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Working mums & returning to work after a career break
"Women are like tea bags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water" Eleanor RooseveltIt doesn't matter whether you're returning back to the world of paid or unpaid work after a few months of leave, or a career break of several years. Whatever the reason - maternity leave, children growing up and away, serious illness, divorce and so on, going back to work after that career break can feel scary!
Whether you were a corporate high flier, or you're a mature job seeker with little in the way of recent experience, everyone has their own issues which can include a general lack of confidence, and uncertainty about the currency of their skills, knowledge or contacts. Just remember that everyone has something to offer - modesty can be your greatest virtue or your Achilles heel in these situations if you're not careful.
Dealing with Working Mother Guilt
It is so easy for women to respond to the guilt button we all seem to have implanted on our foreheads, and rants about working mothers vs stay at home mothers are the daily fodder of the tabloids. A lot of people in our past fought very hard to make life better for women in this country (and many are still are!). The rights to choose - to stay at home or not, to work outside the home or not, to be paid fairly for what we do and so on are important ones.
If you want to stay at home - fine. Don't let anyone else make you feel guilty. If you have to go back to work because you need the money to feed and house your family - fine. Don't let anyone else make you feel guilty. If you want to go back to work because you love your job - fine. You see where we're headed with this one! It just doesn't need to be an 'either/or' choice any more.
Sisters doing it for themselves
More and more women are setting up their own very successful businesses, referred to in the media as 'Kitchen Table Tycoons' or 'Mumpreneurs', because they find it either difficult or just plain unappealing to break back into the mainstream job market. Finding good, affordable childcare is much easier than it used to be, however, now the big issue is getting access to refresher training!
Government figures show half of all small and medium-sized firms are run with women at the helm. Finding a way to combine running a business and your household is more and more possible because of the way technology has opened up new vistas of opportunity.
For the first time, women make up about one in four on the annual list of Top 100 Entrepreneurs. Elena Ambrosiadou, who set up one of the first hedge funds in London in 1991 when she was in her early thirties, is now worth more than 140 million. Sarah Tremellen, in her early fifties and worth more than £13m, founded the lingerie company Bravissimo when she was pregnant and couldn't find a bra to fit. Luisa Scacchetti, in her fifties and worth £57m, co-founded Mamas and Pappas in 1979 with just £5000 because she couldn't find stylish nursery gear when she was pregnant.
We're constantly being told, however, that employers are making much bigger efforts to lure women back into their workforces (given that there will be fewer and fewer people under 30 in the job market in the future) so, perhaps you could be putting this to the test.
Be prepared!
In any event, before anyone writes off their chances of success or plunges into an interview or business idea completely unprepared such that they become their own self fulfilling prophecy of failure, take some time out to think about the following question.
What do you really, really want?
It's a deceptively simple question but it generally takes quite a bit of thought or soul searching to answer. Until you have some firm convictions or desire about what you want, it is hard to build a winning plan to achieve your goals - however modest or ambitious they are. So, time thinking about that is not a luxury, it's an essential.
Once you have the desire to achieve your real goals you'll be unstoppable.
Once you have the desire to achieve your real goals you'll be unstoppable.
How did your old job make you feel?
Were you happy? Fulfilled? Completely strung out, or just bored senseless? What do you miss? The company? The perks? The financial independence? The sense of achievement? The intellectual challenge? The drama and gossip?
Mapping out the things which made you enjoy or hate your old job will help you to think about your options before you start to concern yourself about how to achieve them. Never worry about the 'how' before you've figured out the 'why' or you could come up with a brilliant solution which still doesn't actually tick all your boxes, or you'll talk yourself out of all kinds of quite sensible options before you've even started. Once you've done that, you can think about the 'how' questions.
Were you happy? Fulfilled? Completely strung out, or just bored senseless? What do you miss? The company? The perks? The financial independence? The sense of achievement? The intellectual challenge? The drama and gossip?
Mapping out the things which made you enjoy or hate your old job will help you to think about your options before you start to concern yourself about how to achieve them. Never worry about the 'how' before you've figured out the 'why' or you could come up with a brilliant solution which still doesn't actually tick all your boxes, or you'll talk yourself out of all kinds of quite sensible options before you've even started. Once you've done that, you can think about the 'how' questions.
Start by pondering some of these practical career considerations
- How much time do you really want spend at work?
- Can you really go back to your old job?
- Does your previous employer, or will your next employer, operate 'family friendly' policies and a supportive culture?
- Can you go part-time first and build up gradually?
- Is commuting, either in terms of time or money, viable or not?
