Are you ready to return to work after a career break?

If you have been out of the formal workplace for a while, there is often a chasm between resolving to get a new paid job and actually doing something about it.

​Things get in the way, like a lack of confidence, negative chatter in your head or from others, and feeling unprepared.

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My first clients were all return-to-work mums who had all of the above going on (as if they had not be “working” all the time anyway!).  They would talk about how things had moved on since they were formally employed, that their IT skills were out of date and worry that the lack of continuity in the timeline of their CV made them weaker as a candidate.  In their heads there were many ‘reasons’ why it was all too overwhelming.

I was a bit frustrated about this.  Mainly because I could see that these people had held down serious jobs with serious responsibilities and delivered serious outcomes for their employers.  Additionally, they had not spent the intervening years painting their nails, but had been budgeting, planning, organising, communicating, negotiating, resolving conflict, empathising, networking, multitasking and much more.

So, when I started New CV it was to prove to these women that with some planning, research, incisive questioning and articulate writing, along with a spot of self-indulgent Thesaurus reading on my part, we could write them a CV that demonstrated their achievements and professional brand. And with this, the pre-career break confidence that made them so employable before reappeared!

I am delighted to say that in most cases times have moved on and career gaps are much more acceptable than they were in 2013, LinkedIn even has a section under Experience to showcase them.  No more hiding the gap!

So, if you resolved to get back into the formal workplace this year, take heart, the keywords in paragraph three above are a small sample of the transferable skills sought by employers. You probably have more.  You can use them in your CV to show you are relevant, prepared, confident and ready to contribute!
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Good luck with the job search.