Working and being a mother is no mean feat. Whether you have been out of the work loop for a while and are looking to reenter or you feel like you want to change jobs or be able to feel more confident in the skills you are bringing to your current role, you are in good company. So many mums struggle with the work, family balance and it can be very easy to lose your confidence when all your energy is put into raising your family. But don’t forget about those mum skills.
You’re asking what mum skills are? Well, they are all the desirable skills that mums like you have to offer to employers. It is no longer necessary to view being a mum as a compromise to our career goals and what we can offer in the workplace. So here are my 7 reasons why being a mum makes you a better employee, e.g. 7 reasons why mums should be celebrating the skills they learnt from being a mum and how to promote them not just as mum skills but also as key skills for top-tier employees.
Mum skills for your CV: Ability to Multi-Task
We’ve all heard the joke that when it comes to multitasking, it is an inherently female trait and one unfortunately not bestowed to our male counterparts. Whether you buy into that or not, it is certainly true that women who have children will be an absolute whizz when it comes to juggling more than two or three things at a time.
Mums really are pros when it comes to having three pairs of hands, eyes in the back of their head and minds that juggle multiple tasks at the same time. This constant mastery of multi-tasking means that mums are highly employable by companies that need people to be able to cope calmly under pressure when there is a lot going on. Being able to multitask at home, translates to being able to multitask in a busy and demanding work environment where you may have to regularly juggle more than one problem or task at a time.
Mum skills for your CV: Care & Nurture
Most mothers, when talking about the skills that they have developed as a mother, will probably answer firstly with caring and nurturing. This is because caring and nurturing for our children is at the heart of everything that we do. That does also mean that a career in care, nursing or counselling is a great choice for any mums thinking about going back to work after being a full-time mum. Anyone thinking about getting into care work can find out more information by clicking here and an overview of available jobs here too. Working with people in the care and health sector means that you have a huge amount of transferrable skills that you can confidently and effectively bring forward to this type of highly rewarding work.
Mum skills for your CV: Time Management
When we were younger showing up ten minutes late, used to be referred to as being ‘fashionably late’. That no longer applies when it comes to work, and timekeeping can be a serious problem between some employers and their employees.
Mums, however, have had significant practice in getting time management down to a fine art. When it comes to getting kids out of bed, dressed, fed, school bags packed and into the car, the military timekeeping precision that is necessary to nail that, day in and day out, is certainly nothing to be sniffed at. This incredible mum skill is highly transferable when it comes to work, and as mums tend to view time as a more valuable thing than younger employees, with fewer responsibilities, it makes them much more reliable and trustworthy employees.
Mum skills for your CV: Team Work
When there is more than just one of you to think about your life starts to slowly but surely take on the form of continual teamwork. As you and your family will be moving around, en mass, it is no wonder that mums minds shift into that that values and encourages teamwork.
Making sure all members of your family are working together, on the same side and working towards the same daily goals shifts perfectly into the teamwork skills necessary in the workplace. As a mum, you will have ample experience of persuading your kids and working to gain their cooperation. As we also know how stubborn kids can be sometimes we know that cracking this takes time, determination and a huge amount of patience. These mum skills and techniques make for successful and well-rounded employees.
Mum skills for your CV: Positivity
Being a mum sometimes feels like everyone else’s moods depend on yours. Many mums take it upon themselves to wake their children with a smile and words of encouragement for the day ahead. The same applies throughout the day, mums want to impart a feeling of happiness over family dinners and family trips out in the constant hope that that will rub off on all other members of the family. We also choose positivity when it comes to encouraging our children to do something they are not keen on, like learning to play a musical instrument or to read more books. This can be an exhausting and sometimes slightly thankless job but it is great training in mastering the ways that we should be conducting ourselves at work.
It can be all too easy to bring our thunderous moods into the office and want to moan and share our woes with those around us, but this doesn’t harbour a particularly positive and productive office environment. Therefore mums are really well equipped to keep frowns and negative feelings to themselves and walk into every situation with a smile on their face. This is a highly appreciated attitude and personality trait appreciated by both employers and colleagues aside and is exactly the type of team member, that people want to surround themselves with. So this positive attitude carved out from years of being positive for the kids, will bode very well in the workplace indeed.
Mum skills for your CV: Visualisation
Being a parent involves a lot of visualising of the bigger picture in order to understand what needs to be done and how it is going to get done. A family day out with the children, for example, will come with a whole set of visualisations that need to be thought out and efficiently planned.
Visualising how you will get there, the different weather possibilities, sorting through the different lunch options, what the budget is for the day, when you need to be home for, if any of the children have an important assignment due in the next day, that needs to be completed in the evening. When you actually write down all the details of what mums need to visualise, in order for the day to run smoothly, it is no wonder that mums are finely-tuned visualisation machines. Being great at this is a highly desirable trait within the office as being able to think ahead effectively and plan the details, in order to be able to look at the bigger picture, enables mums to bring a really strong focus to project and business management.
Mum skills for your CV: Being a Good Listener
This sounds so simple but being a good listener is a surprisingly sought after quality in employees. Mums perfect the art of listening, over the years, in order to ensure that children feel heard and that they have an open and trusting relationship with their parents.
Getting teenagers to open up about their feelings and emotions is certainly no mean feat, and any parent that manages to achieve this deserves their place in the parenting hall of fame. Joking aside though, telling our kids that we are there when they need us, and offering them a non-judgemental and helpful outlet to discuss their problems is a fantastic skill to bring to any job. The ability to listen enables workers to truly understand their clients, and their colleagues and in turn gives staff the opportunity to identify what needs to happen in order to bring forth the best solutions and strategies.
Which mum skills would you add to your CV and which mum skills do you think are most desired by employers?
This is a collaborative post.
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