How to build a career after decree: modern mothers tell

1. Believe in yourself

It's easy to lose confidence on parenting leave. The reason for this can be postpartum depression, lack of time for their own hobbies, and simply fatigue. In order to regain confidence in yourself, it is important to remember that motherhood sometimes gives much more experience than the most difficult job. It helps to improve multitasking, punctuality and patience, planning and prioritization skills, the ability to make decisions and take responsibility for them.

In terms of resistance to stress, mothers can reach such heights that they can give odds to any top-manager. And if you managed to develop resistance to the comments of grandmothers, experienced teachers and bystanders about how you should raise child, you can honestly write in the questionnaires that you calmly accept constructive criticism and know how to work in conditions of high competition.

Many mothers should admit to themselves that they really can and can do a lot, you just need to understand where and how to apply these skills. Make a list of what you can easily cope with now, remember all the side jobs, volunteer and student work trips and add to this the complex tasks that had to be solved by educating children.

In addition, at home, and ideally in a kindergarten or nursery, you will find a powerful motivation to develop and overfulfill your plan for a happy future.

A child requires a lot of effort, time, and sometimes health, but how much motherhood gives in return is difficult to measure. And you will definitely have a place to show and apply your experience.

2. Update knowledge

This is important not only for those who are going to return to their previous position or go to work in their specialty. In these scenarios, everything is clear: in three years the world has changed, new standards could appear in the usual responsibilities, and university knowledge could be forgotten and outdated. Therefore, before going to work, you should study the vacancies according to your profile and see what skills employers are interested in.

For those who have not yet decided on the choice of their future profession, the actualization of knowledge is an even more important process. When choosing a career path, it is worth considering not only personal interests, but also the needs of employers. You can find them out on sites with vacancies: some large job search services keep statistics on which specialists are currently in price.

The portal "Work of Russia" contains a convenient directory demanded professions, where you can choose something close to yourself. And do not forget that work, for example, in the food industry is not only a cook or a butcher: this section contains more than 50 professions, many of which are well paid. If the description sounds interesting, but only the lack of experience and knowledge stops you, there is no need to brush aside the option you like. You can learn everything now: there are many career paths that can be mastered in a few months or in a couple of years.

3. Decide on a schedule and place of work

In many respects, a comfortable work schedule depends on the child's mode of life: whether he goes to kindergarten or stays at home, whether you have assistants in the person of grandmothers or nannies, and whether a spouse can help with the child. Many mothers lack communication after maternity leave, so the office is a great option to make new friends.

If there are no assistants and a kindergarten, choose vacancies remotely. But remember that working from home is first and foremost a job. You shouldn't expect employers to make “maternity discounts” on your productivity, so evaluate your strength in advance. If you understand that your child is very fond of attention and will not be able to share his mother with a computer, think about a nanny or look for vacancies in the office and consider private kindergartens.

In both cases, you will have to calculate whether the estimated salary will cover the costs of a nanny and a garden, but you will not need to injure the mother and child with a remote, for which they are not ready. If the child is calm and has already grown to some degree of independence, then working from home is quite compatible with motherhood. It will be difficult, but this is a chance to pump your time management skills even more.

With any schedule, you should not get carried away with endless processing and spending the night at a laptop - it is also important to leave time for yourself. Try to schedule free evenings when you can just lie down in the bubble bath or watch your favorite TV show. Such rest can energize and replenish the resources that are needed both for efficient work and for caring for a child.

4. Select Job Sources

You can search for work on special sites, in specialized groups and channels in social networks or in employment centers. It is also useful to follow up on professional bloggers in your field - they often share useful links to channels - job aggregators and training courses. Some online professions can be targeted more specifically: for example, study the pages of the companies you are interested in on social networks.

Don't forget about government support. If the decree is over, you can join the labor exchange, apply for unemployment benefits and learn a new profession for free. To do this, each region has centers employment of the population, where seminars and trainings are often held. It is useful to participate in them: employers can come to such events to introduce their company and look at potential employees. For applicants, this is a great chance to prove themselves or to determine the direction of their future career.

Don't be afraid of job opportunities with job interviews. It is perfectly normal to feel uncomfortable in such meetings.

The embarrassment will pass, but the rewarding experience will remain. The same principle works here as in university exams: what scares you in the first session tempers you in the next.

5. Don't be afraid of test items

The test task is not only an opportunity for the employer to evaluate a candidate, but also a chance for the applicant to understand whether this vacancy is interesting to him. The test task should be taken responsibly. Even if the test is not paid, it is still a contribution to the development of their skills.

There is no need to be upset if a refusal came. There is a lot of work, this vacancy is not the only one, and if you do not get the desired position now, this does not mean that you will not be hired in the future.

However, you should be careful with test tasks: there are scammers who, after receiving answers, unsubscribe about inadequate quality and disappear. Recognizing fraud is not always easy, but you can at least check the employer on a search engine and make sure that no one wrote reviews about the fraud.

If the company does not give practically any information about itself, this is also a wake-up call. The more information a potential employer discloses, the higher the degree of confidence in his proposal. It's good if the approximate conditions of the test task are set out in the official job description, and not classified until the last moment.

6. Send a lot of responses

The more responses, the higher the chances of quickly getting an offer and getting to work. Sometimes the answers do not come immediately, sometimes they do not come at all, but you should not take this personally. The reasons for the delay in feedback from the employer can be very different, they are not always related to your competencies.

Lack of experience is not a sentence. Everyone started somewhere, and given a well-done test, some employers are willing to partner with newcomers. It happens that it is even easier for someone to train inexperienced candidates according to their needs than to retrain professionals who are accustomed to other specifics. It is better not to embellish anything in your resume and honestly talk about your experience and skills: an experienced recruiter can easily recognize guile in an interview.

7. Try new things and work for yourself

Do not worry that the old work chair after the decree is not waiting for you. This is a great opportunity to start a career with new knowledge and skills that you have developed in yourself lately. Work is needed not only for financial independence - it is important that the profession is also enjoyable.

If you do not know what to do, remember what interested you as a child, go career guidance test, talk to friends and relatives - sometimes they can see something from the outside that you do not notice in yourself.

Believe in yourself, because there are many examples of momswho mastered new directions and achieved career success.

After a few years in household chores, the world may seem too big and scary. But this is not a reason to refuse new offers, because there are an infinite number of possibilities around you.