31. 4 Steps to Restart Your Career, Including Tips & Stories

This week's episode is a recording from a live event I hosted on LinkedIn earlier this month when I reviewed 4 action steps to help you restart your career. We discuss the importance of getting clear on your career goals, along with exercises to help gain that clarity. There are multiple tips for both activating and expanding your network,  practical considerations you'll want to consider, along with a multitude of resources to tap into, which are listed below. I've been on both sides of the interview table as a successful returner (Hi! 👋 former stay-at-home mom here) AND as an HR/Recruiter and hiring manager and I'm excited to share what I've learned to help you on your career journey.

Original LinkedIn Live Events (with video)
Live: 4 Steps to Restart Your Career
Live: Common Resume Mistakes Career Returners Make

Resources:
•The Mom Project Mom-friendly job postings
•iRelaunch Return to work conference May 14-16
•Path Forward  Returnships
•ReacHire Return-to-Work Program & Direct Placement
•Idealist Non-profits, volunteer, internships
•Catchafire Volunteer opportunities
•Moms Next Career LinkedIn Group

Her Next Chapters episodes:

• episode 28 on Common Resume Mistakes
• episode 24 on Returnships

Grab a Free Resume Template for Stay at Home Moms.
Interested in my 1:1 Career Comeback Coaching program? Let's chat!
Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn ---> www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina

Transcript

Christina: 0:03

Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, Christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started. Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast.

Christina: 0:53

This episode is going to be a little bit different than what you're used to. It's actually a recording of a live event that I did on LinkedIn just a couple weeks ago, and it's titled four steps to restart your career. So, whether you are restarting your career maybe you've been a stay-at-home mom for a long time, like I was or maybe you're just ready to, for a change. You're ready to pivot to something different, um, or up-level your career. Whatever this, whatever the case may be as far as your career goals. I think you're going to find some really useful tips and information in this recording, and just to keep in mind that this was a live webinar and so there were a slide deck slides that I'm referring to visually, but I really think you'll be okay just to listen. If you do want to go back and watch the event, I'll put a link to it in the show notes and then you can watch and see the slides as well as hear the audio. But in the meantime, here is the audio of that event, enjoy.

Christina: 1:55

Hello everyone, on this beautiful spring day. I'm coming to you from the suburbs of Denver, colorado. It is so hard to believe that we're in the month of May. Today we have beautiful, sunny weather, blue skies. I hope it's nice wherever you are.

Christina: 2:12

My name is Christina and today we'll be talking about four steps that career returners can take to restart their careers. Thank you to those attending live and hello to those of you that are watching the replay. And just a quick heads up the event is being recorded and will be a future episode on the Her Next Chapter's podcast, so I'll be holding off on answering any questions until the end, but please enter your questions in the comments section and then I'll address them after I finish going through the slide deck and with that, let's go ahead and get started. So this is the mom's next career four steps to restart your career. And if you have questions about what to do in your next career, how to network when you haven't had a job in years, or how to prepare your family for your return to work, and where do you find support and resources for returners, then you're in the right place. This session is perfect for you. If you're unsure how to even start your job search, or you've been applying to jobs and you're not hearing back, or you know you need to network but you really don't know how and it just feels so awkward and uncomfortable. You're in the right place. Let's go back, all right. So the things we're going to cover, the action steps to restart your career, and just a little bit of background to you before I dig in.

Christina: 3:33

I myself had a 13-year career break. I was a stay-at-home mom to my young kids and I had 10 years of a career before I took my career break and it took me a couple years to get back in. I was like, okay, I'm ready, and it was a little bit of a challenge. So I hear you, I understand, I know personally the challenge that it takes, that it is to get back into the career and back into a job, so that is. I just want to offer that at first, before we dig in, because you're going to be hearing some examples from my personal experience, as well as some clients that I work with, and the really the number one thing we're going to dig into is clarity, defining your new career goals, and then we're going to talk about networking, expanding and activating your current network, some practical things you know how it impacts your whole household and then also resources to find support for your job search. So, getting clarity. Now I know some of you might be perfectly clear, crystal clear. You know exactly what you want to do.

