If you have had a career break to bring up children you may want to go back to work, or perhaps it is a case of “needs must” as you need to increase the family income, or your partner has been made redundant.
I worked with a return-to-work mum yesterday (well, back in 2009, I’m updating an older article) who couldn’t see anything relevant about her time at home with their children. As we talked about what she did she could see that there were lots of transferable skills. For example:
- Managing schedules and logistics for a group of 5 (if you have 3 children)
- Balancing priorities and keeping within a budget
- Negotiate with suppliers
- Pay invoices and reconcile accounts
- Arrange for repairs – home and vehicles
- Mediate disputes and reach conflict resolution
- Manage, motivate, and coach family members – including setting goals and requirements and monitoring improvement
You need to think more laterally as there are plenty of transferable skills – you were not a “stay at home parent” but a home manager.
It’s interesting looking back at an article that appeared on my blog back in January 2009. I’ve been working as an independent career coach since the last century! The advice above is still relevant, but now it is not only a career break for childcare, but also elder care, family illness and time out for a sabbatical.
Depending on how long you have been out of the workplace it can feel hard to explain what you have done, to lose your confidence and to forget about the achievements and successes you have had.
Easier to say than to do but it is worth keeping track of your achievements, writing down how you smoothed things over, negotiated, learned new things. It makes it so much easier then to add something relevant and engaging onto your CV rather than to just write career break!
And if you are stuck and wondering what to write … get in touch and let me work with you on this.
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay
