Her Next Chapters

47. Secrets to Landing Your Dream Job (even after a career break)

• Christina Kohl

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Can a career break really transform into your greatest asset? Join me, Christina Kohl, on Her Next Chapter's podcast as we uncover the secrets to landing your dream job, even after years away from the workforce. Through our three-day "Job Search Challenge," you'll learn how to stand out to recruiters, uncover hidden job opportunities, and navigate the tricky subject of career gaps. Rediscover your unique skills, build a strong job search support team, and master the art of networking. Drawing on my personal journey of re-entering the workforce after 13 years as a stay-at-home mom, I share actionable strategies and genuine insights to help you find your career clarity and confidence.

In the second half of the episode, we shed light on the often-undervalued work of stay-at-home moms, with research showing their labor is worth an impressive $184,800 annually. Boost your self-belief by identifying your unique superpowers, with insights from loved ones to guide you. Plus, we'll introduce you to mynextmove.org, a fantastic online tool that helps you explore potential career paths based on your interests and strengths. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by the job search or uncertain about how to leverage your career break, this episode offers the inspiration and practical steps you need to move forward confidently toward your dream job. Join our community of moms and take the first step to redefine your career!

Register for the Free Comeback Resume Masterclass being held on November 21st.
Grab a Free Resume Template for Career Returners
Want to chat about your career goals? Schedule a free call HERE.
Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn ---> www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina





Christina Kohl:

Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, hristina Cole. 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.

Christina Kohl:

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Her Next Chapters podcast. As always, so grateful to have you here and I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend. If you are listening in real time, this episode is live on September 4th and we just finished Labor Day. Can't believe it's September already. The other thing, if you're listening live this week is when I'm hosting my challenge, my three-day free challenge, and you still have time to join us Again. If you're listening live on Wednesday, september 4th is when we start the challenge, and what I'm doing today, for the podcast is giving you kind of an abridged version of what's going to be the live event today with people that are on the call. So this is the content that is going to be happening on day one of the three-day challenge, and the challenge is the secret to landing your dream job, even with a career break. So you know that had to be there, because that's kind of what I talk about all the time on the podcast, and so this challenge is going on on September 4th, 5th and 6th, wednesday, thursday and Friday this week. So, again, if you're listening in real time, you do have the opportunity to still join us. I will make sure that the link to the challenge is in the show notes. I would love to have you join in, even if you're a day or two late. All right.

Christina Kohl:

Well, with that, I'm going to go ahead and get started with part of kind of a sneak peek of the presentation that's happening for the group today, and so really, what we're talking about, like I said, is the secret to landing your dream job, even with a career break, how to get noticed, how to tap into hidden job opportunities and land a role that you love. So does this sound like you. You're so excited to return to your career, but there's so many options that you're not even sure where to start. Or maybe you have a vision of doing meaningful work, but your applications just aren't landing any interviews. Or maybe you're the one who is ready to land a job that you love, but you're really not sure how to talk about your career gap and all the skills and experience you've gained while you're away from the workforce. So if any of those are you, then this challenge is meant for you, and the real problem is that you are wasting time job searching, applying to countless jobs but not getting noticed because you don't have a clear vision for your career or a networking strategy. So the result you're busy, but you're not landing interviews or job offers, and those are the things we're going to be covering in the challenge.

Christina Kohl:

I'm going to help you rediscover your unique interests and skills that set you apart. I've got one easy step that only takes about 10 minutes. I'm also going to be sharing with you my number one hack for creating your job search support team, and most people skip this simple step. That's going to be on day two of the challenge, and then also how to become visible, so recruiters reach out to you so that you can be seen as the one that they want to talk to. And really that's going to be discussed on all three days. Everything we're learning in the three days of the challenge is going to point to that. And then how to implement a simple networking strategy so that you can ditch the awkward and forced conversations. I know most people are not thrilled about networking, particularly those of us I'm raising my hand that are introverts. But I have a method that I'm excited to teach you. That's not going to be on today's podcast. It's going to be in the challenge on Thursday and Friday, all right, and then putting all these together so that you can finally drop the struggle, so you can land a job you love.

