How Today’s Moms Re-enter the Workplace Successfully

Returning to work after a career break? This can be challenging but it’s also an opportunity to showcase resilience, adaptability, and a unique skill set. Here are ten tips I learned from this inspiring book - The Comeback by Cheryl Casone. What is your biggest lesson learned as a working mom? Share in the comments section.

1. Strategize Your Comeback

Start by reassessing your career goals. Think about what aligns with your current skills, interests, and lifestyle. Be intentional and strategic about your next move, ensuring it supports the kind of professional and personal life you envision.

2. Own Your Story

Be transparent about your career break without making it the focus of your narrative. Use this opportunity to highlight transferable skills—such as organization, multitasking, and problem-solving—that you’ve honed during your time away from the workplace.

3. Polish Your Resume

HR professionals spend an average of six seconds scanning resumes. Ensure yours is concise, visually appealing, and tailored to highlight the experiences that make you a standout candidate. Emphasize both your professional achievements and any relevant activities you engaged in during your break.

4. Embrace Networking and Learning Opportunities

Don’t let new technologies or workplace dynamics intimidate you. Take advantage of online courses, workplace training programs, or even insights from your kids to get up to speed. Networking within and outside your workplace can also open doors to opportunities and provide invaluable insights.

5. Seek Mentorship from Senior Women

Identify women in leadership who inspire you and reach out to them for guidance. A mentor can provide advice on balancing work and family, navigating challenges, and achieving your career goals while staying true to yourself.

6. Build Your Support Network

It truly takes a village to raise a child. Trust others with childcare responsibilities—be it family, friends, or professional services—and believe that your children will thrive even while you’re at work. This will help ease guilt and allow you to focus on your professional growth.

7. Identify and Leverage Your Skill Set

Every experience, professional or personal, offers a chance to grow. Even roles you may initially consider less significant can demonstrate your maturity, adaptability, and work ethic. Use these as opportunities to shine and make meaningful contributions.

8. Strike a Balance with Colleagues

Full-time work and parenting can leave little room for after-hours networking. Instead, find ways to connect with colleagues during work hours, such as grabbing lunch or coffee. Commit to attending one or two out-of-office events a month to maintain strong workplace relationships.

9. Be Authentic and Confident

Age and experience are advantages—use them. Stay true to your values and let your authenticity set you apart in the workplace. Your professionalism and ability to balance multiple roles are assets that can inspire trust and respect.

10. Be Kind to Yourself

Let go of guilt and focus on your goals. Balancing work and family isn’t about choosing one over the other; it’s about creating a life that honors your ambitions and supports your loved ones. Celebrate the progress you make and take pride in being both a great mom and a successful professional.

What to do when everyone looks to you

What to do when everyone looks to you

I just finished reading an inspiring book - The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou. Julie unexpectedly got into management at the age of 25. She says all she knew about management was best summarized in two words: meetings and promotions. She grew her management skills over time.

Here are my top lessons from her book:

What exactly is a manager’s job

A manager's job is to build a team that works well together, create processes to get work done smoothly, and support members in reaching their career goals. Supporting and caring for someone doesn't mean always agreeing with them or making excuses for their mistakes. Management means bringing people together to achieve the best outcomes. The best outcomes come from inspiring people to action, not just telling them what to do.

Management starts with managing yourself

No matter the obstacles, you first need to get deep into knowing yourself - your strengths, your values, your comfort zones, your blind spots, and your biases. When you fully understand yourself, you will know how best to support your team. When you invest in personal learning and growth, you're not just investing in your future but also the future of your team. The better you are, the more you can support others.

Create a concrete vision

Though it's common to hear words like help, improve, and enhance when talking about goals, they don't paint a clear picture. An inspiring vision is tangible and bold. You know instantly whether you have hit it or not because it is measurable. Assume you have a magic wand that makes everything your team does go perfectly, what do you hope for two or three years compared to now?

Hiring well

It is a manager's role to hire. Yet, hiring is not just about filling holes. If you approach it that way, you will not bring in the best people. It's about figuring out how to make your team and your life much better, and an opportunity to build the future of the organization.

Best feedback meetings

A great feedback meeting gets everyone on the same page about what the success of the project looks like, honestly presents the current status of work, clearly frames open questions, key decisions, or known concerns, and ends with agreed-upon next steps including when the next milestone or check-in will be.

Leading a growing team

I should aim to put myself out of a job: as my team grows in size and abilities, I must grow too to keep pace as its manager. The act of constantly trying to replace myself means that I am creating opportunities to stretch my team and myself.

Never stop talking about what is important

Embrace telling people what you care about. Assume that for the message to stick, it should be heard ten different times and said in ten different ways. The more you can enlist others to help spread your message, the more it is likely to have an impact.

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel," Maya Angelou.

Management starts with managing yourself. Photo credit: Pichastock