Year: 2023

Are you considering a career break for childcare, eldercare, extended travel, pursuing a personal interest, or some other reason? Here’s what you need to do now to pave the way for your eventual re-entry.

1. Don’t assume a full career break is the only option. Ask your employer for what you want. Do you desire more schedule control or a different work location? Can you change your working hours or days, or create a home and office hybrid arrangement? Would contractor status work for you? Decide what you want and make the case to your employer. They have invested in you, and you have institutional knowledge that could be expensive to replace. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot about how, when and where work gets done. If your employer is not able or willing to make adjustments to accommodate your needs, then you can consider a career break or a non-traditional work arrangement elsewhere.
2. Stay connected professionally. Most of us who have taken career breaks in the past advise “keeping a toe in the water” if possible. In other words, don’t drop out of your career completely. Can you work for your former employer on a project or contract basis? Can you cover the occasional parental leave? Can you freelance? Can you teach a college course as an adjunct lecturer, utilizing your subject matter expertise? Consider these options now, and reach out to former classmates and colleagues who have tried these approaches to ask for advice. What do they recommend? And what do they wish they had known earlier?
3. Document your work achievements in real time. Start documenting your career accomplishments, failures, and milestone moments — anytime you learned something significant. Your post-career-break-self will thank you. When you return from a career break, you’ll need to have anecdotes about your significant prior work experiences scripted and rehearsed for interviews. Documenting them now, in the moment, will make them much more vivid and detailed than if you try to recall them years later.
4. Nurture your relationships with colleagues at all levels within your organization. This includes those who are junior to you — whether you mentor, manage or simply know them. Remember, while you are on career break, people who are now junior to you could be moving up, and they may be in a position to make a connection or open a door for you when you are ready to return to work. We even have members of our iRelaunch community who are working for people who used to work for them.
5. Make a list of your work and alumni contacts, person by person. While you are still working, create a record of your career network, including suppliers, lawyers, accountants, customers, etc., in addition to your current work colleagues and fellow alumni from your alma mater. This will be an important resource later when you are on career break and want to keep in touch or re-connect with people from the past. LinkedIn is an excellent way to track your network and stay connected with professional contacts.
6. Identify requirements to keep certifications, licenses, or other credentials current while on career break. If you hold certifications, licenses, or other credentials, you’ll want to make sure you know in advance how to keep them current so you don’t miss any deadlines. This may only involve continuing to pay an annual fee but could also involve continuing education coursework or periodic exams.
7. Go into your career break eyes wide open as to the cost of taking it. Use the CAP calculator to calculate the cost of taking your career break. This interactive tool takes your current income and makes assumptions about salary increases, social security, compounding and other factors to give you a calculation of the all-in foregone income of career breaks of different lengths. I’m pretty sure if I had known the cost of my 11-year career break going into it, I would have returned to work much sooner.
8. Don’t put off important life decisions. If you are considering having children, don’t try to wait for the “right time” professionally. No time is perfect. Women we have heard from over the years regretted trying to time their pregnancies strategically from a career perspective, as the longer they waited, the more likely they would be facing infertility and other child-bearing related problems.

If you consider these recommendations in advance, you will be in a better position to manage your career with intention. But also realize that you can’t control everything. For example, my employer unexpectedly collapsed while I was on maternity leave with my first child, so I did not have a company to return to. We weren’t getting any younger and were planning to have more kids in close succession. My decision not to go after the next big job marked the beginning of what became an 11-year career break.

That said, everyone’s situation is different and there are so many factors that go into career break decisions (not the least of which is financial). It is hard to generalize from any one person’s experience. So consider checking out Relaunch Success Stories and the 3,2,1 iRelaunch podcast to hear directly from relaunchers about their career journeys.

 

Carol Fishman Cohen is the CEO and Co-founder of iRelaunch. iRelaunch has worked with over 250 employers to build and expand career reentry programs of all kinds, and supports a community of over 100,000 “relaunchers” who are returning to work after career breaks from one to over 20 years. Carol is a relauncher herself, having left a Wall Street corporate finance role to take an 11-year career break before resuming her finance career at an investment firm. Carol is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and her TED/TEDx talk on career reentry has nearly 3.7 million views.  