Christina Kohl:

And why should you listen to me? So if you're a first time listener to the podcast, let me introduce myself. Hi, I'm Christina. I am a certified senior professional in human resources. It's an SPHR kind of like a CPA, but for the human resources world I'm also a certified professional coach. And guess what? I landed my dream job after being a full-time stay-at-home mom for 13 years. If I can do it, so can you. These days, I teach job seekers with a career break, or even those that are just pivoting into something new how to land jobs they love and as an HR pro, I've got the inside scoop on exactly what works and what doesn't.

Christina Kohl:

So the framework we're going to be talking about today and this is a little bit difficult to explain in the podcast because it's very visual, but I'll describe it it's basically a circle. In the middle of the circle is the word clarity, because that's foundational to everything that you do in a job search. You have to have that career clarity first before applying for jobs, and then around the circle there are three arrows kind of going around the circle and each one of them is a different word, and that whole circle around clarity represents networking. So the three parts are activating the current network that you already have, expanding your network, so growing your network, putting yourself in new situations to increase your network, and then, finally, the last piece of it is to ask. So if you do all this work developing and expanding your network but you don't ask for help, it's kind of pointless. So really, all four of these elements need to be in place Career clarity at the center. Activating your current network, expanding your network and then asking your network for the help that you need. So those are the things that we're going to be talking about during the challenge. So I'm going to be focusing, for today's episode of the podcast, on day one of the challenge, which is clarity.

Christina Kohl:

Clarity is central to any job search. For most people, the very first natural step in starting a job search is dusting off your resume. Right, I've got to go update my resume. I'm searching for jobs, I'm in the market, when in reality, that's a mistake. The first step should be getting clear on what your job search goals are. Otherwise, you're updating the resume for like, why, like? Where are you headed? What's the goal of the resume?

Christina Kohl:

And if you've heard me on the podcast in the past, you know that the resume is not. Even though it's about us. It's not. And most people think of the resume as being a historical document, like you know, captures everything we've ever done. But in reality, it's a marketing tool and, with that mindset of it being a marketing tool, we have to know what we're marketing, what we're selling. Right, we are selling ourselves as a job seeker and we have to know, we have to know, our product, which is us. So we have to have that clarity first before we can write a resume or be applying for jobs. Because without the clarity, we're going to be feeling like the job search has no direction. We're going to be feeling overwhelmed or not feeling confident that what we're applying for is actually a good fit. We wind up freezing, feeling stuck, and then the job search isn't going anywhere, we're not getting interviews and if we are getting interviews, we're not getting offers.

Christina Kohl:

So the secret here is that clarity gives your job search traction and the pro tip is that being specific in your resume and your LinkedIn profile makes you easier to find and recognize as a strong candidate. So why is clarity so important to employers? Because employers have a need or a problem that they need to solve. The recruiter's job is to find someone to fill that need. A targeted resume with clear goals versus a general resume, is going to shine as a stronger candidate and if you are unclear about your goals or your superstar talents, you're going to be quickly passed over for another candidate who is clear about their goals. So that's from the employer perspective, the recruiter's perspective.

Christina Kohl:

But why is it clarity so important for you as a job seeker? It provides a focus for your job search. No more spray and pray, and if you're not familiar with that term, it's basically applying in bulk. So you're going to apply to 500 different jobs. So you're spraying your resume out into the internet and you're praying that it lands somewhere. But do you really want to leave it to someone else to decide your career for you?

Christina Kohl:

So that's what that spray and pray approach does is that you've sent all these. It's a numbers game, right. You send all these applications and hoping that it lands somewhere. But when you have clarity, you get to decide your career to a point. Right. But you have focus on what you're applying for and not just applying for anything and everything. Also, with career goals, your resume customization is only about 5%. So you hear me talk about it, you hear others talk about it. You need to be customizing your materials for every job, but that doesn't mean you start over. Really, just a 5% is kind of a good guideline of how much you should be customizing. When you have clarity and you already have a really solid document marketing tool aiming at what you want to do, then it's just a very easy update to customize it and then really, the number one reason why clarity is important in your job search is you don't want just any job, you want meaningful work. So in that and getting clarity, one of the first things you need to figure out is your priority.

