Fear of jobs gaps is also about avoiding bad candidates. If someone has a longer gap, there's a chance that he was interviewing the whole time and, during that

Fear of jobs gaps is also about avoiding bad candidates. If someone has a longer gap, there's a chance that he was interviewing the whole time and, during that time, got dozens/hundreds of rejections. So, the lazy heuristic is to assume everyone else was correct and reject him as well.