Christina: 4:34

I do want to offer, though, that when you're coming back from a career break, this is an opportunity to kind of maybe pivot and try something new. Maybe you're an accountant and you realize that you don't want to go back to sitting with spreadsheets and balancing to the penny ever again. That that's just not who you are today. So it's an opportunity, a gift really, that people don't really get when they've been working 20, 30, 40 years in a row without a break. This is an opportunity to kind of pause and really figure out what makes the most sense for you. Who are you today and what do you want to do? And this really comes before you do your resume, your LinkedIn profile, cover letters, all of that Because if you don't have clarity, it's hard to know what you're aiming for and it's going to be difficult for a recruiter or a hiring manager to recognize your gifts and strengths if you have kind of a generic resume or generic application. So really, truly, you need to know what you're aiming for first. And if you're really, what you wanted today was to talk more about resumes. I did do a LinkedIn Live two weeks ago, so I encourage you to go back and watch that recording. Just go to my profile and go back in time a couple weeks and you'll see it. There there's a whole episode, or whole, I'd say, episodes. I'm a podcaster, but there's a whole LinkedIn Live on around resumes and common mistakes that career returners make. So if that's what you're looking for, I would encourage you to go back and watch that LinkedIn live event.

Christina: 6:08

Okay, with clarity, for those of you that are open to like I got to figure out what I'm doing next. This is an exercise that I offer, I would suggest, for my clients. What you want to do is take 30 or 60 minutes and just write down everything you can think of that you've done in your prior professional or volunteer setting or even your personal life, things that are accomplishment based. What skills and experience off that list actually light you up? And then, what experiences would you rather not do again? For me it's payroll. I did payroll for a couple of jobs because I worked for small companies and human resources is often attached to payroll and I was really good at it, but I didn't like it and it's something that I don't want to ever do again. So payroll doesn't go on my resume. You won't find it on my resume. You won't find it on LinkedIn, because that's not something I want to do again. So it's kind of an exercise just for yourself to go through and figure out what things you like, what you don't like and what you want to do next.

Christina: 7:06

Once that's done, another exercise is to write your own job description, and I'm not saying you're going to write the description for a job you're going to actually try to get. Of course that's your goal. But this is your dream job, where you go online and explore different postings, ignore the practical parts, where it's located, how much the pay is, what experience they require. Really, you're just looking for things that are lighting you up. When you read them you're like, oh, I wish I could have that job, but maybe not that part of that job, right? So you're going to cut and paste all of these into one job description and make sure you bring in the skills requirement, the experience, all of that that they're looking for, and then, when it's all in one job description, that's what your resume is going to point to. Is that one description? Your dream job is your resume template, and then you'll obviously customize your resume as you are applying for specific jobs.

Christina: 7:58

But in this exercise, you want to identify your transferable skills and with those transferable skills, you're going to then write them in a way that makes sense towards the job that you're going for. I'm trying to think of examples real quick. Like if you have done training and you want to do more training, but these days it's called talent development. So you're going to use talent development as your language, make sure your language matches the job description and just have that lens of that filter, when you look at what you've done to what you want to do, and write it in that way and again, this is all in that other workshop that I did on resumes and then you want to look, you know, do an honest assessment what skills and experience are you missing? And then make a plan to fill those gaps, whether it's through volunteering or courses. You don't necessarily have to go back and get a degree or a master's, but there are a lot of courses that you can do, that are online, that are relatively short term, that might help fill the gaps and get you up to speed. And, of course, volunteering we're going to talk about that a little bit later, but the volunteering is a great way for returners to get back in the game.

Christina: 9:04

And then this one the clarity, the O-Net Interest Profiler. So this is something in the US that the government puts on the Department of Labor and it's free to use. And I put it here for a couple reasons. One, it helps with the clarity piece. If you're unsure of what you want to do next and what your gifts and strengths and preferences are, this tool can help you. And also, even if you have absolute clarity, you know, without a doubt, what you want to do and where you're headed. I would still recommend this tool because it's going to give us information about job opportunities that are available right now in real time.

