Coming back from your career break - CV advice

That exciting and nerve-wracking time has come - you’re back from your career break - wiser, stronger and more than ready for the next challenge. Now, you just need to make sure you can show potential employers the positives about your time off the career ladder – you will have gained considerable new skills they will want to know about, even if you are not clear quite what they are yet!

You may have taken time out to have a baby, do some voluntary work or to reassess where you are heading. What you need to do now is take some time to understand exactly what new expertise and abilities you have acquired. Too many highly talented and super-valuable people don’t put their best foot forward, especially when they know there is a gap on their CV and are not sure how to fill it. So everyone misses out – the employees that would have been fulfilled in their new, more stimulating role and the companies that would benefit from rounded, experienced individuals being part of their team.

The best thing to do is talk to someone with industry experience, a straight-talker that has known you before and after your career break and ask them how they think you’ve changed. But, we don’t all have a friend like that who will give you the boost and the professional information you need, so instead you could talk to a career or life coach. Remember, you have a responsibility to yourself to listen to the compliments and positive comments and then use this to write a short paragraph for your CV. Keep it in the same style as the rest of your CV, although this may be a good opportunity to update it in a fresher, more targeted approach.

Keep in touch with past and present colleagues too – you never know who will know about an exciting opportunity and your newly achieved status of skilled, experienced and available will be very appealing!

This article was written by Emma-Jane Batey of www.icandobetter.co.uk, a professional career development company.

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