Tags: career | employment | transition | workforce re-entry

Re-entering the workforce after a period of time can be one of the most professionally challenging tasks for anyone in this situation.  Though statistics show that women are the largest group principally because of the decision to become stay-at-home moms, men also find themselves in this situation for a variety of reasons.  Unlike the transition from college to a career, the gap in employment leads to a few practical challenges that must be overcome.  In particular, you need to develop a current understanding of your industry, networking, resume and interview preparation and managing your expectations.

Understanding Your Industry
As with any project in life, preparing a plan is the best starting point.  In order to do so, you need to gather as much current information about the target industry.  Such information might include:

• Companies
  • Size
  • Leadership
  • Culture
  • Positions
  • Flexible hours
  • Working mom policies
  • Sick time policy (for children)
  • Flexibility to work from home
• Industry professional groups
  • Support mechanism
  • Resources
  • Networking

Networking
Networking is a key component and perhaps the most effective tool for any type of job search today.  Re-entering the workforce will depend in great part on how effectively you can maneuver through personal and professional contacts to find opportunities.  Someone seeking employment after a hiatus hopefully has maintained a network and perhaps even grown it.  Key considerations about networking include:

• Prepare a list:  family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, organizations
• Social networks:  LinkedIn, Facebook, Career Builder and Monster forums
• Professional organizations
• Volunteering
• Seek out sales groups

For more information on networking, check out FindYourFooting’s article on the topic at:  http://www.findyourfooting.com/articles/12-employment-and-career.html

Resume
One of the biggest concerns you might have when preparing to restart your career is explaining a gap in the resume.  Human resources professionals suggest addressing this concern directly and proactively in a resume and interview, respectively.  The employment section of a resume is commonly chronologically ordered and a job seeker has two options:  listing and explaining the period of time away from a career position or to omit the entry on the resume.  The latter option provides you with the opportunity to proactively discuss the absence during the interview.  Either way is acceptable today, so go with what is most comfortable.  For more information about preparing a resume, check out FindYourFooting’s article on this topic at:  http://www.findyourfooting.com/articles/12-employment-and-career.html

Interview
The interview is the best opportunity to explain a leave of absence and preparing for this section of the interview can provide the interviewer with sufficient information about the decision to leave the workforce.  At times, candidates forget that the interview is a persuasive process, whereby marketing and sales skills can strengthen or weaken a case.  From an interviewer’s perspective, he/she is trying to obtain as much information about whether a candidate is qualified for a particular position, wants to perform the function and is able to fit into the organization.  A gap in a resume might fit into the first two points – is the candidate qualified today or has the absence eroded or antiquated the skill set?  Similarly, is the candidate hungry to re-enter the industry or do they just need a job?  These are key questions to consider in preparation for an interview.

Expectations
As you start the process of re-entering your industry, it is important to manage expectations.  There may be opportunities to re-enter without skipping a beat or the re-entry may be more challenging and starting out a few rungs lower on the corporate latter.  Whatever the case may be, it is important to start this process with an open mind and with a sound game plan and preparation, you can develop a good idea of what the opportunities might be.

Restarting your career can be an exciting time and can be facilitated by proper research and preparation.  Remember, you are more experienced today than when you first started your career, thus knowing how to find your footing toward the right opportunities.