Christina: 9:40

So let's walk through this slide deck real quick. This obviously is just slides. I'm not in the actual website. But you go to O-Net it's O and then the net and onlineorg and it takes about I don't know, maybe 10 minutes. They've got about 60 questions. You're going to answer like the icky face here, like Ooh, I don't want to ever do that, versus the yes, I'm super excited face. So that's their scale and ranking of five. Once you get through with all of those, it'll give you your resulting interest and, based on that, it gives you recommended job categories and there are hundreds, hundreds to choose from or hundreds that are in the database. All right.

Christina: 10:21

So this you can see. It maps out. We've got you know, the basics of what they do on the job. Here's things you would do Knowledge, skills, abilities, personality traits, technology that you use, and so it's kind of actual salary data that employers provide to the Department of Labor. So you know you're getting accurate information. They might be about a year lag, so just do add, like a you know, three or four percent increase on top of this for, you know, for current, and that gives you an idea of what to expect for pay and what you can ask for. And this also shows it by local. So in my example it's the Denver area versus the whole state of Colorado versus the whole country of the US. So this is a great tool when you aren't quite sure where to find salary information. And the other great tool is it gives you actual jobs that are open in real time and you can click into those jobs, learn more about them and apply. So it's a great, another great resource just to be finding jobs helping with clarity, as well as jobs themselves and your salaries.

Christina: 11:35

And then, moving on to network, networking is the best way to access the hidden job market and it is estimated and you've probably heard this before that 60 to 80% of jobs aren't even advertised. How can you tap into these opportunities? It really is about who you know, and I will say even in the state of Colorado, every job by law has to be advertised, but that doesn't mean that if you might have already networked, you went into a role and then they'll advertise it because they have to, and then everybody else is applying for that job, but they've already picked you. So it really is important to do networking and to not just rely on applications. And I know for myself when I had been a Seattle mom for so many years well, over a decade I'm like I don't even have a network anymore.

Christina: 12:25

I kept in touch with people a little bit when I first came home to be with my kids, but I lost touch with everybody and it's a myth. You really do have a network. Think of all the people that you interact with on a regular basis your kids' friends at sports I was going to say sports events, but really my kids were all involved in sports and in scouting. So all the parents that I knew from there, all the places I volunteered, all the people that I used to work with, they're still my network. I just need to activate that network by reaching out and saying hello and you just want to start sharing the news that you're going back to work, even if you don't have absolute clarity what you're doing, just having those conversations when someone's asking hey, what have you been up to lately? Be prepared with your 30-second elevator pitch. It could be something like you know, the kids are getting older and I'm so excited to get back to my career. I was doing this before and now I want to do this or whatever it is. You know, be practiced and ready for when you do have those encounters. You know, you run into somebody at the grocery store or, you know, at the sidelines of the soccer game or something, just so you can have those conversations.

Christina: 13:36

And then this right here is what I did for myself pretty early in my search is create your reference list. You want to reach out to your past colleagues, let them know you're searching and get allies on your side. Even if it's been 10 or 15 years, their image of you is frozen in time. They don't think of you as you know, a carpool pickup when you're sweats, with your hair in a messy bun. They remember you as the professional who worked on projects with them and saved millions of dollars and, you know, did things on time, all the things that you did as a professional. That's how they remember you, and you want to gather more references than what you need.

Christina: 14:18

So when you get to the offer stage in a job, typically as an HR department, we'll ask for, you know, maybe three references. I think I had six or seven people on my reference list and I wasn't planning on giving all of them to a job, I just wanted to have these people on my team. And by reaching out and connecting number one, I didn't know where they were. So I had to do some sleuthing, finding them on Facebook and on LinkedIn and reaching out with direct messages. And one of them he was the executive director of the health department. So he's my boss's boss.

