Question:

I have been staying at home with my children for the past few years and therefore out of the labor force. I am now ready to return to work full-time. How should I explain the gap on my resume?

First Answer:

I would use my resume to concentrate on the skills that I am bringing to the workplace. I would address the "stay at home time" in my cover letter. The cover letter gives you an opportunity to explain the situation without taking away from the purpose of the resume -- these are the skills I possess and this is why you should hire me.

Two possible ways to address this would be:

As you will note on my resume, I have not worked outside the home for the past several years, choosing to be a "stay-at-home mom." Now that my children are older, I am ready to return to the workforce. I feel that my previous work experience qualifies.....

Or this:

Several years ago I left the workforce to become a "stay-at-home mom." Now that my children are older, I am ready to return to the workforce. As you will note on my resume, my previous work experience at ....

-- Linda Wyatt, Career Center Director, Kansas City Kansas Community College

Second Answer:

You have been out of the paid labor force, not idling on a beach in Negril. How you choose to address this "gap" depends upon:

1. How long the gap was. Five years? Ten?
2. What you've done during that time to develop and demonstrate marketable skills.
3. How well you present yourself to organizations with varied cultural norms about women who take breaks in their careers to raise children.

Here are the issues and your options, both on the résumé and in interviews:

1. Length of time away from paid work. The issue raised by a brief absence, say under five years, is your commitment to work while you still have pre-school or elementary school children. Dishearteningly, in American culture, marriage and parenthood signal, inaccurately and unfairly, divided loyalty for women (while signaling stability and validating heterosexuality for men). So if you explain this gap as "Homemaker," prepare to demonstrate high energy and your ability to cope in your cover letter and interviews, not your misgivings about returning to work. On the other hand, if you have been out of the workforce for very long, a likely issue is your currency of knowledge and skills in your profession, in everything from e-commerce to industry trends to regulatory environment. Your burden here is to demonstrate what you have done to maintain currency, whether it's avid reading, participating in professional associations' professional development activities, or maintaining an active network with your colleagues.
   
   
2. What have you done to develop or demonstrate professional skills? While no one would argue that parenting is not a full-time job, you may have undertaken unpaid endeavors that sharpened your skills or added new ones to your portfolio, and women especially fail to recognize that these are marketable. Examples: you chaired the committee that raised $200,000 for your children's school, registered the highest percentage of new voters in your county ever for the last election, organized your neighborhood's first structured barter system for play date hosting and babysitting services. In the old world of work at least in American culture, we measure things by their price, so unpaid work has no value; in the new world of work, a prospective employer's question isn't "was she paid to learn this skill?" but "does she have the skills to solve the problems in this job?" List your occupation for this time as "Volunteer" and bullet your accomplishments with the Scouts, Junior Achievement, the PTA fundraiser, or non-child related ones such as Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Revitalization Committee.
   
   
3. How you present yourself to organizations with varied cultural norms about women who take breaks in their careers to raise children. Because an organization's attitude about working mothers is unknown, except for those with family-friendly reputations such as Johnson & Johnson (see Working Mother's annual rankings, and enlist your reference librarian to help you search for others), you want to research prospective employers to ascertain the progression and success rates of working mothers, and the corporate culture. Some organizations embrace flex-time and believe that work/life balance makes more productive employees and increases retention; some measure you by your willingness to work 24/7 and think how you manage a family life under those conditions is not their problem. So whether or not you choose to reveal the fact that you even have a family depends on both what you want your candidacy to be decided on (competencies, or your family status) and on how you are going to fit into that organization. It is difficult but not impossible to explain gaps in employment without mentioning children, but people do it: list "Volunteer" for the years not working, and explain it in interviews without mentioning children (that could be an ill relative, following your husband around the globe for his job, preparing for a switch to the nonprofit sector, completing your education). If it's reputedly a family-friendly place, you may safely discuss your absence for child-rearing. If not, yes, it's repulsive to have to hide your children from an employer, but if you mention them, they may become illegal but real criteria to reject you. You want to be hired for what you can do, not ruled out for your personal life. Still, research prospective employers to be sure you want to work there. Avoiding discrimination based on family status is different than finding an employer who, as bedrock principle, supports work/life balance.

-- Carol Anderson, Career Development and Placement Office, Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University in New York City.

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