked in logo right on my resume. It's a common practice now. I also assume my potential employer will look me up on Facebook so nothing but positive stuff gets posted there. And my bike tour/awareness campaign is linked there too.
Besides the obvious info it tells the employer I understand technology and the value of social media.

mev

Not really and if it is a place this matters, probably not a match for me.

In general try to follow advice that everything on the resume needs to focus on the job I'm trying to get and anything on the resume is something that will likely be asked about.

Hence, a item like "interests" shouldn't take much space but can be an intro/common topic to start an interview, just enough to set a hook.

As a hiring manager, I've done similar when something catches my interest on a resume. However, if it is too much or irrelevant to job at hand, I'll wonder "what position are they looking for?"

As far as accounting for every month, I've just listed years rather than getting real specific on exact months. If that is important we can easily discuss, but it hasn't been a topic that has come up.

mev

Agree with employers looking you up on social media and web.

In my case it was more that I've worked long enough and have developed a reasonable network of positive relationships that I want to keep in touch along the way as well as have them look out along the way for positions that might open in their companies when I finish.

ptempel

Definately agree. I also try to keep my resume to 2 pages. And since I'm not a PhD whose published in journals, books or other material my experience really doesn't warrant a longer resume. I'd put it in an "Other Interests" section. Something like:

Other Interests

Bicycling. Completed long term goal coast to coast bicycle tour.

toward the end and that's it. Let the prospective employer ask about it if they are interested. It would at least show that they took the time to read your resume to the end...

alan s 

Also, make sure you check your spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and grammar.

Machka 

+1

As we get older we move from detailing everything in months to generalising everything in years.

Doug64

I had a thought last night as my wife and I were discussing routes for a tour early this fall.

If the OP rode an ACA route using ACA maps, there was not a whole lot of planning or logistics involved. There are not many unknowns. I've always found getting to the start or home at the end of a tour is sometimes more difficult than the tour.

Sure, he/she should be proud of the accomplishment, but it does not seem like something to put on your reume.

mev

My perspective is quite different on the first paragraph. However, my conclusions on being careful to list are similar but for different reasons.

I enjoy the work I do and my hobbies and work tend to overlap. As a result, in addition to having time in the office managing technical people, I'm often spending "free time" doing work related projects. I'll often also spend half a weekend day of "quiet time" in the office doing technical work that is tough to do with as many people around. I also care about my employees and tend to support them how I can. As a result, my work has the largest portion of my waking time and is something I enjoy.

However, just as my work/hobby bleeds into what would normally be considered "free time", e.g. evenings or weekends - I also sometimes have my personal items bleed into work. For example, known as "the guy without a car who bikes everywhere" or the "guy who combines working with his team in India with a week or so personal travel while he is out there".

It is perhaps a bit "workaholic" but I've also been fortunate to establish very good relations with my bosses and good and supportive feedback. At the same time after 3-5 years of pretty intense employment focused time, I've also then taken a longer break including take advantage of "leave programs" that larger companies sometimes have. Some are required by law (e.g. maternity or FMLA or military service), some are perhaps worked with the right employee situation (e.g. time to care for sick relative, fewer hours to increase school) and bike touring doesn't really fit any of those. However, I've been fortunate that I've been able to approach it as "I am taking this trip, can I get leave?" and have employers respond positively...

However, to circle back to resumes. Most of the time a resume is involved, you have none of that built up relationship. Hence, it can be difficult for an employer to tell what type of employee you might be and notions of taking time for trips, etc is premature and being "different" will add risks that you are filtered out. Instead this is something to be figured out over time.

In my experience, a resume has three audiences during the hiring process:
1. Initially it is target of a "search" or query. For example, from LinkedIn, a job board or the employers system. Here is key is to have the right types of search terms. For example, from technical perspective we might look for "network engineers", "dba", "linux kernel experts", "compiler developers", "firmware engineers" or fairly specialized fields. You need to have the right sorts of terms in the resume that show up for the technical work you want to do (as an experienced person) or reasonable school/GPA/geography/visa-status (as a college hire).
2. Once you get picked by the "search", some HR person or manager will "filter" through the resumes to find likely candidates for the type of work they need done. This filters out terms that just happened to come up in search (e.g. certifications or "users" but not really developers). This will result in a smaller number of folks selected for a phone screen or interview.
3. Resume is used to guide the phone and on-site interview process. Here folks are going to figure out if you've really done what you said, if you have specific skills for the work and are a fit for the group.

In my opinion, listing "bicycle touring" does very little for steps #1 and #2 and unless you are in closely related work - probably adds risks that the resume can get thrown out during search process or filtering. During the step #3, it can be icebreaker or initial conversation or even a positive hook in the right conversation. Hence, this is why I tend to keep it short and simple on the resume, unobtrusive down near the bottom on "interests" and some hook like "cycled across five continents".

Even during the interview process, it can be difficult to figure out directly from interview team how well the company might support you long-term without perturbing the process. To give you an example from personal experience a while ago...I first cycled across USA in 1992. It was a short but intense six-week trip (I was younger and spent most hours riding) that came from saved vacation. The November after, our ~40 person work group was shut down and work shifted to other geographies. We were given a month+ to either find another job within the company (I'll call it "H") or take severance. I was fortunate to get three fairly different offers during that time:
- One was with "H" also located in CO, but doing different related type work.
- One was with "H", moving to MA, a promotion but leading new teams where our work was being transferred
- One was with "M", a different company in WA, doing interesting technical work
I knew the culture of "H" and they knew me - but I was trying to figure out whether "M" would support things like my bike tour I had just taken the previous summer. So I asked whether in addition to two weeks of vacation one could possibly take time off without pay or could accumulate. They didn't know me - and really didn't appear very flexible.

It was one of the primary factors why I turned down "M", though later learned for right employees they would have been flexible and probably would have worked. Instead I took the promotion with "H" and moved to MA and then five years later took my next long bike trip, this time for three months. I was fortunate to have multiple options - and went on to work for "H" for another 17 years including taking a 12-month and 10-month LOA during that time.

However, I also learned that in early stages of the "resume" and "interview" process when neither party knows the other particularly well - you can get some ideas talking with other employees (ideally outside the direct hiring process) but tough to really know well. Hence, I'll put something short but not particularly intrusive in my resume about an interest in bicycle touring.

ptempel

Yes, I take some grammatical liberties whilst posting in the forum. However, I agree that the OP should keep a closer eye on spelling and grammer for his resume.