 

When you’re juggling work and life — or work plus several lives (think kids, pets…) — there are never enough waking hours in a day.  But these personal productivity hacks might just help you cross more items off your list, without dropping balls… or losing sleep.

Here are some things to try:

Prioritize. Start each day by making a to-do list of the most important tasks you need to accomplish. Then, rank them in order of importance. Focusing your attention and energy on just the most critical items will raise the likelihood of getting them done. 

Vice President Google Store, Mauria Finley routinely keeps a sticky note with her top three priorities on her monitor to dictate how she spends her time. She asserts that letting some of the other, less important things slide actually makes her a better manager, because it allows “more space” for the members of her team to pick up and run with those secondary initiatives.

Set goals. Consider defining both short-term and long-term objectives for yourself. Short-term goals can help you stay motivated and focused on your daily tasks, while long-term goals give you bigger milestones to work towards over a longer period of time. And don’t underestimate the power of committing to a goal in writing.

On New Year’s Day, Birdies CEO Bianca Gates writes herself a letter where she sets goals for herself for the year. She finds that it serves as a kind of roadmap, guiding her to accomplish at least the top three items she wrote about. “Outside of those things, day to day things may seem murky and messy. But overall, if I feel like I’m achieving the top three priorities that I had set out for the year, then I feel like life is good. I have a strong foundation under me, and I don’t let any of the little things get to me because I’m thriving in the areas that are most important.”

Schedule it. Of course you already schedule your work meetings and kids’ doctor appointments, but also try blocking out time on your calendar for family and personal time — things like exercise or journaling, a movie on the couch with your kids, creative brainstorming for an upcoming vacation, or even just undefined alone time. Visual reminders and any audio chimes you set will keep you on track so you can accomplish more.

You can also use scheduling to compartmentalize your time, which allows for greater focus. For example, Virtualness CEO and Liftery co-founder Kirthiga Reddy says she sets aside a 2-hour block each week for mentoring conversations. Isolating these sessions into one block of time makes scheduling easy and minimizes time-consuming context switching during the rest of the work week.

Multitask. The trick in multitasking is in knowing what’s really “multitaskable.” Doing two things simultaneously that both require the same kind of focus (like working on a spreadsheet and responding to emails) will end up taking you more time instead of less, since you’ll have to make constant adjustments as you’re switching back and forth. Similarly, writing a product brief may take you longer if you’re doing it while listening to a podcast, since the two tasks can use the same brain centers. But combining activities that don’t compete with each other can save you lots of time — hence the concept of walking meetings and under-desk bikes. “I strive to combine three things wherever possible,” says Kirthiga Reddy. “If I can walk the dog, get my steps in, and catch up with a friend or colleague all at once, that’s just about perfect.”

Outsource. It’s important to recognize when you need help. Finding other people to handle tasks such as cleaning, laundry, yard work, or childcare can free up more quality time for you to focus on work and family. “I understand that not everyone has the financial possibility to do this, but I try to outsource everything I can, besides love,” says LinkedIn Engineering VP Erica Lockheimer. “And so the more that I can get someone to do those tactical things (cooking, cleaning…), the more I can focus on spending quality time with my children.”

Get sleep. We’ve all experienced this firsthand, but it’s worth emphasizing: sacrificing sleep to get more done leaves you feeling unmotivated and unable to make good decisions. According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, sleep is directly related to daytime performance and productivity. Getting enough rest improves your ability to learn and solve problems. And when you’re sleep deprived, you take longer to complete tasks and make more mistakes. So staying up late to cram one more thing into your day could actually backfire, leaving you less productive during your prime daytime hours. Instead, prioritize getting enough rest.

Take breaks. When you’re feeling overwhelmed or stuck on a task, take a break to recharge. A few minutes of stretching, deep breathing, or even just spacing out can help you feel more energized and focused. “What we’re learning is some of the same consolidation activities that happen in our brains when we’re asleep also occur when we rest,” says psychologist and clinical professor Samantha Artherholt. She explains that allowing yourself downtime with minimal stimuli helps you become more attentive, focused, and creative. It also lets your brain process new information you’ve learned and connect it to other ideas. You know how sometimes you forget the name of a person or thing and then it pops into your head when you’re doing something completely unrelated? Bingo. 