- How will your childcare arrangements work?
- Do you need to brush up on a few skills first? Check out our training help section for ideas on IT skills training, management and trade training courses. Organisations such as the AAT - Association of Accounting Technicians offer flexible learning packages for skills that always in demand with employers.
- Does your employer or professional organisation have a refresher training scheme to help you get back up to speed?
- What transferable skills do you have? Planning? Managing budgets? Project management?
- Do you sell yourself, or sell yourself short, on your CV?
- How much money will you need to earn to make it worthwhile?
- Can you get some objective advice? CV help, interview advice or improving your personal impact?
- Can you use old contacts, or find new ones, to help your plan along?
- Can you imagine starting your own business?
- How about working freelance?
- What about working from home?
- Do you want to go back to your old world, or do you need help choosing a new direction?
If the answers aren't immediately clear or seem too daunting or impossible, please don't be put off. Keep at it and if you stay focused you'll be amazed at how coincidences start to occur.
Talk to others about your plan. It helps to clarify it in your own mind and may generate ideas and offers of help. A neighbour might tell you about a great creche or nursery to sort out your childcare worries. An old colleague might give you a lead to a vacancy they think would be the perfect job for you. A former employer may be willing to provide some training to get you back up to speed.
Once you're not scared any more it's easy to focus and stay positive. As Susan Jeffers says in her best selling book - 'Fear the fear and do it anyway!'
Talk to others about your plan. It helps to clarify it in your own mind and may generate ideas and offers of help. A neighbour might tell you about a great creche or nursery to sort out your childcare worries. An old colleague might give you a lead to a vacancy they think would be the perfect job for you. A former employer may be willing to provide some training to get you back up to speed.
Once you're not scared any more it's easy to focus and stay positive. As Susan Jeffers says in her best selling book - 'Fear the fear and do it anyway!'
Finding Childcare
- If you're happy with your childcare, you'll be happier and more relaxed at work. If you can't rely on a family member or parent to help you for free, it isn't something you can skimp on, so buy the best you can afford.
- There are lots of nurseries now but the best ones always have waiting lists so do your homework first. There is no point in accepting a job only to find out you'll have to wait months for a place to come vacant.
- To find a child minder, your local authority can provide you with access to properly vetted and regulated ones.
- You might be able to afford a daily nanny, it could be the only option if you have more than one child as nursery fees get steep. Could you share with another working mother?
- If you have room and you are prepared to manage another adult in the house, you could have a live-in nanny or an au pair. If you do have a nanny or an au pair they will be worth their weight in gold if you take care of them. Most hard working parents don't have a lot of time for diva-like behaviour under any circumstances and nannies who make unreasonable demands are a pain in the butt as are unreasonable employers and spoilt brat kids. Looking after your children is their job so it needs to be treated as such in a businesslike manner with clear boundaries set and proper communication about duties, standards, pay, tax, holidays, hours and so on. Using emotional blackmail or adopting an 'Upstairs, Downstairs' attitude on either side will usually end in tears on all sides.
- Mothers often experience bouts of jealousy about the relationship their children have with their carers. Relax, your children will never love anyone like they love their very own, special mother - YOU.
- Make sure that you fit in time together without making a rod for your own back, burning yourself out being a slave to activities and taxi driving. Most kids are totally overstimulated these days. Family meals at the table at weekends and stories at bedtime are not the things to skimp on.
- Get some help around the house - get a cleaner once a week if you can afford it, make the rest of the family pitch in, tidy up after themselves and so on. They'll soon learn that clean socks and crockery don't grow on trees and that the vacuum cleaning fairy doesn't exist!
- In many ways, it is easier to leave younger children in nurseries or with nannies. Once your children become teenagers they often need you more, not less. You'll know what it is right for your family, so good luck with whatever options you choose.
Essential resources - you don't have to do it all by yourself!
There is a lot more help and advice around for career returners than there ever was, so our advice is - take it and make it yours! If you're ready to register your CV and start job hunting now, just go to our excellent selection of job hunting sites. Professional women may want to join the Aurora Network listed below which helps to campaign for better company environments for women to work in. They cover the bigger corporates and have some very useful information, surveys, networking events. They measure companies on a 20 point scale around what they say about women, what they do for women and how well they perform which you can research at Where Women Want to Work.
Look at the other sections of the site on starting your own business, freelancing and working in the not for profit sector. Other useful resources for women returners are listed in the directory below.
 | whatdoesyourcareergiveyourchildren.pdf - 22kb Download this file |
| currentbehaviours-weaknessorstrength.pdf - 22kb Download this file |
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