Q: Won’t working in Australia prevent me from gaining experience in my narrow professional sub-field, thus reducing my total lifetime earning power?

A: This is almost certainly not the case for anyone under 30. Companies pay professionals more based on their abilities and their age as opposed to their actual years of experience. And, they pay more for older professionals than young ones just starting out cause they know these people really do have higher expenses and are less likely to quit. So taking a year off in your 20s to work abroad is only exchanging a year in which you would have earned the lowest salary you’ll ever have during your career for a year of higher earning power in Australia. You can always come back to your career in a year and pick up where you left off. Besides; who follows a straight-up-the-ladder career path anymore? Almost nobody.

Although I think that in the case of taking off only a year these sorts of concerns are probably pretty minimal, this doesn’t seem like an accurate view of the hiring process as I know it. First, many (although not all) companies have no methodology in place for evaluating abilities other than through experience. Indeed, many job ads include experience as a requirement. And the more a company uses HR to evaluate candidates, the more they will use experience as a proxy for ability. Second, although I agree that companies will generally pay older professionals more than younger ones, because of that very reason, many companies will prefer to hire younger cheaper workers, even if they realize this may risk greater turnover because the workers may be less loyal.

As I said, in the case of taking off only a year, I don’t think these concerns are going to have much effect. But even in the case of taking off a year right after college, for example, to the extent that one’s school has on-campus recruiting, applying for jobs will turn out to be a much more difficult and time-consuming endeavor, and some companies will reserve some entry-level jobs exclusively for on-campus recruiting.

The other caveat I have is that in a difficult economic climate, even a slight blemish (or something that can be characterized as a blemish) on one’s résumé may negatively affect one’s job search. With a surplus of qualified applicants, companies will often be looking for reasons not to interview someone, and HR professionals will not always be fair or accurate in finding these reasons. For example, some HR professionals may look at taking a year off to work in the hospitality industry as evidence that the candidate lacks seriousness of purpose or passion for the company’s industry. Now it’s true that others may look at it as adding interesting life experience, of course, but even there, there are probably candidates who took a year off in a way that HR companies view as more meritorious (even though they are less lucrative for the candidate), such as working with the Peace Corps or teaching English in a foreign country.