Re-entry Resume for At-Home Moms

Google Search:  “re-entry job”.  I’ve been “home with the kids” for 18 years, but now my youngest is driving herself around, and next year I’ll be writing tuition checks — BIG ones!  It’s time to get a real job.

Scan the Google list.  Obviously “re-entry” is a euphemism for “post-incarceration”! Try “transitional employment”.  No, these guys want me to PAY them so they can Transition me. Sounds too much like witness protection.   Tweet. It’s Jennyonthespot, filling out an e-resume and wondering what to put down for SKILLS.  Heck, these days even younger moms are having to supplement the family checking account.  The problem is, once we’ve been out of the job market for a while, how do we do this?  What skills do we have?  What JOB can we do?

Obsolete Job Skills

A lot of us are facing the problem that the job that actually paid us handsomely a while ago doesn’t exist anymore.  And if it does, you can bet it is very different, with some new required skills that weren’t even thought of back in the day.  I feel pretty cowed just reading the job postings on Craig’s List (having figured out that jobs aren’t in the newspaper anymore).  How could I have gotten so obsolete, so quickly?  I look for “re-entry jobs” but there’s not a lot to choose from.   Before I work my way down to the “ex-offender re-entry programs” let’s look at this from another point of view.

Re-entry Resume Sample Phrases

My theory, and I’m stickin’ to it, is that we’re NOT obsolete.  In fact, we have been GROWING in our skills for all these years.  We just need to know how to “spin” it.  (That’s a word meaning, well…. positively rephrasing your content in the language of your intended audience.)  If you have to put together a resume to communicate to the world out there what you’ve been doing for the last decade, here’s some verbiage that might come in handy. Some of these aren’t really all that tongue in cheek.

What You’ve Been Doing – The “Spin” Version

Blogger

Regular informal digital communications to subscriber audience.       Or maybe you
Remotely managed digital social connectivity for target population.

Type A Mom Contributor/Editor
Web publishing — Researching key issues facing subscriber population and presenting findings via search engine friendly multimedia (you’ve included pictures haven’t you?) web content

Product Tester
Corporate market research and communications for selected products in (childrens toys, or educational products, or beauty) sector for Fortune 500 consumer products companies.

Girl Scout Cookie Mom
Financial Officer for local non-profit participating in multi-million dollar national fund-raising program.

School Bingo Fundraiser
Created and Managed large-scale fundraiser.  Secured corporate sponsorship (that $25 donation from the grocery store).  Determined personnel needs and staffed all positions (all those parent volunteers), including recruitment and training (“$2 a card, 3 cards for $5″).  Marketing: designed and implemented community-wide event promotion (posters at the grocery store and flyers at the school). 

Classroom Volunteer
Significantly enhanced educational productivity in local elementary school by providing hands-on classroom academic support.

Cub Scout Leader
Managed untrained personnel (no need to mention they are 11 years old) through year-long program of wide-ranging performance goals with 100 percent competency rate. (they all made it to Webelos with all their limbs)

Sounds pretty impressive, don’t you think?  So what are YOUR skills?

Mary Handfelt’s Re-entry Resume is at imwritehere.com. Click on the “blog” tab.

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