Breaks are good for productivity. But if you’re concerned about either forgetting to take them or breaking for too long, then consider using a calendar or timer to help you stay on track. Which brings us to…

Use technology. There are so many productivity tools available that can help you stay sharp and organized. Besides your online calendar synced between your computer and mobile phone, apps like Trello, Evernote, and RescueTime can help you better manage your tasks and time. 

One productivity app you may not think of, however, is your phone’s camera. Photos expand time by saving memories and allowing you to access and feel the related emotions later on. How is this a productivity hack? “Sometimes my schedule is so busy that I can only attend conferences or meetings for a short time,” says Kirthiga Reddy. “While I’m there, I take lots of photos. When I look at them later, I feel as good as if I’d been able to stay the whole time. It’s a time saver and a happiness multiplier.”

Nobody will ever tell you that juggling work, life and family is easy. But using these techniques could help you improve your focus, maximize efficiency, save time, and accomplish more. Got a productivity app or hack you swear by that’s not mentioned here? Let us know — we may even feature it in a future article.

 

When you’ve spent years of your life wiping bums, managing cookie negotiations, outwitting stall tactics, and juggling naps, the concept of putting yourself out there — whether for a career relaunch or even just a transition — can feel daunting.

You have children on the brain during most waking hours, you’re self-conscious of any gaping holes on your resume, networking seems like a double dare, and especially if you have little to no recent paid experience, your confidence may be at an all-time low.

Seems like a perfect foundation for building a personal brand, right?

Kidding.

But hear me out. Let me tell you why it’s essential for your job search and how to do it, even if you have a gap and all the self-doubt in the world.

WHAT IS PERSONAL BRANDING?

A personal brand is the culmination of things that distinguish you from your job-seeker competitors: it is a reflection of your unique skills, passion, values, work strengths, personality traits, and unique experience(s), accomplishments, abilities, and soft skills, among other things. It’s a marketing tool — a strategy — for your candidacy that encapsulates who you are, what makes you unique, how you solve problems, and what solutions you offer a target company to reach their goals and achieve their mission.

A personal brand is a “career identity” with a dynamic message: a unique value proposition to prospective employers. A powerful personal brand delivers a clear solutions-focused message that is impactful and captivating.

You might feel unworthy of “be”-ing a brand. Or, this all might be a bit of a turn-off. Trust me, I used to think personal branding was foolish and fake — synonymous with embellishment. You may be thinking, as I did:

I am not a brand.

I do not want to market myself.

I do not want to whip up a fake version of myself.

I want to honor my whole self and what I bring to the table without trying to be someone I’m not.

I get it.

One thing I’ve learned about personal branding — within the context of a job search — is that I can be true to myself while curating a relevant message toward a target role.

I see personal branding in two parts: Authenticity and Curation. When it comes to personal branding as a jobseeker, you need to both build and inhabit an impactful brand that lands call-backs.

Here are four delightful things to understand about your personal brand:

1.         You have one, whether you realize it or not. Whether you think it’s silly or not. We all have a personal brand that follows us around in the world. Simply put, it’s your reputation. The things you’re known for.

2.         If you decide not to communicate clearly what you’re about, you’ll blend in. If you decide to craft a targeted message about solutions you offer to employers, you’ll stand out.

3.         You’re in charge of it. You get to ensure it’s authentic, relevant, and that you’re content to embody/inhabit this version of yourself, in this particular season.  It doesn’t need to be flashy or “loud” (unless you want it to be). It simply needs to be clear, concise, and intriguing.

4.         It grows and changes with you. It’s never set in stone.

WHY DO I NEED IT?

Your interview chances are nil unless you stand out from other applicants. Google any stat about your chances of landing an interview, and it won’t inspire confidence. For applicants with resume gaps, take that number and reduce it again. Caregiver bias is alive and well, even in a pandemic-era hiring landscape riddled with resume gaps. So crafting a message to employers that flies in the face of their assumptions is essential. That means having a fleshed-out personal brand that highlights your strengths/passions and signals what you stand for, what you’ve accomplished, and what you’re capable of achieving.

This message will infuse your LinkedIn profile and will be present in your headline, in your professional summary, and in your emails and direct messaging you do for networking purposes.

And as an extra bonus, knowing what you’re about and what you offer is a huge boost to your self-worth and keeps your job search laser-focused.

But other than being a mom, what, exactly, *are* you about?

