How much of an employment is acceptable in the US IT industry?

Question

If the gap is voluntary, will they buy my story; if not voluntary then what is a wide gap?

Answer 1

Depends on your experience, circumstances, etc.
If it was voluntary I'm sure they would buy it as long as you had
references. Employment today is alot different from 10 years ago.
I've been in IT for 30 years and just took the last 2 yrs off.
I don't know if I will go back or not (it's my choice, I don't really need to) but I've kept the gap pretty close in my resume by doing a little bit of consulting each month. Even though I might only work 15-25 hours a month when I list it on my resume I just show it as months.

If not voluntary I'd say it depends on the job. If you were a "help desk tech" or "pc tech" probably about 4 months.
They say it's usually a month for every 10k of salary.
If you were a unix admin or DBA making 80k it should take you apprx. 8 months to find a comparable job.