Stay At Home Parent Transitioning Back to Work

Stay At Home Parent Transitioning Back to WorkStay At Home Parent Transitioning Back to WorkIf youve been a stay-at-home parent, youve poured time into ensuring that everyone in your household has what they need to succeed. Now its your turn. This year make it your resolution to redirect that energy to fuel your own professional reinvention.I know, it can seem worrisome. At some point while you were room parenting, soccer coaching, field tripping and carpooling, Twitter became a second language in which everyone seems to radiate fluency. And Snapchat suddenly turned into a business tool. You are not sure how to get started in a reality that appears much different than the one you left when your kids were small. You may worry that the gaps in your resume match those in your tech savvy and both make you look incomplete in a way that the professional world wont tolerate.Dont let your fears drive this important initiative. Be proud of the work you accomplished for your family. Your exper tise was well applied in an arena where it was needed. Those efforts have yielded professional value, and the workforce wants you. Simply Hired data reveals that 4.5 million jobs are open across the US. This represents a more than 9% increase in job postings from January 2015. So you picked a great time to jettison your prowess for managing, organizing, streamlining and planning into a new career. Decide what you want Examine your resume. Think about the job you had before you took a hiatus to raise your kids. Would you like to continue on that path or do you want something different? Review job postings. See what is available and what sounds like it could be a fit. You may not be ready to pick up right where you left off. You may need to work up to your former title, but thats not a bad thing really. Starting out slowly will make it easier to acclimate back into the workforce. Define your priorities. Is salary your top priority or is flexibility more important? Are you ready to tak e on a full-time job or would part- time work suit you better? Set yourself up for success by thinking this through and being very realistic about what you want and what you are willing to juggle. Update your resume Dont be ashamed of that gap on your resume. You made a good choice for your family, so own that. Look at your recent efforts Did you coach, teach a class, volunteer, take on a leadership role on a board or a committee? All of those efforts make you the professional you are now. All are resume-buildingand interview appropriate. Social media LinkedIn is easy to use. Your former coworkers wont expect a lengthy update or touchbase email from you. So dont feel daunted by social expectation, just start building your network.Here are a couple more user friendly and helpful social media tipsthat will help get you started.Network Even with LinkedIn and other networking technology, knowing someone who puts in a good definitiv still gets resumes noticed. Go to networking events. Se t up informational interviews with well-positioned contacts. Volunteers at organizations where you hope to find employment. When you have kids your reality tends to becomes more local. You befriend parents at your kids school and on their teams. You work alongside them at fundraisers and events. Your network can become a very local one and it may yield wonderful opportunities close to home. So tap into that resource. This is the time for self discovery. So embrace your candidacy 2016 is going to be your year.