"I reply and they almost invariably never respond, presumably because they look more closely and see the large gap in employment."

Ive long thought about this problem. I think the issue is we dont have an objective mechanism to understand ones capability. Because thats really what matters.

Two people can have the same YOE, but how do you know which is more capable? Interviews are a terrible way to guage this, but is the present day mechanism thats used.

It's not obvious what a better method would be.