blogs
Back to Work
Several people I know, who are Moms of teens, are starting to think about going back to the workplace. Their kids have their drivers' licenses and/or their friends have their drivers' licenses, so picking up and dropping off is not such a big responsibility. Some of them have sent some or all of their kids off to college. The unemployment rate is still pretty high, so the question becomes, how does a Mom turn 15-20 years of her experience into a marketable resume? Here are some ideas:
- Actual activity: Feeding and changing babies' diapers for several years
- Resume entry: Responsibility for input and output from a staff of 1-3
- Actual activity: Potty training
- Resume entry: Orientation and instruction of staff for new skills and responsibilities
- Actual activity: Drying tears, giving hugs and bandaging boo-boos
- Resume entry: Crisis management
- Actual activity: Breaking up sibling arguments and fights
- Resume entry: Creating and maintaining a team environment
- Actual activity: Grocery shopping
- Resume entry: Purchasing and receiving of multiple products and monitoring of inventory to avoid shortages
- Actual activity: Organizing play dates
- Resume entry: Coordinating interdepartmental functions
- Actual activity: Driving everyone everywhere
- Resume entry: Logistics management to ensure safe delivery of products to destinations
- Actual activity: Getting kids to do chores
- Resume entry: Division of labor amongst staff and oversight to ensure that work is completed accurately and on time
I keep seeing these sidebar ads on Facebook saying that Obama wants Moms to go back to college. I think with experience like this, who needs college? We are ready to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies! What Mom skills have you picked up that you can turn into an impressive-sounding resume entry?
Diane appears Wednesdays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Diane on her blog Live and Let Di.
Live and Let Di
Diane is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Wednesday.
I try to be the voice of Moms with teens. My daughter Haley is 16. She's at that age where she is convinced that I know nothing. I'm thinking I'll seem a lot smarter when she's 22. We bond over Broadway shows. My son Rory is 13. He started reading the sports page when he was 5 and his passion for anything sports-related has grown ever since. This year he beat out 9 guys in their 40s to win his Fantasy Football League. Watch for him on ESPN in a few years.
My husband Hurley works from home, but travels quite a bit. When he's gone, I usually take a break from making dinner and cleaning the house. Oh, I don't do those things regularly when he's here either! Our parenting philosophy is "choose your battles." The only problem is that we often choose different battles. It keeps it interesting!!!
Comments
I have always said that any mother who can take a family of four on a vacation could lead troops across the frozen tundra.
I actually used to teach a resume-writing class for women who had been out of the workplace raising children. These women were amazed at how they could classify the skills they had accumulated over those years.
Funny blog, Di-- but oh, so true. Those mom skills are extremely transferable to the work place. Although we know our mom job is important, we sometimes think it doesn't compete with a job in the "real" world, but those skills are skills no matter where you use them.
I also suggest that moms--whether contemplating going back to work right now or not, start scribbling down some of their accomplishments, whether it's in your neighborhood, school, church, etc. and stick them in a file (or put it on a computer file). Then, when and if you need to update your resume, you'll have some more specific accomplishments that you may have forgotten about.
Funny! Not sure how to translate trying to get child who hates to sleep to go to sleep and stay in her own bed into an acomplishment, lol.
Very true Pamela. Moms should also keep track of any odd jobs that they do while at home and figure out how to include those skills on a resume. I did mystery shopping for years and I have a line on my resume that says "Evaluated customer service and wrote feedback reports for various business"
Jennifer, how about this:
Responsible for staff behavior and adherence to time schedules.
LOL, very good. Not sure that I was sucessful at the time schedules part since at age 8 she still wakes up at 5:30 am.
Funny article! You could add: Patience for multiple personality types! This is me, mom of teen, stay at home, looking to get back in to salaried work!