Christina: 14:53

Couldn't find my boss, but I found my boss's boss and I reached out to him and hi, how are you Just in the direct messages? And we had those little conversations. And then I what are you up to? Direct messages. And you know, we had those little conversations. And then I you know, what are you up to? I'm like well, I'm coming back to work. And I was wondering you know, I'm telling my story and I was asking him to be a reference and honestly, because it had been 15 years, he's like gosh, I really don't feel comfortable. It's been so long. And I went back and I said I totally understand, and I've been out of work for 13 years. I would really appreciate it if you could do this for me. Um, and here's a letter of reference that you gave me 15 years ago when we stopped working together, because I had asked for that on my way out um, so, yes, he gladly became a reference for me, and I'll tell another story about him in a minute.

Christina: 15:40

Um, so reach out to your past colleagues and don't forget not only people that you reported to, but your peers and people. If you had people that reported to you, they might be the leaders now. You know, if you've been out for a few years, they probably have promoted themselves and are in a great position to help you, and their memory of you is going to be very clear. So reach out to all of those people, and not just people within your companies, but other vendor partners that you worked with. And then you're volunteering. I volunteered at the school doing the STEM committee stuff, and we did the science fair and four different events, and I asked the leader of the community to be a reference for me, because you have to have someone who's a supervisor, and so that was recent.

Christina: 16:25

So create your reference list, track people down. If you've lost touch with them most of them I can't imagine they're going to say no, you know you're going to. If you're picking the right people, make sure you know, like, what phone number, what email address they want to you to use. And then, once you have that list, maybe give them an email, an update, once a month or so. Or if I oh I just applied for this job, I'm really excited and just to kind of keep them, keep you fresh in their minds as time goes on. And then just a little bonus tip If it's been a long time since you've done resumes, there's no need to put references available upon request on your resume itself. It's just wasted space.

Christina: 17:10

Okay, networking you have to get out of the house. You're not likely to find your next job sitting behind your computer. You want to go where people are, so meet a friend for coffee, take an in-person class. It doesn't have to be job related, even Just you know. If you want to go where people are, so meet a friend for coffee, take an in-person class, it doesn't have to be job related, even Just. If you want to learn pottery, go learn pottery, and then you're meeting other people while you're there. You never know where the introduction is going to come from.

Christina: 17:34

And then there's professional associations. So if your profession has a member association. If your profession has a member association, join it. Usually they have free or very low cost membership fees for people who are not working. And for myself, it was the Mile High. I live in Denver, shrm, which is the Society of Human Resource Management. I went to their events. I sit at a table at a luncheon and get to know eight more eight new people that I didn't know before, and then connect with them on linkedin and again have that 30 second elevator pitch ready of who you are and what your goals are. Um, I've got a whole nother podcast episode on that.

Christina: 18:13

And then there's other things. Just you know, like I said, if you're taking in-person class for pottery hobbies, if you want to join a hiking group, meetup is a great way to meet new people. Join a book club or toastmasters those are all great things to do. And whatever is of interest to you, something that you're enjoying and you're going to meet, you know three to ten, however many new people, and you just you just never know where, where that network's going to come from. And then, finally, this one's in bold because it is so important and I'll probably have a whole LinkedIn event on just this is strategic volunteering and that volunteering is. It's not just like for me I was like volunteering in my kid's classroom, reading, doing story time. If I'm going to go work at the library, it's doing story time. That's great volunteering. But if I'm going to go work on an HR team or an accounting team or in a marketing team, story time, you know, isn't really meaningful. But if I volunteer and I help an organization with a project or you know, like I said that I did the science fair, I could show that I recruited volunteers, I trained them, I did signups, the software that I use to do all of that, the project management that I use for I trained them, I did signups, the software that I used to do all of that, the project management that I used for all of that. Those are all things that went on my resume. So it's strategic volunteering that gets you connected. You might get new references, new network connections, but also new skills or fresh, maybe not even skills could be skills, but current experience. It's a way to fill the gap.

Christina: 19:45

All right enough on strategic volunteering, all right, networking. Linkedin is your best friend For those people that I had lost touch with. I was able to reconnect with them on LinkedIn and your initial goal is connection. You can perfect your profile later and if you remember them, they're going to remember you. You're going to connect with people that you know in your personal life. Find and connect with those past coworkers. And then these new people that you're meeting, with all of your activities that you're doing, connect with them here as well. And if someone in your network happens to have a contact at an employer that you're interested in, be bold and ask for an introduction.

