Calling for moms who have gone back to work after long break

[Ummto4]

Calling for moms who manage to relaunch a new career (have gone back to work) after long break of raising their families/homeschooling.

 

How did you do that ? Did you go back to school ? Took an internship/volunteering position ? 

What did you do in 'your past life' ?

What are you doing now ?

 

I'm still researching about it right now -- hopefully I can go back to work in 1-2 years.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[The Girls' Mom]

Personally, I'm back in school.  I looked around for jobs that I have experience in (payroll/accounting from 15-20 years ago) and pretty much everything above $8 an hour required a degree, which I didn't have.  I'm working on my degree, and landed a work-study job that will update my resume and help me network.  I need to be the breadwinner within 5 years or so and can't get stuck in a barely above minimum wage job if I can help it.

[TrixieB]

In my past life, I did office work that was in a completely different field, yet was quite similar to what I do now.  In the middle, there was a 16 year break.  I volunteered during the last six of those years, so I had references that were more recent than my long-ago employment.

 

I found out about my current job when someone who was part of a social group I belong to mentioned that her friend was looking to hire someone.  I applied and got the job.

Edited February 12, 2016 by TrixieB

[Wheres Toto]

I was an executive assistant when I stopped working in 2005 and I'm an executive assistant now, after 8 years off.  I didn't do any additional training or anything but I had just finished my degree in 2004.  My current company does require at least an associates degree for my position but it's more about skills.  I kept up my skills, especially in Powerpoint and Excel.  Those are still very hard to find someone proficient and a lot of companies (I worked pharma and now I'm in healthcare marketing) use a lot of Powerpoint.  We have positions in my company that are "Powerpoint Expert" which I could do but I like the exec assistant because I do less last minute overtime.

 

I went to agencies and took a position that was temp to perm.  Within three weeks I was offered the permanent position.

[Jenny in Florida]

I'm in the process (I hope) of building a second career after 16 years of being a SAHM. I'm in a place in which I don't need to support myself or support a family. I just need to feel like I'm a contributing member of society and to help us make up some financial ground that we lost while I wasn't earning. My husband and I now find ourselves in our 50s with not enough retirement savings and college expenses for two kids. Consequently, while I feel some pressure to make some money, I can take a little time to work my way onto an appropriate career path.

 

In my pre-kids life, I was a technical writer and editor. I never liked it, but I did it for 10 years because it paid better than most other jobs I could get with an English degree. However, when I looked back at all of the jobs I had before having kids, I realized that the thing I enjoyed about each one was the education aspect, the opportunity to teach people things, an interest I got to indulge for all of the years I was homeschooling.

 

So, I determined to transition to something education-focused in this "second act."

 

It's been a gradual process. I started with a very part-time, work-from-home job doing online tutoring in the last year before my younger child was heading off to college. When he was almost out the door, I wrote up a new resume featuring that current experience and sent it out to a bunch of local tutoring centers and similar places. Within a week, I had a second part-time job teaching reading and study skills and test prep. At about the same time, I signed up to be a volunteer reading tutor in a local elementary school. After a year of that, I started working as a substitute teacher for the local public schools. 

 

I didn't last long as a sub, but the experience was . . . interesting. It has taught me that I absolutely do not want to go the route of getting my teaching certification and moving into full-time classroom teaching, which is good to know. I do teach online writing classes for homeschoolers, which I like very much.

 

I'm now getting tired of juggling a bunch of different little part-time jobs and never knowing when (or sometimes if) I'm working in a given week. So, I'm ready to move into something steadier, with more hours and a more consistent schedule. I would still prefer not to take a full-time job, because I would like to retain some scheduling flexibility until my son graduates. (He goes to a college about 90 minutes from home, and we see him fairly frequently.) So, I've re-worked my resume again to feature the 2+ years of current experience I have teaching and tutoring and am busy applying for jobs that will (I hope) be a step forward. My goal this time is to find a job that offers 20-25 hours a week on a fairly consistent schedule, a higher per-hour pay rate and some opportunity to grow and move up (or at least move around) in the organization. I could then "fill in" some additional hours with one or more of the more flexible part-time gigs I already have.

 

I actually had an interview for one position yesterday. The money isn't much better than what I make now, but it sounds like there would be more hours per week and that there is a variety of task and some possibility for growth and movement. I won't know for a couple of weeks whether I will get an offer there.

