Identify the relevant dates, actual employment relationship and work locations. Provide appropriate records and distinguish confirmed facts from unresolved information. A portfolio is assembled to win work; a chronology is assembled to be checked. The first selects the strongest projects and leaves the quiet months out, and those omissions are precisely the periods a reviewer asks about. Build the chronology from records created at the time, then let the portfolio illustrate what it already shows.
Do not use the résumé as the only timing evidence
A résumé may summarize employment without explaining leave or physical location. Use relevant underlying records for the assessment, with sensitive personal information handled according to actual evidence needs. Different records settle different facts, so name the fact before requesting the paper.
Employment dates come from payroll registers and the leave ledger; physical work location from travel and assignment records rather than the office address printed on a contract; knowledge from project registers, commissioning or validation logs, dated internal training records, and documents the applicant wrote. Where an absence falls in the middle of a project, note what had been completed before it and what was resumed afterwards, because a project listed as one unbroken engagement invites the question it was meant to avoid. Limit sensitive material to what the requirement calls for, and record who at the employer authorised its release.