>I know people hate to hear this, but having the combination of a short 3-month job on your resume followed by a 5 month gap doesn't look good when compared to

>I know people hate to hear this, but having the combination of a short 3-month job on your resume followed by a 5 month gap doesn't look good when compared to the 5 other resumes these companies are going to receive from people who are currently employed or who were recently laid off from well-known companies. This rarely happens. If a gap is the only differentiator between a pool of people, they've not been interviewed yet or well enough. The only way this happens is if someone views developers only as cogs with a checklist of skills to acquire and don't know how to find their differences and strengths and weaknesses as people. But apart from that, the tide is changing around work gaps. You have an argument for a pattern of gaps, but even then, with so many bad companies out there, I don't fault someone for getting unlucky 3-5 times in a row.