In the life of any working parent there are a few predictable stress points. One is The Morning. When you have children, mornings start EARLY. Sometimes painfully early. And getting everyone up, dressed, fed and out the door in time for the buses and trains and commutes can leave you feeling as if you ran a marathon before you even hit your desk. Mornings don’t have to be Groundhog Day,…
Articles
How to Update Your Resume After a Career Break
When you are searching for a job, especially if you haven’t been out in the market for a while, the words “Send me your resume” can be terrifying. If you haven’t updated your resume, your heart sinks as you think of the work in front of you. And even if you have, your heart sinks because…well, because sending anyone your resume is terrifying! So let’s start with something basic: Everyone…
The 6 Ways My Children Helped My Career
To hear the media tell it, children are the death knell of a woman’s career. Women get sidelined. They take themselves out of the game. They are distracted and overwhelmed and how on earth can they perform well if that’s true? I’m here to tell you that my children have helped my career far more than they’ve hurt it. Their influence has been big and small. Here are a few…
Don’t Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Wonderful
Early in my business career I learned to embrace the concept “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” The idea, which was very hard on a recovering perfectionist, was that something that is done well enough is infinitely more valuable than the thing this is never complete because it wasn’t yet “perfect.” The concept of perfection in parenting is also hard for me to let go of,…
The “Magic Trick” of Being There Even When You Aren’t There
Speaking to In Style magazine, Julia Roberts gave an extraordinary quote about being a working mom. “One of the greatest things [my mom] ever did for me … I remember asking her—when I had three kids under 3 years old and just felt like I was running in a thousand directions at once—‘How on earth did you raise all of us? You worked full-time, and you did all these things.’ She…
Catchafire: A Platform for Strategic Volunteering
Stay-at-home parents who are looking to go back to work are often advised to volunteer as a means of keeping their skills updated and relevant and to close the gap on their resume. The problem with this advice is that not all volunteering opportunities have real value in the marketplace and the ones that do can be as hard to find as paid work! Enter Catchafire. It’s a platform for professionals…
The Return to Work Checklist
After an extended break, you decide to return to work…sounds daunting, doesn’t it? It was for me. For 12 years, I had a flexible schedule which allowed my husband to concentrate on his career, our kids to stay home sick whenever necessary, and, gave me time to run our household. I hadn’t “worked” (for pay) in a long time and wondered if I could handle a set schedule or be…