Imagine you’ve had a lay off – this is not a deal breaker when applying for a new job. This is more the reason to write a cover letter where you can put this in to context, how you used the time, the skills you developed, and so on.
Include what you’ve been up to, how you keep learning and growing. If you can show that you have spent your time productively, or took some time off to reflect, that’s going to be important for a hiring manager to see. If you tell a story that will help a lot.
It’s important to include previous experience and what you did when you switched career. Some have 20 years of experience and include this within their CV. It is super relevant to those who are switching careers, or just switching back. You have an interesting story to tell – you switched careers and you’re switching back; so what happened? What did you learn? What are you bringing within you from your interim career? There is something that you learned – you have grown, you’ve accomplished new things, you’ve seen a new industry and interacted with different types of people.
If you didn’t include this in a document, you might prompt a hiring manager to wonder what you were doing in that period, so it’s better to include this fully.