Christina: 20:26

I'm going to give you an example of how this got me an interview. So my network got me a total of five interviews, five different places. The one that I just mentioned was a parent of a student that I coached. So I led a destination imagination team and that could take like five minutes to explain what that is, but I had coached that team for a few years and Adrienne was a mother of one of the students and when in my LinkedIn I looked because I was applying for a job and I saw that she was a second level connection to someone who used to work there, so I reached out to her via text and then phone call and we're looking them up together. She's like, oh you know, I haven't talked to him since middle school. It's been 20 something years or more and she's like, well, you know, I'll go ahead and reach out, let's just see. And I'm like, oh, he doesn't even work there anymore. I'll just reach out, let's just see. So she did. And within a half an hour she got back to me and said send your resume to the CEO now. So she had given me such a glowing recommendation to her friend that she hadn't talked to in over a couple of decades. And he contacted the CEO who he used to work for, and told him all about me. And the CEO says send the resume. So literally, this whole thing took a half an hour. I told him all about me and the CEO says send the resume. So literally, this whole thing took a half an hour. I had a phone call, a screening call, the next day. I had an in-person call the day after that. So that's just one example and just I'm gonna go through these other five real quick.

Christina: 21:56

There's a family in my son's baseball team who lived down the street from the vice president of recruiting at the local hospital. And because I was talking to people hey, what are your goals for the new year? What do you? You know the kids are getting older, whatever. I would just say like oh, yeah, I'm going back to work. Oh, do you know so-and-so? No, of course not. So I got introduced and had an interview there. There's a fellow scout parent who worked at the local library where I applied for a job as an HR director. The area of director of schools knew me from being on the principal interview committee. I get another volunteer opportunity that I took advantage of, and so she. I asked her for the introduction and I had an interview there.

Christina: 22:35

The executive leader at the previous job that I mentioned that it'd been 15 years since we worked together didn't necessarily get me the interview. He helped me. I think I had already applied. He called them because he knew people at that organization. He called and gave me a glowing recommendation and like you need to hire her. And then I you know I interviewed and that's actually the job that I took. So my network is what got me these interviews. I don't think I get any interviews from just cold applying. So it's just that's how important it is for those of us who are returners that personal introduction is everything. And then, finally, in networking, I think this is the last slide and then we'll move on.

Christina: 23:17

But to sign up with a recruitment agency many employers recruit directly with an agency, whether it's temporary or by placement. The employer pays the fee, not the candidate, so you're not going for a place where you're going to pay them to find you a job. You don't have to pay the other thing. Just by connecting with recruiters recruiters at an agency you get to tap into their network, and I know the one recruiter I talked to not too long ago. She's got 10,000 people in her LinkedIn network and she offered that to me. If there's anyone that you need to connect with, let me know. I'm happy to introduce you. And then you can also especially if you're in the camp of, like I'm not entirely sure what I want to do you can take on a variety of temporary roles and explore your interests, and you're meeting people at those companies too, and you're getting paid during that time. And it can offer some flexibility too. If you're only doing two or three week assignments and if you're not getting placed, follow up with them every couple of weeks and also sign up with two or three agencies, because they're going to have different opportunities. So it could be a great way to get your foot in the door at different places and expand your network.

Christina: 24:27

Okay, so, practical considerations. This might seem kind of silly, but the wardrobe that story. I told you about how the friend of the friend introduced me to the CEO and I had interviews. So I had my phone screen, I think on a Wednesday, and they said can you come in tomorrow? I'm like sure, and it was my first interview. So I had to go through my closet and find, okay, what's still in style and what fits my body today, because I hadn't worn it for a number of years. And then, okay, I found something. And then, okay, what shoes am I going to wear with it? And it was just so much stress the night before because I wasn't ready to have an interview the next day. So it's just one little thing that you can start even and just being kind of putting it out into the universe, like I'm going to be interviewing soon.

