LinkedIn’s “Career Break” Feature Brings Concerns of Hustle Culture

LinkedIn’s newest feature, Career Break, encourages users to explain why there may be a gap in their resume. Many users—mostly women—requested this feature so they could explain why they took an extended leave from work.

Reasons that you can list under Career Break include maternity/paternity leave, caregiving for an elder, being laid off, career transition, and more. The feature also allows you to list the skills that you learned during this time off.

In a way, this feature is helpful because it lets you prove that just because you were not working at your career, it doesn’t mean you weren’t learning anything valuable.

But the TryMus team is also worried about the implications that come with classifying everything as “work”. This is a toxic part of today’s Hustle Culture; the idea that you are only valuable if you are working and hustling.

Not to mention, most of the options under Career Break are very personal scenarios. If you are comfortable with sharing, that’s up to you, however, nobody should feel forced to justify time off by sharing an extremely personal detail with an employer.

Watch our video discussion to learn more about our thoughts on this new feature, and how it furthers toxic Hustle Culture mentality.