by Cheryl Scott

Created on: July 11, 2011

Writing a resume if you want to return to work after raising a family can be very easy or very hard depending upon your perspective of the value of your work and time raising your family.  To make your new prospective employer see you as a valuable prospective employee you will need to point out the transferable skills you learned and honed while homemaking as well as technical skills you had prior to raising your family. Learning these new skills may have made you qualified for new positions in management or even a new career altogether.  But what are the transferable skills learned in homemaking and how do you present these?

Transferable skills from homemaking to include in your new resume may include such things as time management, organizational skills, human relations skills, design skills, and teaching skills.  You may have spent time sewing, cooking, and cleaning which are all skills that can be transferred to a new job in design, food service, and maintenance.  How you personally think about the value of what you know will translate into your resume.  But how do you translate your homemaking skills into marketable terms?

To translate your homemaking skills into marketable terms start by reading the job description of the prospective jobs you are applying for and take some time to make a list of things you did at home that might be similar. As you consider the things you did as a homemaker and how they are similar to the job descriptions for your new job the next step will be to write succinct sentences or short paragraphs to explain what you did.  An example might be “organized group schedules”, “managed budget”, or “mediated disputes”.  After listing all the transferable skills you have acquired and honed, consider next your personal attributes.  What can you say about your ability to be tolerant or your level of responsibility?

Personal attributes which are not necessarily job skills such as punctuality, and resourcefulness, are important to your prospective new employer.  Consider how you will highlight that fact that you are responsible, reliable, dependable, and patient and how these attributes will make you the best candidate for the job. 

Last but not least, consider your time away from the market place as important time you have had to observe life from new perspectives, gain new insights, and make new acquaintances.  Consider all that has been wonderful and good about your time away from the marketplace and put that in your resume.  Raising a family is the most important job anyone can ever do—be sure to make sure your prospective employer can see that on your resume.  Good luck!

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