 

And I have another interview this afternoon. This one offers a higher pay rate, but I have no clue yet how many hours a week they are offering. It, too, would be with a large institution and might offer opportunties to grow.

 

We'll see. 

[Lecka]

Well, for what it is worth, I did not work outside the home for 10 years.

 

Now I work part-time for $12/hour.  A woman from church asked the pastor if she knew of a reliable person looking for work, and the pastor gave her my name.

 

I have been asked to go full-time twice now, but my husband and I agree I need to be able to pick our kids up from school and have a lot of energy in the evenings.  So, if that were not the case, I would want to go full-time, but as it is, I am staying part-time. 

 

If I could work full-time, I would be taking this work experience and looking around, I think.

 

I do not think I would have been hired for my job without the recommendation from my friend from church. 

 

It is an office admin type of job.  They were looking for someone with a good attitude and who would not gossip/complain, and who would get stuff done.  It is not a job I want to do long-term, but I like it for now. 

Edited February 12, 2016 by Lecka

[BlsdMama]

I now know what I'd like to do when the kids are grown, or at least on a part time basis when they are older (10ish?)  I'm back in school, taking online classes towards my Bachelors.  I can get my undergrad, working at  a reasonable pace,  at our state flagship and then I'll tackle my Masters in five years or so.   

 

(ETA - I began staying home with our children when our second was two.  That was 15 years ago.) ;)

Edited February 13, 2016 by BlsdMama

[HSmomof2]

For those back in school, how did you decide what to study? I have a BA in psychology that wasn't useful in employment 20 years ago, so I'm sure even less so now. My dc will be approaching high school in the next few years, so I'm considering retraining. But, I just don't know what I want to do or how to pull it off logistically.

[Ottakee]

After 20 years as a stay at home mom/foster mom, I started back working 1-3 days a week in Dec.

 

I am substitute teaching in special education, mostly with the severly impaired in a special county wide school. The lay is not great at all for the amount of work you do, esp considering special Ed is a 5 year degree program. That said, I can leave after my youngest foster son gets on the bus and I am home before he gets home from school. I can also pick and choose my days and even classrooms. I could work every day if I wanted....but I don't.

 

Today we took placement of a 15 year old boy through the juvenile community justice program....specialized foster care for teens on probation. That might cut down on my subbing.

[The Girls' Mom]

For those back in school, how did you decide what to study? I have a BA in psychology that wasn't useful in employment 20 years ago, so I'm sure even less so now. My dc will be approaching high school in the next few years, so I'm considering retraining. But, I just don't know what I want to do or how to pull it off logistically.

I started off going back for a degree in Art, just because I wanted to.  Then I realized that my dh's health would necessitate me having a stable job with healthcare benefits.  I couldn't take that big of a gamble on an Art degree.  I had experience in accounting/finance from when I worked in the accounting department at a credit union years ago.  I knew accounting was something I was good at, and was a very marketable degree.  My plan, for now, is to follow it all the way out to CPA.  That may shift if dh's health declines faster than we expect.  I'm prepared to shift to a general business degree, and/or finish up my Bachelors degree online.  (I'm over halfway to my Associates)

[Samiam]

I'm back in school now.  Prior to kids and being a SAHM, I had worked as a travel agent....this was before the internet and people being able to do most of it themselves online.  I had also worked in call center environments, Airlines, Health Insurance company, cell phone company.....I was kind of an expert at working in call centers.  I've been working from home for the last several years in a "at home call center" situation...but only part time and work hours around mommy life (usually later in the evenings)...but it's "extra income"...not life sustaining income.  Anyhoo, it dawned on me that in a handful of years my children will all be teenagers or older and just won't need me ALL the time....and MIL was recently widowed and I've watched her struggle financially because her DH didn't leave much when he died, and she didn't have a decent job herself.   It dawned on me that I need to have something to support MYSELF if something would happen to DH.    I choose a health care field....because that is something that will never go away, and it also has a flexible schedule so I may not have to work full time if I don't want to.  The only thing is....if I get into the program in the fall (I've been taking pre-reqs up to this point)  I will have to start clinicals and my schedule won't be up to me and it will be during the day....so we won't be homeschooling at that point ....so our whole life is going to change at that point.  

[Melissa in Australia]

I went and studied for a degree. then started teaching in Primary schools

 

I was out of the workforce for 13 years

 

before homeschooling I worked as a Personal Carer in Aged Care