The piece given here is how she would look at a CV of that pattern - and as far as it goes that's fair enough. Personally if I see you with a four to eight year gap on your CV my first question, assuming I'm hiring for a significant role and your CV is strong in other respects, is going to be 'So, what did you do during those years?' I'm not just going to assume you were working small jobs to support yourself, I'm going to be thinking 'Were they working small jobs? If so why didn't anyone there hire them full time? Were they in prison? Were they a trouble employee?'

Certain parts of the recruitment and interviewing process are effectively black boxes. You can guess at things that HR/hiring managers want - experience and achievements related to the role they're looking to fill, relevant qualifications - and there are some cultural things, (you wouldn't put a picture of yourself on a CV in this country for instance,) but beyond that it's a very muddy game. There's limited advice on that front - though my personal take is that it would be a great shame not to be hired because you've not given the best account of yourself. Or, perhaps worse, to be hired because you've given someone the wrong impression of yourself (assuming you're not desperate for the money of course) and end up in a role that's going to make you miserable.