5 Key Elements in a Stay-At-Home Mom Resume

5 Key Elements in a Stay-At-Home Mom Resume

It takes courage to rejoin the workforce as a stay at home mom. But, with ever-changing industry norms, the job hunt seems to be a tough nut to crack.

While composing your resume, you may have a few questions like, how do I present the employment gap in a positive light, or what skills do I need to put on my resume?

These doubts may be on your mind. Do not worry, we will help you resolve these questions in this article. If you need more help writing your resume, you can get help from businesses like ARC Resumes who are experienced in writing resumes. Before you get started writing your resume, it’s a good idea to choose a resume-example to get inspiration for how to best do it.

Let’s have a look at 5 key elements of a stellar stay at home mom resume:

The Employment Gap

The elephant in the room, how do you explain the employment gap to the recruiter? 

A gap in the employment history of any candidate can be a negative sign in the job application. Even if you have a valid reason, the recruiter will not have enough time to meticulously read the resume and assess it. 

So, you need to tweak your resume a little to showcase the correct expertise. 

For instance, you can avoid including the month details while writing your work profiles. Let’s say you joined a company in November 2016 and left it in March 2019. You can just include the details of the year and write it as ‘2016 – 2019’. 

Moreover, create a separate section that consists of a skills description relevant to the target profile. You can name this section “Domain Expertise”. But, you need to choose a resume template that will allow you to make these changes in your resume. 

Reverse-Chronological Order

Hiring managers check how quickly you can learn and apply your skills to complete tasks. This means that the recently acquired skills and experience will matter the most. 

You can do this by using a reverse chronological order to write information in your resume. Be it professional experience, projects, or certifications, write the most recent developments first then go back to the older ones. 

But, you can avoid this step while writing the ‘Domain Expertise’ section, it is reserved for writing points relevant to the target profile. So, any timeline restrictions do not apply here. 

Highlight the Skill Sets

Recruiters will merely glance through the document to see if you possess the right skills. So, go through your resume and identify skills that can bolster your chances of landing the job. 

There are two ways you can go about highlighting your skills. 

• Skills section: Create a separate skills section to write your proficiencies. Technical professionals should create a technical skills section as well for writing tools, methodologies, etc. 
• Bolding & bucketing: Bold important keywords throughout the document and club bullets under applicable subheadings in the professional experience section. The subheadings can be business development & sales promotion, marketing strategy & brand management, etc. 

By doing this you will increase the readability of the document and your chances of getting noticed by the recruiter. 

Write a Cover Letter

A cover letter is like Watson to Sherlock, it complements your resume. A well-drafted cover letter comes in handy while applying for a job as it allows you to highlight your key achievements along with pointers regarding your career gap.

In the cover letter, you can give details about the skills you acquired during your time at home with the children and the projects you worked on. 

You can even go through the job description and compose the cover letter as per the required expertise. 

Education & certifications

This is a very important section as it lets the recruiter know whether you are eligible for the role. 

Start with the highest qualification you have acquired and add the key modules relevant to the target profile.

Moreover, upskilling is very important in today’s environment. So, include your certifications as well. Also, add the case studies you worked on during the certifications. 

Conclusion

Finding a job is a tough nut to crack when you have been away from the workforce for a while. So, make sure that you highlight your skills correctly in a resume to get shortlisted for your target job. Do not get overwhelmed, just incorporate the above tips and make your resume awesome. 

Guest Article. Contains sponsored links.