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Friday 10th February 2012

In between having a great time with your family over the summer holidays, make sure you set a little "me time" aside to reflect, consider and research your return to work. Majella Wilkins, Founder Return2WorkMums share some simple exercises on preparing for your return to work.


This amazing weather has all of us parents keeping fingers and toes crossed that it will hold through August so that we can enjoy the summer holidays with our families. I, however, also strongly recommend to any women thinking of returning to work in the early Autumn to set some “thinking and preparation” time aside so that they are ready for professional engagement with employers and recruiters once the holiday season is over.

The odd couple of hours each week – maybe just 20 minutes/day - throughout the summer are a great starting point for reviewing, researching and preparing your approach for a return to work. Taking these small but useful pockets of time, the first “homework” area I suggest that women start working on is a review of their career including their career break. Sadly this is just one of the areas, that in my experience, women undersell themselves when applying for jobs. By just putting "career break" on their CV or job application women fail to promote their complete value to a potential employer.

Homework Exercise 1 – Capture & Review Your Career Story

This should take no more than 15 - 20 minutes a day for a week. Remember this is your working document. It is not yet a CV so it doesn’t need perfect grammar, accurate spellings or even complete sentences. It can be note format but it starts to tell your story of who you are, your preferences, strengths, weaknesses, how you’ve made decisions and been successful to arrive at the point you are today.

Start by jotting down:
  • All the work roles you did both paid and unpaid
  • What you achieved
  • What you liked and disliked
  • What skills you relied on to make things happen
  • What you were good at as well as those areas you felt less competent
  • Who helped you along the way
  • Who/what influenced you
  • How did you secure each of your job roles
  • Were their times you felt out of your comfort zone
  • What did you do to address this

Remember to also review your career break:
Make sure you consider all the things you’ve done during this time. This does not need to be paid work only. This could be what you’ve done:
  • At home
  • For your children’s school or preschool
  • Within your church/local community/charities
  • Sports or pursuing a hobby with greater commitment or competitively
  • Supporting a friend’s business
  • Writing/blogging

Be sure to also review your transition from professional life into being a full time Mum. Leaving behind a professional life with status, income and a company of work colleagues to being a full time parent has a dramatic impact on how we view ourselves and our personal identity.

Make sure you also reflect on and consider:
  • What came easily to you when you started your career break
  • What were the challenges
  • How did you overcome these
  • What/who influenced you
  • How do you now introduce & present yourself to others both socially and professionally

Some quick tips to complete this exercise:
  • Be totally honest with yourself. You do not have to share this document with anyone.
  • Capture as much as you can but do not dwell at length so that the exercise becomes stale or a chore.
  • Take time to mull things over, reflect back and identify what makes you feel happy and confident.
  • Jot down ideas as you are out and about rather than sit at a blank sheet wondering where or how to start.
  • Don't try and structure your thoughts or make sense from them immediately - let the thinking happen first.
  • Ask friends/family for their input as well.

Return2WorkMums look forward to bringing you some more weekly exercises to use over the summer for Assessing your skills, Designing your personal brand, Developing your Network and Researching your work options so that you are more prepared for a confident return to work.


Article written by Majella Wilkins, founder of Return2WorkMums - a new online community for women to connect with experts for support, inspiration and knowhow about returning to work and managing their ongoing working life. Return2WorkMums keeping you informed and connected for a confident return to work.