Figuring this out requires time to reflect, a bit of soul-searching, a list of solid questions, a few trusted people to be a sounding board, and good ol’ strategy.

HOW DO I CRAFT A PERSONAL BRAND?

For moms with a hiatus from professional paid work or with a career pivot in mind, building a personal brand is a two-step process.

Step 1: AUTHENTICITY

Take inventory by asking yourself the following questions and brain-dumping your honest answers. This initial phase is a sketch of your overarching personal brand. It’s the umbrella for all the possibilities. You are a dynamic individual, likely with multiple passions, skills, unique experiences, and achievements. Jot them all down. They don’t all have to make sense or come together seamlessly yet. This part should be fun! But if it’s not, and you’re at a loss, enlist a trusted friend or partner to help you out.

Write down the facts as well as your thoughts and observations about your:

•           Passions and interests

•           Education and work experience

•           Unpaid care work and volunteer work

•           Personality

•           Goals and aspirations

•           Values and mission

•           Strengths and skills

Answer these Qs:

What are you known for?

What motivates you?

Why are you unique?

What do you bring to the table?

Who do you want to influence?

What elements of your personality make you you?

Think back to your pre-baby professional experience, think about your unpaid or volunteer experiences and the people who have worked closely with you and reflect:

Do you have a reputation for something specific?

What do people say about you when you’re not in the room?

What do they say when you *are* in the room?

What do co-workers or teammates appreciate most about you?

What did colleagues or bosses say about you at your last jobs?

What does upper management or leadership appreciate most about you?

What do your neighbors say about you?

What do your community members (school, drop-in centers, library, moms-n-tots groups, faith groups, etc.) say about you?

What do trusted friends or family members say about you?

Once you’ve had a chance to jot down the answers to these questions, you might identify some themes, or you might see a whole lotta jumbled up unrelated pieces of your life on paper. Whatever you’ve got will be a great foundation.

Completing this first step – jotting down everything that comes to mind when asking yourself the above questions – is a huge task. Congrats! You’re ready for the next phase. It’s time to curate.

When creating a targeted resume for the role you’re after, you’ll take your “master resume” and select only relevant items (as opposed to cramming it with every single skill and experience you’ve ever had). In the same way, when you build a personal brand, you’ll take your “umbrella brand” and select the elements that will strengthen a personal brand that are relevant to the role(s) you’re after.

It’s about curating for relevancy. Not curating for dishonesty, to be someone you’re not, or to hide behind pretense. It’s about putting your best foot forward. It’s about your solutions offer.

What’s a solutions offer? This is your application trio (resume, cover letter, LinkedIn presence). Stop thinking compartmentally about a resume, letter, LinkedIn profile. Think holistically about your application trio as a clear, targeted message: a unique value proposition. What solutions do I offer? How do I solve problems? What have I accomplished? What am I capable of? What makes me unique? All within the context of specific industry trends, target companies, target roles. All three elements of your application will complement each other to accomplish one strategic message: “I’m the candidate you need for this role; these are the solutions I offer to help take company X to the next level, make money, save money, save time, improve efficiency, or make a bigger impact.”

Step 2a: PRE-CURATION

Now it’s time to narrow your focus to a particular type of role you’ll be applying to (based on strengths, skills, passion, etc.) and then curate your brand toward that target role. A personal brand must be relevant to the type of job you’re after.

You’ve got about seven seconds to win over a decision-maker. A personal brand will streamline and synthesize things for them on your application documents, and make it easier for them to say “yes” to a call-back or interview.

Avoid a “Where’s Waldo” application, sending recruiters and hiring teams on a hunt to piece together what you’re about. Do the legwork for them. Make it easy.

You’ll need a key message, or unique value proposition — an intriguing and irresistible solutions offer.

Many re-entry parents and career transitioners aren’t quite sure what role would be the best fit. I get that. Here’s what to do:

With the skills you identified in your “umbrella brand,” do a bit of sleuthing. There are a ton of free tools on the internet that will match your skills to particular roles or will suggest career paths according to personality traits and strengths. This will give you a place to start.

1. Free career assessment tools          
2. Career quizzes to help you find your dream job        
3. Free career aptitude and assessment tests        
4. Even more career aptitude tests

Also, it’ll be super helpful to do a few informational interviews, especially if you’re looking at roles in an industry you’re unfamiliar with, or if you’ve been out for a long time and would appreciate a refresher in terms of “a day in the life.”

