The biggest problems women face when returning to the work force are a lack of self-esteem and a belief that what they have done for the last several years is not valued in the workplace. To overcome these twin problems you must first recognize that you possess many transferable skills that would be valued in many types of positions. This will give you a good start. There should be no doubt in your mind that you have valuable skills.
Begin looking for a career planning and job finding program at a community college, or consider obtaining help from a career counselor. Also look for a support group made up of women who are returning to work or look for a broader-based support group that the local YWCA or some similar organization may have. If you are divorced or widowed, or must become the primary wage earner, you will probably qualify for a "displaced home-makers" program. Such programs are often available at low cost through community colleges and can really help women get through an emotionally trying period. They typically provide career exploration assistance, job finding guidance, and emotional support.
Even though you have not worked for several years, make the most out of whatever paid work experience you do have. Scour each job to find whatever results and contributions you may have had, even if it was 20 years ago. Establishing the fact that you have been a good employee in the past, even 20 years ago, will effectively convince employers that you have a strong work ethic.
Those who have been out of the work force for many years must often emphasize their volunteer experience. In actuality, volunteer activities are merely jobs you didn't get paid to do. They can be as mundane as licking stamps or as interesting and challenging as organizing a blood donor drive, or handling public relations for a small nonprofit organization. If you consistently spent ten or more hours weekly on a volunteer position, treat it as a job with a job title and a job description, with results included. In the resume there is no need to state the number of hours spent weekly. If an employer is curious you can explain in the interview.
Make the most out of each activity. If you held an office, say so. If you obtained excellent results, describe them. Don't be modest. How good a position you get depends on the quality of your resume and how well focused you are. There is probably no need to return to school for a degree, but you may need to study your preferred field on your own or take a few classes at your local community college. Study enough to know the terms, history, and trends in your field.
Those Over 50
The greatest concern of people over fifty years of age is usually age discrimination. While federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of age, we know that it persists in both overt and subtle ways. With this in mind, you must decide whether you will reveal your age, since employers by law cannot ask your age or birth date. Your resume should contain only information you choose to reveal to an employer.
Make the most of your experience and maturity. Some people unnecessarily worry that youth always has the edge. In your resume and during interviews, reveal yourself to be an energetic and youthful person, but one who has the maturity and sound judgment that comes only with age and experience. If you have planned your career carefully, you will probably be at a level where only those with similar age, experience, and results will even be considered as qualified. If that is not your case, then simply recognize that your age is another barrier that must and can be overcome.
People with Portfolios
Architects, drafters, artists, designers, photographers, models, and writers, use portfolios to help sell themselves. They often make the mistake of placing too little emphasis on a top-quality resume, assuming the portfolio alone will sell them.
As important as your portfolio is, don't shortchange yourself. There are lots of talented people out there with outstanding portfolios. Taking the time to develop an effective resume will make an important difference to your job hunting success. Your resume can reveal qualities and background that won't come across in your portfolio. A portfolio can express your technical or creative ability, but a resume reveals where you've been and how you developed your ability.
In fact, without an effective resume you won't often get the opportunity to show that fantastic portfolio you so painstakingly assembled. Artistic people are stereotyped as temperamental. In your resume do everything possible to demonstrate that you are flexible and easy to work with.
Graphic artists and designers should feel free to come up with creative formats for their resumes. This is one of the few groups of people who will benefit from having a resume typeset since it is an opportunity to show their graphics ability.
Programmers/Analysts
Data processing is a unique field and requires a special type of resume. Since the average programmer stays only 18 months with an organization, managers usually look for someone who can step right in and do the job, based on past experience with the computer, language, and operating system used in that organization. This is a source of great frustration for programmers because many feel that in two to three weeks they can master any new system-all they need is an opportunity to prove it. Your task is to make the most out of the experience you have and to demonstrate your adaptability.
The DP resume is actually fairly simple to write because it consists of several distinct sections that practically write themselves. Start with Areas of Experience. Typically, it will consist of Languages, Systems, Special Programs, Computers, Conversions, and Applications.
Applications can be further divided into New Applications and Maintenance. It should be easy, almost like filling in the blanks.
Because programming is so project-oriented, it is often better to place more emphasis on projects than on job descriptions. A special projects section will work great. Provide just enough information in each project description to give an employer a feel for what you did, and then concentrate on results. This section is very important and will probably require three drafts. Start by listing the projects you feel would be most impressive. Since employers usually use resumes as a basis for interviews, be sure to choose projects that you would want to explain and describe in more detail in an interview.
For the first draft of your projects section, don't worry about length; just get your thoughts down on paper. In the second draft, look for unnecessary words or phrases. The employer does not require a complete understanding of all the details, just enough information to indicate the degree of complexity and what was required to complete the project. Finish the project by describing the result. By emphasizing your areas of experience and special projects sections, your job descriptions will probably be quite short.
Salespeople
Salespeople typically hate to write. That fact is generally quite evident in their resumes, most of which are poorly written, poorly designed, and reveal very little of substance. Taking just four to five hours of your time to write a quality resume could net you an extra $100,000 in your lifetime earnings.
The sales resume is usually one of the easiest to write because it is so results oriented. Sales resumes rarely require extensive details about duties because sales managers already know what you do. What they care about is the bottom line. Don't tell a sales manager how hard you worked or how many phone calls you made or how many sales calls you went on. Did you sell? That's all that counts.
There are a number of ways to show results: sales awards, your ranking within your sales organization, improving the position of your territory compared to other territories in the company, increasing sales, increasing profits on sales, or increasing market share. Use whatever is most appropriate. If you know your market share or can estimate it pretty closely, use that figure. Market share is effective because it provides an excellent means of comparison. During an economic boom with high inflation, the gross sales of even a mediocre salesperson will increase 5-8% annually. To increase market share, however, means you have taken business away from competitors and increased your share of the pie. It means you're doing something right. Employers won't know if you've done it on the basis of your great personality, your outstanding closing techniques, your strong product knowledge, your hard work, or your excellent time management, but it won't matter. Sales managers care only about results.
Showing increases in market share is great, but most companies simply don't do the research to know what those figures are, territory by territory. Use whatever figures will work best for you. During the last recession even many outstanding salespeople were not able to say that they increased sales. In some industries just holding steady was the mark of a great salesperson.
If you haven't been doing so up to this time, begin collecting and saving all the sales data you can. Whenever you start a new position, get data on what the territory was doing prior to your taking over. In the absence of cold, hard figures, rely on your memory and your knowledge of the territory. Estimate and guesstimate when you must, but do come up with some figures which you feel are accurate, and be sure you can explain how they were derived.