Christina: 25:10

So go through your wardrobe, shop your wardrobe, find two or three outfits that make you feel like a million bucks. I'll have returners ask me like, well, what's the dress code these days? And really the answer is dress in a way that makes you feel wonderful, and that's going to be the right thing to wear, and if you have the budget and the time, maybe go buy yourself a new outfit too. I'll put that out there. And then the other thing is just your remote office setup and your interview space. You can see behind me. I've got, you know, kind of clean things. But over to the side, that way there's kind of messy stuff because that's my son's desk, but I make sure that's not on camera. You don't need to see the clutter that's over there. You're going to see that. Nice, you know, clean. Look behind me.

Christina: 25:52

So most many, many interviews these days are done virtually just because over the last few years we've all made that shift and you might be talking to somebody in Colorado and Maryland and Michigan at the same time. And so be prepared to either go in person and to be able to have a remote interview. So, making sure your equipment works right, you've got a good view behind you. Of course you can blur your screen. It is a little distracting, I think, when people have word screens. So, if you can, it's nice to have a good view behind you and just you know, be prepared for those things. And if you are working remote or hybrid. I don't know, like where is mom's office space going to be, where are you going to work? And then just in general, having a conversation around household responsibilities, and obviously that's not really until you start your new job, but just something to be thinking about, like who does what, the shopping, the cooking, all the things and back up child care plan.

Christina: 26:50

So for me, my first week on the job, everything's nice and smooth. Second week on the job my husband had an unplanned out of country trip for the week. And here I am in week two of my job and we have three kids. They're in elementary, middle school and high school. None of them were driving, so I had to manage all and juggle all of that on my own that week that we weren't planning on him being gone. And then the third week on the job, all three of the kids came down with a fever, vomiting virus. It was horrible. So my husband had to take the day off of work, which he hadn't had to do for years because it was all handled on the home front.

Christina: 27:31

So just things to you know. Hopefully that isn't your story when you go back to work, that everybody's sick and your partner's gone. But those are just things that you need to be thinking about. How are you going to manage that when those things inevitably come up? And then meal planning, of course. Even now, for me, if I plan all my meals on Sunday and go shopping for them and maybe even do some prep, my whole week goes so much better. And the last thing you want to do when you've restarted a job or started your career and you're working and you come home and it's five or six o'clock at night or you're, you know if you're working remote and everybody's looking at you hungry what's for dinner. So either you have already worked those out with your partner or you will. I've already prepped them in advance. So that's just something that a little side note that helped me tremendously when I reentered the workforce. And then our pets. Don't forget about them, particularly pets that during COVID they were used to you being home 24-7. Maybe, as you're going out and networking, give your pets more time and space by themselves, just to kind of get used to that different flow of life for them. Okay, practical considerations. We only have a few minutes left and we might run over a little bit.

Christina: 28:39

I just want to run through some resources that help support returners. The Mom Project has mom-friendly job postings. Irelaunch they actually have their conference coming up May 14th through 16th so you can still register for that. Path Forward has returnships, retire Return to Work programs and direct placement. Retire return to work programs and direct placement idealist. They have non-profit job openings and volunteer opportunities. Internships don't be afraid to apply for an internship, you just need to get your foot back in the door. Catch a fire. Has volunteer opportunities where they can match you to about two different opportunities in that are professional, so it's not just, you know, story time at the library or whatever it's. I need an HR, I need a handbook audit, something like that, or an IT or whatever it is, and these are short-term but they're professional and they build your current experience. Mom's Next Career is the LinkedIn group that I offer here, so if you haven't joined, go ahead and join theirs. I post content on a regular basis. And then, finally, the Her Next Chapter's podcast is my podcast, and a lot of that is focused also on career return and return chips.