Christina Kohl:

What is most important for you at this stage? Is it flexibility? Is it what level you come in at? Is it your pay? So when I think of flexibility, there's so many different options. There's working part-time. Does it mean working remotely or hybrid? Your location how long is your commute? Are you expected to travel? Are you working in an office? Are you working from home? Are you working in a school? Where are you working? Are you on call? So there's just a lot of things around flexibility that if you're coming off of career break, those might be more important to you than level, and by level I mean how much pay, the hours are you full-time? Are you expected to work more than full-time hours? The complexity of the role Is it the type of thing that you're going to be taking home with you mentally, the mental load of the complexity of the role? Are you going to be managing a team? So there's those priorities and there's going to be some give and take, and so those are things that you're going to really need to, that are part of your clarity question, of what's important to you. And then the other thing I would encourage you to do some reflection and maybe some journaling, but to answer the questions, the basic questions that we learned, probably in second grade when we were like being reporters or whatever. But the who, what, where, when, why and how.

Christina Kohl:

So the who are you working directly with customers? Are you in the back office? Are you working with vendors? Are you working alone? Are you working on a team? How much independence do you want? The what? Well, what are your strengths? What tasks do you want to be doing? What don't you want to be doing? What do you enjoy and what are you good at? Where? What type of industry do you want to work in? What specific companies, if any, what size are those companies Are you looking for?

Christina Kohl:

Do you want to be part of a large organization? And what does large mean to you? Does that mean 500 people? Does it mean 10,000 people or even bigger, or would you rather be in a small organization where everybody knows everybody? So those are some things about where, and also, like the physical, where Are you going to be working? In an office, at home, outside, in a classroom? Are you going to be traveling?

Christina Kohl:

And then the question of when. What hours are you going to be working? How many hours a day, what days of the week? How much flexibility is there? How much flexibility do you need? And then why? What are your motivations for getting a new job and why do you want to do this type of work? What makes it meaningful to you? There's also why, from the organization standpoint. What is the mission of the organization? Does that matter to you? Who do they serve and who do you serve when you're working there? How? What tools do you use to do the work that you're imagining doing? Do you use a computer? Do you use a car? Are you driving from place to place? What technology are you using? Are you using AI, social media, spreadsheets? So a whole bunch of things to be thinking about, and I would just encourage you to get out pen and paper and just write these things out and see what comes up for you, and this will kind of help you get some of those clarity questions answered of the who, what, where, when, why and how.

Christina Kohl:

All right, so the next thing and I know I've talked about this on the podcast before, but it is just so important that unpaid experience is experience. I'm going to say that again because it is so important. Unpaid experience is experience and this does matter for your job search. It matters for your confidence because you've been doing a lot, even if you're not getting paid, and you've gained skills and experience while you've been on a career break. And I don't know if I've talked about this. I think I have talked about this in the podcast in the past.

Christina Kohl:

So salarycom did this analysis. It's already three years old, but it's in 2021, is the most recent report on how much is the labor of a stay-at-home mom really worth, and it is 184 800 to outsource what state-owned moms do. And they did this based off of I don't know it looks like about 20 or so different jobs. So some examples a chief financial officer, chief operating officer, logistics analyst, housekeeper, laundry manager, van driver, public Chief Financial Officer, chief Operating Officer, logistics Analyst, housekeeper, laundry Manager, van Driver, public School Teacher, facilities Manager, a Meeting or Event Planner, an Assistant Athletics Director, and then the list goes on. And they did this analysis and this research, attaching these the things that stay-at-home moms do, putting amount of time to it and then putting that into the marketplace to know like, well, three hours of a CFO's time equals this much money, and did this for all of these different jobs, and that's how they came up with $184,000 three years ago. So who knows what that number is today.

