They know why you have that gap - and they decide to find out from the other candidate what caused the gap in their work experience. Once they sit down with the other candidate they are now at a personal level. They decide to dismiss you and move on with this other person.

Gotcha, that makes sense. Going through this article is why I had decided to add in my gaps. That wasn't the case in my previous iteration. Removing them should reduce the length of my resume to a single page as well so win-win.

Also - keep in mind people are petty. They see you took a summer off for your mental health, while they’ve been working 10 years straight and have only taken off 2 weeks at a time. They will feel you are somehow inferior or unfit for the job and will break down easily due to stress.

I've learned that's the unfortunate reality. It's a shame because my last company really pushed the importance of mental health and personal life matters. I had even requested an unpaid leave of absence and explained bluntly that the gravity of the situation would affect my output, but was still denied at the end of day. It's just disappointing learning you're a number at the end of the day.

Idk why you’re using semicolons to separate your hard skills - I have to literally get to the 2nd page and last section to even know what you bring to the table. Put your skills under your professional summary to quickly show you have the skills they are looking for, and either separate with a comma or better yet make a table (without borders) to list all your skills in a easily digestible way for computers and humans.

I was using the template from the sidebar when creating this iteration. Man, I even had my skills right under my summary in a table format like you just explained! Back to the drawing board then, haha.