Moms Re-Entering the Workforce
There has recently been a significant shift in women’s attitudes toward career and motherhood. For the first time in decades, more and more new mothers are leaving the labor force. Many of these mothers are higher-income women in dual-career households. Many of these returning moms are older. We’re having babies later in life now – so we have 10 to 15 years of work experience under our belt when we leave to have babies. The problem is it’s not easy getting back in. You get branded as a mother and employers just don’t believe that you can be both nurturing AND competent. So it’s harder to get hired, and the salaries are substantially less. So today we’re going to explore all the reasons why women actually make BETTER employees. And we’re going to give you some tips for getting your foot back in the door with employers.
According to Salary.com, with all the jobs that moms do during the course of a week, the average stay-at-home mom would earn a salary of $134,000 per year. They came to this conclusion by considering all the responsibilities that moms do: chauffer, cook, facilities manager, child psychologist, pre-school teacher, and housekeeper.
Listen to the archived show to find out why women make better employees AFTER becoming a mother. Click here to listen
TIPS ON RE-ENTERING THE WORKFORCE
1. Create a functional, not chronological resume. Focus on your key skills and life accomplishments. Just because you weren’t paid for something doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. Click here for Tory's template
2. Leave personal frustrations at home. IF you’re looking for work because you’re divorced and finances are tough, keep that information private. You don’t want sympathy – you want a job.
3. Prepare for a long haul. Even with a stellar resume, job searching takes time. Nothing happens over night, so cut yourself some slack. Don’t expect immediate results.
It is often hard for potential employers to see you as anything but a caregiver. Smart networking is the best strategy to secure a job. So Instead of applying cold to openings and listings, Tory encourages moms to start by connecting with their own network. Consider friends and neighbors who have seen you function successfully as a mom. You’ve hustled to raise money for the soccer team, or seen you organize a PTA fundraiser. There are countless people to turn to for advice and assistance. Get the word out that you are looking. Make a list of the personal contacts you can approach.
OTHER INTERNET RESOURCES YOU'LL FIND HELPFUL
From Women's Work.com: Going Back to Work-
Moms Finding Resistance When Returning
According to Harvard Business Review article "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps - Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success, " stepping off the career fast track for women is easy...what's not so easy is getting back on. According to the article's authors Silvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, many women leave the workforce, or off-ramp, some time in their career. The majority who leave (44%) leave for family reasons...to have or spend time with their children or care for an elderly parent. Although they off-ramp for relatively short periods of time (an average of 2.2 years), they suffer heavy consequences as a result. Data from a survey that Hewlett and Luce conducted showed that women lost 28% of their earning power when they returned to the business sector and the penalty increased the longer they were out. For women who spent three or more years out of the workforce, they lost an astonishing 37% of their earning power. Click here for more...
With Today's Guest, Tory Johnson
We also recommend Ann Crittenden's book:
If You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything
to discover that:
• Caring for the young in mammals is associated
with gains in learning ability, better spacial memory,
and fearlessness.
• Management experts and trainers are teaching
the very same "people" skills that are recommended
in popular baby books.
• A day in the life of a top executive closely resembles a day in the life of a busy mother? (ie: having to focus amidst constant distractions, always dealing with crises, juggling several issues at once, etc).
• A benevolent, "enlightened parent" model of leadership is far more effective than the authoritarian, top-down style of leadership.
• On most measures, female executives are judged more effective than their male counterparts.
• Mothers who have been out of the job market for years have re-entered by drawing up a "transferable skills" resume. Examples are included in If You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything.
TODAY'S GUEST
Tory Johnson, is CEO of Women For Hire and the Workplace Contributor for Good Morning America. Her company, Women for Hire was founded in 1999 and is the leading producer of high caliber career expos connecting professional women with top employers. Tory has written three books on career advancement for women, and she appears frequently on GMA to offer her advice as Workplace Contributor.
Founded in 1999 as the first and only company devoted to a comprehensive array of recruitment services for women, Women For Hire offers signature career expos, inspiring speeches and seminars, a popular career-focused magazine, customized marketing programs, and an online job board that help leading employers connect with top-notch professional women in all fields.
Since our inception, Women For Hire has been recognized as a groundbreaking expert at connecting employers with the brightest group of diverse career women, as well as providing those women with exceptional advice on advancement. The company specializes in developing customized programs to meet the diversity recruitment goals of employers in every industry.
Women For Hire hosts free career expos in 11 major cities. We also recently launched an online networking tool that allows thousands of professional women to connect with one another. It’s free to join at womenforhire.com. You can also subscribe free online to Women For Hire’s career-focused magazine to have it delivered to your door.
Click Below For Information on Tory's Books:
Tory's latest book:
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