A career question from a friend inspired this post. What should I write on my resume to explain my time as a stay-at-home mom? Is it better not to mention it? With so many stay-at-home-parents planning to return to work once their children are ready for daycare/preschool, this is an important question. We know how many talents parenthood has strengthened and developed. Seriously, how many other jobs are 24-7? There are two ways to go about this. The first is to include it on your resume, and thereby introduce it into your interview. Pros:
Cons:
Why is parenthood often a hiring “con”? Despite much evidence to the contrary, for example:
Hiring managers, even parents themselves, expect parents to be less invested employees. Yet again stereotype out-muscles truth. The second option is to hide it by removing months from your resume and sticking to employment years. (And reducing the appearance of the time gap.) If the gap is too large you can fill it without mentioning your children: What else were you doing then? Freelancing, providing childcare, volunteering, taking classes, research, part time work, etc. Reverse the “pros” and “cons” list above. Then, add this pro:
And this con:
More often than not, this choice--to tell or not to tell—boils down to how many options you have. Are you in high demand in the workforce? If so, talking about your dual role can help you decide if the position is your best option. Or, if there’s more competition and this would be too much of a risk, you’ll work out the parenting-workday challenges as they arise. As for putting it on the resume, with sadness, I recommend you don’t. “Stay at Home Mom/Dad” still carries too many misconceptions. Which raises the question—how do we annihilate the foolish stereotypes? A Classic: The Mom SongKnow one of these people? They hate their jobs, but they aren't looking for a new one. Why? Because, they tell you, there are No Jobs out there! I won't argue the job market isn't suffocatingly difficult these days. But it isn't true that there are no jobs. According to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) program, we had nearly 4 million job openings in the U.S. this past December (2013). So really--there are jobs! When someone tells you otherwise, tune her out. The most important thing to keep in mind when considering the competition is you must be the most desirable candidate. There are so many ways to do that. The more you do to set yourself apart from other candidates, the more air there is to breathe. Keep reaching for the top. Joey: If you ask me, as long as you got this job, you’ve got nothing pushing you to get another one. You need the fear. |