our member benefits

• 4.1: Getting started
• 4.2: Membership
• 4.3: Women returner tips
  • 4.3.1: The Return to Work Mindset
  • 4.3.2: Personal Branding for Mums
  • 4.3.3: Your career break
  • 4.3.4: Job hunting check list
  • 4.3.5: Job searches
  • 4.3.6: Recruitment agencies
  • 4.3.7: Application forms
  • 4.3.8: CV’s
  • 4.3.9: Career breaks on CVs
  • 4.3.10: Speculative applications
  • 4.3.11: Cover letters
  • 4.3.12: Enjoying the interview process
  • 4.3.13: 5 Popular Interview Questions
  • 4.3.14: Practice Interview questions
  • 4.3.15: Body Language for your interview
  • 4.3.16: Negotiating your job
  • 4.3.17: What employers want
  • 4.3.18: Family Friendly Employers
  • 4.3.19: Remote Working – The Opportunity & Benefits
  • 4.3.20: Women & Franchising - What's Stopping You
  • 4.3.21: Women & Franchising – A Successful Combination
  • 4.3.22: Settling in
• 4.4: Free Webinars
• 4.5: Workshops & Webinars
• 4.6: Consultations
• 4.8: National Career Events

To help kick start your return to work, we first need to dispel some of the very common misconceptions amongst Mums about job searching and applications. This is important to not only help build your confidence but to get you in the right mindset for your return to work campaign:

You are automatically less attractive to prospective employers if you have had a career break and can only work part time or flexible hours. This is no longer the case as thankfully the UK employment market is changing and recent studies and business experience have proven that flexible, part time women returners make very reliable, loyal employers as well as represent very good value for money.

With the current economic climate cost effectiveness is an increasingly high business priority. Staff resourcing is a large business expense with companies actively looking for high value but low cost solutions. Flexible and remote working is now emerging as a very credible and business efficient  employment solution.  You will, however, have to be thorough and dedicated in your job search to find these flexible working positions.

The good news is that there are new styles of jobs boards emerging to offer real and viable remote and flexible working opportunities. One such jobs board on our expert panel is Remote Employment who are embracing and helping to drive the momentum behind the change to the new styles of work and advertise flexible and remote working job vacancies on their jobs board.

You are disadvantaged over other applicants if you do not have a degree. Once again whilst qualifications are important it is not just academic qualifications that make you a good applicant for a job. Degrees and A levels may look impressive on CVs and application forms but proven experience with examples of how you handled situations and contributed positively to a former employers business carries more weight. Remember walking the walk and not just talking it.

The best way to get a job is by looking on the internet. This is not completely true. The internet is undoubtedly a powerful tool when job hunting and also networking for your next work opportunity. The new style of jobs boards offering freelance, remote and flexible jobs provide an easy to use candidate registration facility to help with your job searches. There is also the facility to automate your job searches and receive RSS feeds of suitable vacancies.  Return2workmums love the versatility of the internet for very effective job searches but strongly recommend you also supplement your internet job searching with other approaches as well. In other words, don't put all your eggs in one basket!

You have to work with Recruitment Agencies to find a job - This is really ditto the above, when job searching never put all your eggs in one basket. Make sure you take an integrated approach to your job search. We suggest you work with a relevant shortlist of online recruiters/jobs boards as well as a shortlist of traditional high street recruitment agencies who will have relationships with local employers and advertise the style of vacancies you are interested in. Job hunting is a job in itself and requires a thorough and systematic approach. It will take time and you will need to adopt a couple of approaches and a thick skin!

The majority of jobs are always advertised - this is one of the biggest misconceptions as it is estimated that as much as 60% of jobs are unadvertised. So even doing all the right things such as trawling the internet & jobs boards, checking your local papers, working with some good recruitment agencies....you could still be missing out on over half of the available jobs and reducing your chances of success. Networking is a very significant approach for the unadvertised job market and this is where the internet can also be really useful along with the more traditional face to face approach.

You don't have many business contacts, so networking isn't going to work for you - we know from our work with Mums that their network of contacts is more extensive then they first think. Women are actually natural networkers albeit they are often initially reluctant. Do not be confused - a good networker is not a saleman but an effective communicator. Return2workmums can teach you the difference and help you tone up your networking skills ready to use for the unadvertised job market. Your new job may not come from a business contact but a friend of a friend so we suggest you start thinking about your personal networks.

Speculative applications do not work so don't waste time doing them - think again about the 60% of unadvertised jobs mentioned earlier and the power of networking and contacts. Add the two together and some well targeted speculative applications could actually be a fruitful route for finding your new job particularly in a competitive job market with more applicants than advertised jobs.

Job hunting is pretty straight forward you've just got to get on with it - the craft of job hunting is actually relatively straight forward once you’ve set out your work goal and relevant plan. What gets in the way are our emotions, past experiences and negativity when we receive some rejection.

Job hunting for Mums after their career breaks can be particularly daunting as confidence levels are typically low. We have also found in our work helping people develop their careers that many outwardly confident people are not really confident when promoting themselves and often benefit from some experienced guidance.

In summary successful job hunting requires a thorough, structured approach with some friendly, encouraging support to increase your chance of success. That's where return2workmums can really help with a one - one consultation. This is an individual session where we work with you to design a job hunting action plan relevant for your return to work. We would love to hear from you if you want some support or pop into our forum and let us know how you are getting on and what is working best for you.