Resume Tips for Stay-at-Home Moms

Did you know that you are almost twice as likely to suffer from depression as a stay-at-home mom if you don’t work, at least part-time?

The study conducted by the Gallup in 2012 confirmed this. Their results stated that the depression rate among the stay-at-home moms is as high as 28%, while only 17% of employed moms reported signs of depression.

This research identified employed moms as persons who have at least a part-time job and a child that is younger than 18.

One of the important reasons for this poor well being of stay-at-home moms includes the lack of accomplishment that these women draw from their careers.

This gap between staying at home and being accomplished professionally can be bridged by taking up a home-based position or pursuing an online career.

This brings us to the matter of a resume.

Yes, this is the moment when most of us roll their eyes or feel hopeless because there are cobwebs on their resumes.

Don’t worry. This is not as hard as it looks! With just a couple of good and valuable tips, you’ll be able to craft a winning resume that will help you land a good online job.

Be Honest About Your Situation

Are you nervous about your resume gap? Thinking that it will ruin your chances for employment? You are not alone in these thoughts.

Lots of stay-at-home parents think that way. Moreover, some of them try to mask the employment gaps and pretend that they don’t exist.

This can backfire. Your employment gap will come up eventually during the hiring process. It means that all your attempts to cover it up will be seen as attempts to deceive your future employers.

There is a shade of dishonesty there and you don’t want that.

Instead of covering up your employment gap, be honest about it. In other words – own your parenting employment gap! It is nothing to be ashamed of.

Moreover, it is quite possible that you have gained some transferable skills during that period. You might have volunteered, did some part-time work, organized different sorts of charities or even events.

Choose a Good Resume Type

Think about your strengths and the aspects that need improvement. Then take a look at these main types of resumes and try to see which one is the best fit.

Chronological resume – use this if you have a lot of work experience, relevant to the job you are applying for. Start with your most recent job and list them all from there.

Functional resume – this resume is used when you want to put an emphasis on your skills rather than on the dates and employment history. Some employers don’t like it because it can seem like trying to cover up employment gaps.

Combined resume – obviously, this is a resume type that combines the chronological and functional resume features. The downside is that it can be too long.

Targeted resume – you write your targeted resume by reading the job description and analyzing it. Then you take a long, hard look at your skills and work experience and list only those that match the job requirements.

On the other hand, it can diminish your other professional achievements.

There is definitely one thing you should take from the targeted resume and implement it into yours It’s the keywords used in the job opening description.

Let’s talk about that for a bit.

Optimize Your Resume for the Job You Want

You know what keywords are, right?

They are those important words and phrases within a sentence. They are also the words you type into Google when you search for something.

That’s why they are KEYwords. Because they are the most important words and phrases around which everything else revolves.

The same is for job openings. They are packed with keywords that your potential employers use to look for the right candidates.

This is a real example from the Indeed.com. Take a look at the first bullet point. “Data entry” is the main thing there. Not “prior” and not “required.” “Data entry” is your keyword here.

So, what you need to do is take these keywords and scatter them all over your resume. This has two benefits:

• First, knowingly or not, t0he recruiter will notice the words they are looking for.0
• Secondly, a lot of companies use special software that weeds out the resumes that don’t have all the keywords they need.

There is a possibility that you won’t have all the hard skills needed for the job you want.

What to do in that case?

Point Out Your Transferable Skills

Hard skills are not all the employers look for in a candidate. These skills can be taught if the person is right.

Wouldn’t you rather work with great, smart and capable people and teach them how to use Excel than with an unreliable, unfriendly and uncooperative person who is the best Excel expert in the world?

There are a lot of employers out there that think the same.

That is why you need to point out your transferable skills. Some of the skills that you gained throughout parenting can be useful at your new job, as well. Here is a list of such transferable skills that you hone while parenting:

• Time management
• Problem-solving
• Event organization
• Multi-tasking
• Networking
• Self-discipline
• Budgeting

Emphasize on Work You’ve Been Doing

You have done much more than just feeding your kid, putting them to sleep and playing with them. Even if you have done that, it is still remarkable.

However, a lot of parents choose to engage in some sort of activities during their time off. Some of these include:

• Volunteer work
• Church activities
• Organizing parenting groups
• Organizing neighborhood watch
• Coaching kids’ sport teams
• Tutoring
• Charity work
• Event organization
• Administering social media groups
• Writing a blog

There are parents that took the time while being at home to bring their hobbies to another level. Of course, this is humanly possible only if your hobby has something to do with raising your kid. These are:

• Photography
• Scrapbooking
• Cooking 
• Sewing
• Sports

These can also be included as hard or soft skills in your resume. Of course, you may feel the need to enrich your list of skills and ensure better chances to get hired.

So, here is another idea for stay-at-home parents:

Use the Time to Get More Training

Go through some of the most prominent job boards for online work and analyze the required skills in the job postings.

Once you do that, make a list of those skills and see which one of them you think you could master. Your next step is to get some training!

No, you don’t have to go back to a “real school”. Not today with so many high-quality online courses that train online workers.

Don’t even think that your training need to take your entire year! For example, Small Revolution has great self-paced training for copywriting that you can take in your free time. There are other courses there, as well.

The time it takes you to complete any of these courses depends on you entirely. That is definitely an important aspect for any parent.

Don’t be quick to dismiss the possibility of training if you want to work online. Constant learning and education will definitely become a part of your life and career. The Internet is constantly changing and so is your job.

That is a good thing! You will never get bored and you will always have a dynamic job and new things to learn. Why don’t you start today!