Christina: 29:50

A couple of you had questions about return chips in advance of the call, and so episodes 24 and 25 of the Her Next Chapter podcast, I interviewed Gabrielle Ferguson and she was an HR manager who ran an internal returnship program at her employer, and so we talk about all the components of it and the meaty things that I asked her, because I was really curious what makes somebody stand out Like what applications are going to be jumping out at you and be the ones that we get called in for an interview, and then, once somebody's interviewing, what makes them stand out to get hired? So if you are curious about returnships, I encourage you to listen to those episodes and I'll put it in the comments that go with this posting as well, so it'll make it easier for you to find. And then, of course, follow those other organizations on the previous page and follow the companies that have returner programs so that you can be an early applicant. If you're only following iRelaunch and Path Forward, you might be missing out because you might have missed the deadline or something and you do want to apply very, very early for these. When they do come out, they are incredibly competitive.

Christina: 31:00

I would not rely on returnships as your only strategy, maybe at 10% of your strategy. Most likely it's your network that is going to help you get back into your career, but for these returner programs, follow the companies that help support them. Irelunch Path Forward Retire a Few and then find out who, which companies specifically have returner programs, and then go follow those companies and then start to engage with their content, with people that work there and network your way into people who work at those companies that you are interested in that have returner programs and that way you can be already have some connections when the next round. Oftentimes they'll do two cohorts a year, one in the spring, one in the fall, and so, if you've already missed it for the current, be networking your way in so that you can be an early applicant and a known applicant for the fall. And finally, just a couple minutes over, so just to summarize the action steps to restart your career, the clarity you have to have, that clarity piece first to define your new and current career goals, networking, activating and expanding that network. The practical things like in your household what is that impact going to be? And the resources to find your job search. So that's in summary.

Christina: 32:20

And if you want an HR insider's eyes on your resume, I'm opening up five spots on my calendar in May for one or one resume reviews. Your resume is the first thing that people see right when you go to apply for the job and if it's not getting any traction for you, maybe, especially as a returner, maybe there's some things that we can fix. I offer a unique perspective because I have been in her shoes. I was a state-owned mom, returner, state-owned mom for 13 years, went back for several years now and I'm an HR insider. I hire people, I interview people, I create the interview questions, I coach the hiring managers, I help them make their decisions, and so I have that unique perspective to offer and together we'll troubleshoot potential problem areas, highlight your transferable skills, get actual tips to implement right away, all with the goal to increase your interview request. And normally this is a $97 investment, but for people on this call, I'm offering it at $47. If this is something you're interested in, just send me a direct message with the word resume and we'll take it from there.

Christina: 33:29

Okay, questions? Let me see if any. Now is the time. I know we've gone over a couple of minutes, but if you do have any questions, now is the time to ask and I know I had a couple questions. Hopefully I've answered them.

Christina: 33:42

I know, harshada, you had asked about returnships. Um, me too. You had asked about where you know, you're not sure what you're doing wrong and it might be, you know, just the clarity piece on the resume. It might be how you're addressing your gap on your resume. It might be the I mean I haven't seen your resume yet right but it might be the transferable skills, how you're talking about those. And then I know Susan had asked about networking. So hopefully, susan, that whole piece on networking gave you some ideas and things to think about. And if there are any other comments, I'm not seeing them, so I apologize, but go ahead and reach out to me if you've. You know, if you watch this later or if you have questions that I didn't get to, just go ahead and reach out in the DMs and I'm glad to engage with you there. All right, thank you everyone. Enjoy the rest of your day, okay, friends.

Christina: 34:41

That concludes the recording from the LinkedIn live event. I hope that was insightful and helpful for you and I'm going to add in the show notes. All kinds of things, all those resources of different organizations that I mentioned will be in there, as well as other podcast episodes that were referenced, as well as the link to both of my LinkedIn Live events, this one that you just listened to, as well as the one from a couple weeks back on the resumes. Also, a new feature that is available is you can text me directly through the show. So if you look in the show notes, there is an option to text.

Christina: 35:20

So if you have a question or you want to get in touch with me or just say hello, I would love to hear from you. Please give it a try and just click on the link for the text and those come straight to me. So I'm excited to have that as another way for us to engage with each other. All right, well, that's it for this week. Have a wonderful week and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own and your next chapters are ready to begin.