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I’ve taken a long career break to raise my children, but it’s time to focus on reentering the workforce. What advice would you give a woman to make the transition back into the workforce?

Elaine Varelas provides guidance on returning to the workforce and navigating the transition successfully.

Ask the Job Doc. Boston.com

By Elaine Varelas

Q.  As a mother of two, I’ve had a long career break to raise my kids. They’re now in high school, so I have been taking classes, as well as designing and conducting my own projects to get back up to speed, but I don’t have any recent work experience (apart from volunteering at my kid’s schools) to reference in an application or interview. What advice do you have for me to be a viable candidate?

A. As every child-rearing parent knows, working in the home should be considered the most challenging job anyone has, so don’t minimize your at-home experience and especially don’t minimize your volunteer experience at your children’s school.

You’re a perfect candidate for a special kind of combination resume, a functional or skills-based resume, with the chronology as a secondary section. As you review your professional experience, even going back all those years, look at your skills and focus on the ones that you excel in and are relevant to the job for which you are applying. Do you have experience working in financial roles? If so, one of the areas in your functional resume would start with financial experience, and then you would list four or five bullets outlining examples underneath that section showcasing the experience that you had, not listing dates or where it occurred, but using the bullet points to describe your achievements in that role.

Quantify every type of success that you can. If you increased revenue by dollars or percents or if you streamlined processes, make sure that you’re explaining whatever success each bullet point demonstrates. Step back again and pick a second functional skill that you want to highlight. You can use as many as five or six of these in a functional resume, as long as they have at least three or four significant examples. And at the end of that section on the bottom or on the bottom of page one or on page two, you would list then your chronological experience in terms of those employers. In the chronological section, list those specifics in terms of your volunteer activities.

If you don’t feel you have enough content for a strong functional resume you can create a chronological resume. Record all of the other activities you were involved with if they carry specific skills. You mention volunteering for your children’s school and taking classes. Highlight any education and major responsibilities during this time, for example: managed remote education for two middle school aged children from March 2020-November 2022, served on the prom planning committee 2022-2023, coordinated Spirit Week parent volunteers, volunteered in the school library from 2016 to 2022, etc. If these volunteer activities were larger and more complex, try to include greater details if you can. Did you lead fifty parents in holding the annual golf fundraiser, in which you raised more funds than any other year? Did you recruit twenty new parent volunteers for the library reading program? Again, every bullet and every activity should show that you are dedicated to the success of whatever activity you’re involved with.

There are organizations who work with parents returning to the workforce after child-rearing, and these would obviously be a great resource for you to contact. One example is the Mom Project, a platform and community designed to support parents, particularly mothers, who have taken a career break and need support re-entering the workforce and finding flexible job opportunities that fit their needs. Another is the Lean in Network Return to Work Circle, which has a small Boston circle to connect with “relaunchers”. And iRelaunch, with their tagline Normalizing Career Breaks, offers a wealth of online resources and a Job Board where you can upload your Resume to be found by employers searching for candidates like yourself.

It’s likely that you have an extraordinarily large and diverse network through the school, through the parents of your children’s friends and other school parents. I encourage you to recognize that getting an opportunity to interview for a job will involve networking and referrals. Those people will be predisposed to like you and recognize that although your professional work experience was a few years ago, you are able to demonstrate that you’re a reliable and dedicated employee.

Also remember the people that you used to work for and with. Hopefully, you departed on good terms, and they also have positive memories of your abilities to contribute as a potential employee. Between the professional organizations that support returning parents and your network, you should be able to turn your past work experience and volunteer experience into paid work experience.