Christina Kohl:

But the point is you've been working. You just haven't been paid, and there's value to the work you've been doing if you've been a stay-at-home mom. So the next thing that is really important for foundational for your job search is knowing that just one person needs to believe in you. You are that person. Your confidence is key to your success and landing a job you love, and no one can champion us more than we can champion ourselves. You have to own it. So be proud of your unique gifts and work your inner confidence muscles for your job search, because you really, really need that. Because if you don't believe in yourself, neither is a hiring manager or recruiter.

Christina Kohl:

And one way to look at to help with building your confidence is doing some reflection and thinking about what your superpowers are. And superpowers are things that come naturally to you but not necessarily to others, and we tend to overlook our own superpowers because they just you know, they come easy to us. It's just what we do. And doesn't everybody do this. No, not everybody has the same strengths and unique gifts and talents that you do. We all have different strengths and different superpowers. So really take some time to reflect on yours, of what comes easy for you but not for others. And if you need help, ask your friends, ask your family. Like what do you think I'm really good at? Because sometimes it's hard to see it in ourselves.

Christina Kohl:

And then the next thing and this might be a little challenging to do an audio only, but I'll talk you through it is a 10-minute clarity and market research hack and this is a free resource. It's an online tool that's provided in the US. I know I've got listeners around the globe, but this is something that's used in the US and there's probably things like this in your home country as well. And if not, you can certainly use this one as well, because it's open to the public and it's the website address and I'll include it in the show notes but it's mynextmoveorg, and so you go into there and there's different options to do some research. And if you already know what type of careers you're interested in, you can just type in those words and it'll pull things up for you. And if you already know what type of careers you're interested in, you can just type in those words and it'll pull things up for you. Or if you know what industry you're interested in, you can search that way.

Christina Kohl:

Or the one I really like is discovering your interest. And so with that they have a 60 question little thing, and it's really funny because the strongly dislike is this little face with its tongue sticking out and then the strongly like is this face with this huge cheesy smile and they're just little cartoon-like things. But that's the scale is strongly dislike to unsure. And anyway there's a five-point scale and it just takes a few minutes. So it takes me just a few minutes because I guess I've done it a few times, but it doesn't take very long to go through and a couple of examples. So you answer like how would you feel about testing the quality of parts before shipment or repair and install locks, work in a biology lab, perform jazz or tap dance? So anyway there's 60 questions and you go through all of that and it gives you ratings of your interest, profiler, and there's realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional.

Christina Kohl:

And from there is where the real magic starts happening, because you can, based on the level of preparation, education, certifications, experience, training all of that. You can choose the different levels and then it'll give you recommended jobs based on your interest profile and from there you can click in and actually see job openings and learn more about salary for those jobs. You can dial down to your area. Again, this is for the United States. You can dial down locally. They also have a market outlook. Is this job growing? Are there opportunities, or is it one that's shrinking and there's not as many opportunities? And you can look at that locally as well. So you can see the pay ranges, you can see the number of openings and here's the kicker you can actually see current job openings for those job titles and it just takes you right there and you can pick, like in my case, colorado. I can put in my zip code and it's showing me job opportunities for those jobs that are of interest right away.

Christina Kohl:

So it's a really neat tool when you're searching and it kind of helps you maybe get some clarity around things that you're interested in that you wouldn't have thought of. And it gives you that market research, because what is the thing you really want to do just doesn't pay well or there just aren't very many jobs anymore. So that should be part of your clarity. Focus is knowing the market and what's available in the market, and you know what your opportunities might be. So that's kind of the day one of the challenge and you know, even if you're listening to this, say two or three months in the future, hopefully this is still very helpful for you.

Christina Kohl:

For the clarity piece, I will be adding the challenge information and my next move, I'll be adding those to the show notes so that you can go and check out that tool. And I guess that's it. Well, thank you for listening. As always, I would love to see you in the challenge and if not, then maybe I'll catch you in the next one. All right, have a great week, everyone. We'll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everyone. We will talk to you next time. 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.