I think you are probably correct ToL. I still dont believe the gap is an issue but they still need to ask about it and perhaps the manner in which those questions is being answered is causing them to re-evaluate. A stumbling response or even an unusual gap in answering would raise flags because if I was interviewing, I would expect that iwan would know those types of questions were coming up and would have fully prepared solid answers for them. Any weak answer would set off loud alarm bells.

If I was being interviewed, my answer would depend on my circumstances and the reason why I quit. Only iwan knows the answer to both of these so it's hard to help. I remember going to one interview for a manual job after failing to get a graduate level job many years ago. Predictably the interviewer asked me why I was going for such a job when i had a degree. He said "how do I know you wont leave tomorrow if a better offer comes in?". I told him that whilst I could not turn down a better offer, none had come in for more than 3 months and i needed to pay my rent. I then said that for however long i was employed there, he would get 100% effort and committment from me. I remember him telling me that this was the only answer he would have accepted to that question and he asked me to start on the following Monday. Sometimes being blunt and honest is the best way to play it. By the way, it took me another 14 months to get out of that job into a graduate level role so he got his money's worth :-D

I would go with your name, your uni and then a brief couple of sentences about broadly what kind of research you are involved in. There wont be time for much more than that.

You are quite correct TQ but collaboration is not about person A coming to your lab and solving your research problems for you, even if Person A is your supervisor or a lab technician.

There is nothing wrong with looking for someone but there is a fine line between having a companion and actuvely pursuing an act of dependency. There were a couple of things in the OP's first post which struck me as a little too close to the latter for comfort. Like I said, I may have misunderstood.

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You should expect to have to learn new techniques yourself. You should also expect to solve any problems that arise. That isn't your supervisor's job. Neither is it the job of anyone else in the lab. Not having enough experience is exactly the whole point. The PhD processs gains you that experience but you have to do it yourself. How much time it takes is irrelevant. This is your PhD process. It doesn't belong to anyone else.

It sounds to me like you are struggling to understand what is expected of you. What you are going through is entirely normal. Enjoy it and stop giving yourself such a hard time. The PhD is quite possibly going to be the hardest thing you will ever do in your career. It's meant to be like that.

To be honest stargazer, if you need a buddy to get motivated you are going to struggle.
Whilst it is nice to have someone to bounce ideas off or shoot the breeze with, you cannot abdicate responsibility for your own motivation. Be careful that you are not creating a culture of dependency for yourself because the most committed study buddy in the world will move on one day or will go through their own phase where they can't help you because they are drowning themselves.

I don't understand why the people around you are affecting your motivation. I think you need to be aiming to be a bit more independent. That is one of the key skills the PhD is trying to bring out in you. You need to start ignoring what those around you are doing. They will have a lifetime of explaining away their decisions and behaviours.

It might sound like I am having a go at you here but that's not my intention. It's just that your post sets alarm bells ringing for me. I might be misunderstanding what you are after though.

Edited to add:
I think my confusion is coming from the fact that your first and second posts are diametrically opposed to one another. Your first sounds a bit needy and dependent but the second is the sort of thing I would have expected to hear you say. Maybe all you have to do is tell yourself that whilst you would like a buddy, you don't NEED anyone else.

I am in the same boat as satchi here. I have considered teaching for quite a while. The teaching itself would be fine as would all the admin etc. but the problem would be that I wouldnt be able to handle ill-discipline in the classroom knowing I had neither the power to properly deal with troublemakers nor the support of my school even if I did.
I am also passionately of the opinion that those with specialist needs are not helped by forcing them through mainstream schooling. I think this is the root of a lot of problems and comes from the sort of handwringing, gesture politics which drives me insane. The job goes way beyond teaching and into the realms of social work and frankly I simply wouldnt suit this type of work at all.

I have been critical of teachers before and in my opinion rightly so for a whole range of reasons, but in fairness for those actually doing the job properly it must be very difficult.

You need to stop taking these comments so seriously. They are meaningless in the scheme of things. It's a bunch of academics who are exerting their one area of power under the cloak of anonymity.
My final academic paper was heavily maths based and took me 18 months of living out of my comfort zone to finish the work and write up. It nearly finished me off.
Reviewer A said it was dreadful and looked like a "low level" student had written it. Fortunately for me, his ego forced him to demonstrate his mastery over me by providing many many pages of detailed notes on how HE would have written it. I simply ignored the abuse, thanked him profusely for his kind guidance and made the exact changes he asked for. It was published on the next submission although he did snipe that it had risen to the level of a report written by a "middling" student.
These people and their opinions simply do not matter in the scheme of things. I guarantee that every successful published academic has a series of these types of responses to their own papers. Those dishing out abuse will have had their own papers crucified as well.

I'm afraid rejection is part and parcel of academic life.
Pick another journal with a lower impact factor and try again.

Your first point is a reasonable one but if the gap was an issue he would not be getting interviews.
Once you reach the interview stage you are on a level playing field with the other candidates.
The problem is more likely to do with how he is handling the questions about that gap.
Doing things like calling the job Research Assistant sounds clever but it's not tackling the core problem (because he is getting lots of interviews) and it probably won't work anyway because a quick phone call to his uni will reveal the lie and anyway they will know he is lying when he fails to provide a reference from that job. Dont underestimate HR department staff. They are not all clueless in my experience.

I will have a think about how he can better answer questions about the gap.
Iwan's initial answer is exactly correct but I want to know how he handles the second question about whether he gives up easily. In my opinion that is maybe where the battle is lost.

I think we need a response from Iwan addressing our points before we can get to the root of it.

If you want to teach in schools in the UK for example, your degree will determine what you are allowed to teach. That is certainly true in Scotland although the rest of the UK may be more flexible in that regard.

It therefore will not necessarily be something you have any choice over.

You are correct TQ. Most companies dont need PhD qualified employees and just want to know what happened during those years.
Most of us will have one or two gaps in our CV's over the years.
This is why I asked iwan about how frequently he/she is experiencing this because I cant understand why this is an issue for any employer.

I dont know what you mean by "impact" but if you want to feel connected you should get into the uni as often as you can and meet up with people. Is one afternoon a week realistic?

To be honest, it is hard enough to get noticed by academic staff as a full time student never mind a part time one. You'll need to work very hard on this aspect. Students are bottom of the foodchain and unless they do something extraordinary I cant imagine full time staff wanting to have anything to do with them. It's a good sign that you are thinking in these terms well in advance though.

I am not persuaded at all that the jobs market is worse than it was 30 years ago. Companies have always wanted experience.
I think things are much easier now because the internet gives easy access to jobs everwhere. It used to be a nightmare in the 90's.

Dont focus just on big companies. The vast majority of all companies are small companies who cant afford to advertise jobs through traditional routes and in the main struggle to find the time to even write adverts.
If you stick to big companies you will be competing with every Tom, Dick and Harry for a job which is likely to be very restrictive. With smaller companies you get exposure to a much wider set of skills.
Worth bearing in mind.

The biggest problem is finding the right job.
Getting any old job is less tricky.