1 year gap due to illness - Should I state it in Cover Letter?

Upon graduation, I spent a year in and out of hospital due to illness I had (cancer to be exact). I was completely cured, thankfully, got an IBD analyst job shortly after and have been with the currrent firm for almost 2 years now.

Now that I am job hunting and sending out resume/cover letter to employers, it is obvious on my resume that there is 1 year gap b/w graduation and my first job, and I wonder whether or not I should state it in my cover letter. If yes, how much details should I enclose in it, i.e. just state that "due to illness I have", or just flat out say that I had a cancer.

Thanks for your inputs in advance!

9 Comments
 

since you have a current job now and got one after ur illness, i think you should be fine. its not like you havent been working and need to explain it.

 

Thank you both for your inputs. Before I posted this question, I was leaning toward putting it in my cover letter, as I think employers would prefer not to see any kind of time gap in b/w school, work experience etc. But what you guys said makes sense and I will just leave it out for now, and if they do ask me during interivew, I will tell them.

Thanks both again.

 

Thanks all for your inputs!

Matty 200 - Yeah, that's what I was afraid of when I was looking for my very first job fresh out of hospital (well, I already started looking when I had only couple cycles of treatments left). Thankfully, my current firm only looked at my academic achievements, good internship experiences etc and did not mind at all the fact that I was ill. Of course, they were somewhat worried about the possibility of me going back to the hospital, but I convinced them that it was cured and I was more than ready to get some hands on experience.

Hopefully I will be lucky again this time.

That is very nice of you to help your friend out through his/her tough time. Trust me, friends/family members like you are what your friend needs the most at times like this. :)

 

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