I have been staying home with the kids for the last 12 years, and now that the littlest is in school, I’m looking to get a job again. Does anyone have knowledge about writing a resume for such a situation. I have good experience, but it’s very old experience. How is this best handled?
Put down relevant experience, with full detail. In your cover letter, explain (briefly) what you were doing the last 12 years. You might want to also mention anything you’ve done to stay current in your field and your skills during that time. (and of course pointing out how your prior experience is still relevant enough to make you a good fit for the job).
Unless being a mother is somehow relevant to your field (teaching grade school, maybe nursing?), I say don’t put it on the resume. I can’t really think of a situation where someone would want to interview an applicant with ‘mother’ on the resume but wouldn’t want to interview the same candidate with an twelve-year gap. It’s always better to explain in person-- the resume is just to get you in the door.
Do you know of any web sites that address this issue and give examples of the best way to do it?
I’d have to disagree here; if I were to see an unexplained twelve year gap I would assume prison time and put the resume on the bottom of the pile. If I saw mother/housewife I would merely think that it was just another women who went to college, got married, got a job and choose to have kids and raise them; certainly not unheard of. I’ve worked for people like that and they weren’t all bad, being able to handle and put up with child like behavior is very important in the business world.
I guess it depends on what kind of hiring pool you are looking at. If I am looking at a bunch a resumes with 5+ years of Systems Engineering experience and I saw a 12 year gap on a ~40 year old female, PRISON is not the first thing to pop into my mind.
Does anyone know of a specific web site that gives examples of how to handle this situation best with sample resumes?
You were self employeed tried to make good for your self and start X, it didnt work out so well. It will look good that you worked for your self while you looked for work
This doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. OP never said that she’d been working for herself (even though I’d agree that mommying is work - tough work; I’m sharing space with my sis and BIL and their 2 year old… it’s a lot of work, and why I’m willing to anything but the diaper thing unless absolutely necessary).
If OP will share with us her industry, that might help. Some change more rapidly than others (if you were a javascript coder 12 years ago… time to do homework; if you were an electrician, less so).
Have you kept up with the industry?
I tend to agree with Si Amigo in the premise that a lengthy unemployment gap cause speculation and although I would not suspect prison time during this period, the mental tendency here is to allow the reader’s mind to fill in the gap with supposition. The first thought that comes to mind is, “What is this person hiding and why?”
Let’s face it, the gap exists so why not fill it with the truth because in all likelihood, you’re going to get that question during the interview and if they’re unimpressed now, they’ll probably be then as well.
In my mind, someone staying home and raising a family lets me know this individual has their life in order and their priorities straight.
You wrote three books on best practices in [your] industry. Too bad the bastard publishers pulled the plug at the last minute.
Not a specific one but start here.
I’m looking to write a resume to apply for a job teaching classes at an online university. I taught college students before, as well as high school. I don’t think the teaching part has ‘gone stale’ but in the 12 years that I was raising 4 kids, a lot of computer technology has changed.