Reaching out to someone cold for an informational interview can feel daunting. I’ve put together a guide and email template you can use here.

If you’re considering positions that are super outside of your umbrella skillset, you’ll need to upskill and then craft a brand that connects the dots to show how you’re the perfect fit in the new role:

What diverse perspectives or experiences do you bring?

What have you achieved that translates to the new role?

What transferable skills are relevant?

What new/innovative/unexpected insight can you offer that brings value?

What courses have you taken or what projects are you working on to sharpen skills required for this role?

When considering roles, companies, industries, along with your skill set, also consider:

–   the season of life you and your children/family are in

–   the bandwidth you’ve got within it

–   the strength of your support system

–   what your long-term goals are

–   your list of non-negotiables (location, remote, benefits, hours, values alignment, etc.)

This will help to narrow down your potential role matches.

Step 2b: CURATION

Once you *know* the job/role/industry you’re after, then you curate your brand. This means review the job postings, and take note of the key words, skills and experiences they’re looking for. You likely won’t tick all the boxes, but if you’ve got 60% or more of what’s listed, that’s a good sign!

Pluck the things from your umbrella brand that align with your target role(s) to start crafting a personal brand message.

Does what you wrote down align with the way you want to present yourself professionally, when you think about the role(s) you plan to apply for?

If not, how would you change it?

What action can you take to move towards the personal brand you want to embrace, identify with, and put into the [professional work] world?

The result should be authentic and something you are fired up about, something that uniquely encapsulates “you” — a you that people see, and a you that you want people to see.

Here’s an example. Maybe one of your children had a health issue that you managed for several years. If this experience and skill is relevant to the role you want, weave it in.

Here’s a mom who writes poetry (for fun, catharsis, creative outlet) and wants to land a data analytics role within healthcare. She’s currently upskilling in data analysis, taking free courses online. Her personal brand statement (that she can insert as her LinkedIn headline) might sound something like this:

Healthcare data analyst with 7 years in disease management | Telling stories with numbers helps avoid blunders | Type 1 Diabetes expert | Intrinsically motivated, data-obsessed | Poet | In a relationship with SQL & Python

It’s quirky, out there, clearly communicates what she’s about, solutions she offers, and how she’s unique. It’s fun and witty, and contains relevant keywords. She may want to switch up the order. She may want to make it less quirky. She may want it to speak directly to one target company based on their goals, mission, struggles found through company research and items outlined in the job description … Lots to play around with!

Also: She may not feel comfortable calling herself a “data analyst” quite yet. However, if she’s applying for a data analytics role and she’s upskilling to sharpen that skillset, then upon landing the role she’ll be a data analyst.

Take home message: don’t hesitate to use the job title of the role that you’re  applying for.

Lastly, putting a face to a name makes you stand out among other applicants. You may not want to upload a photo to your LinkedIn profile (many valid reasons for this), but if you choose the photo route, picking one that increases your likability might very well be the icing on your personal brand cake. 

Hot tip! A personal brand with a photograph on LinkedIn will rank you higher in recruiter searches and get you more overall views. And the cherry on top of your personal brand? A smile. Check out the test here, where my smiling photo received a likability rating 2x better than a non-smiling one.

CONCLUSION

Navigating a job search as a mom — whether re-entering the workforce or making a career change — is hard work, but worth the effort. Crafting a personal brand will immediately elevate your candidacy on LinkedIn, on your resume and cover letter, and in your networking. Plus, the image-boost comes full circle, infusing you with confidence and ease in reaching out.

·  LinkedIn is the largest professional networking site on the planet. A clear, strategic, targeted message makes you easy to spot.

·  A resume (and cover letter) laser-focused and infused with your brand will stand out.

·  Networking fans the flames of your application; without it, even a good resume can fall through the cracks and decision-makers quickly lose interest. Your personal brand is the springboard to these conversations.

If your job-search hasn’t gotten you very far, or you’re just starting out, give it a try — you’ve got nothing to lose.

Now, go and build a personal brand and kiss that self-doubt good-bye.

 

Rebecca Joy Tromsness is a workplace re-entry educator and job search coach based in Toronto. Follow her on LinkedIn here and reach out to her anytime at hello@joybeforework.com.