Stay At Home Mom Resume – Being a stay-at-home mom can present unique challenges when you’re ready to jump back into the workforce. Employers will notice a gap in your employment and your skill set or certifications may be out of date.
Fortunately, it’s entirely possible to create a resume that puts your best foot forward, especially if you take the time to develop your current skills. Read on to find out what you should include and what you leave out – and some helpful tips to keep in mind as you prepare to look for a new position. In addition, we also include a free resume template in Word or Google Docs format that you can use as a starting point.
Stay At Home Mom Resume
Before we dive into our recruiter’s perspectives, here’s a sample resume for a stay-at-home mom or dad. Feel free to use it as inspiration when writing your own resume (download links below).
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A free stay-at-home mom resume template for returning parents in Google Docs, Word or PDF format
Are curriculum gaps important? Of course – to some extent. Recruiters will want to know what’s going on with a job gap, but it won’t be prohibitive by itself. The key is to explain it, which is easily done when you’re a stay-at-home mom (keep scrolling for detailed tips on how to do this).
Aside from the gap in your work with an employer, the most important thing to demonstrate to the hiring manager is that your skills are current. If you’ve done volunteer work recently, you should definitely include it. Freelance work related to the position you’re aiming for is also great to include.
If your skills aren’t current, read on to find out how to develop your skills and add them to your resume properly.
Stay At Home Mom Resume Examples And Tips
If you want to include your work as a housewife in your work experience, consider doing so in a format similar to this example:
Instead of “Growthsi” and the title below it, you could enter “Stay at home parent” (as in the example below), the dates of your time at home, and bulleted accomplishments in the lines of “I kept a blog about tips for parents featuring 50+ articles averaging X page views” or “Created a 100+ member Facebook group providing support for stay-at-home parents” or how you established and run an Etsy shop. Anything you include must be relevant to the job or role you would like to apply for (with similar skills involved).
Avoid including your stay-at-home experience as a ‘work experience’ or ‘professional experience’ — instead, as above, use the section heading ‘Other experiences’.
Just because you haven’t worked with an employer in a while, you can still hone your skills, take courses, and potentially work on freelance projects during your job search. Each approach helps raise your competency level in the eyes of hiring managers by demonstrating that you’re in touch with your skills.
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One avenue to consider is looking for volunteer opportunities in your community. Non-profit organizations and parent/child oriented groups are always looking for assistance with outreach activities, fundraising and event hosting. If you’re interested in marketing, for example, helping promote the next Parent-Teacher Organization dance by creating and handing out flyers is definitely something you could include on your resume.
Depending on the field you are interested in, it can be helpful to look for relevant courses (either online or at nearby colleges). Some community colleges offer adult education courses to learn basic computer applications like Microsoft Word that will help with all types of office work. If you are more advanced, you can look for courses in the most diverse areas, from computer programming to graphic arts. If you have more time to invest, consider enrolling in a two-year course if your area of interest would benefit from doing so.
Finally, taking on relevant freelance projects (such as writing copy for online companies, performing gardening or landscaping services, or programming simple apps) will provide you with experience and accomplishments that will highlight how you’ve kept your skills up to date.
To make formatting your resume easier and time-saving, you can start with the template above or browse our ATS-ready resume templates. Choose one that suits your background and the role you are applying for, and enter the details as you go.
How To Write A Killer Stay At Home Mom Resume
The resume header should include your full name, phone number, email address, location (state and country, not street address), and possibly your LinkedIn profile. An example is below:
Having a resume at the beginning of your resume is a great way to introduce yourself as someone who “worked in [area X] for [x] years before taking four years off to raise two kids,” for example. Your summary can also cover any recent activities or projects you’ve started, such as by stating “
Your entire work experience should follow the same format style. Regardless of when you last worked, you’ll want to list your past employers in reverse chronological order (with most recent employers at the top).
Each of your listed employers should be followed by a series of scored achievements. Start bullets with strong action verbs related to skills you’ll ideally be using in the position you’re entering. Whenever possible, include a numerical value (such as “10% increase in sales over X years”) to help employers understand exactly how much of a difference you’ve made.
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For each of your work experiences, write down the company or organization, title, and dates you worked there. Typically this means listing the month and year, although sometimes you can leave out the month and just display the year – the most important thing is that you are consistent with how you format your dates in your resume.
If you graduated some time ago (more than 8 years): Your education section should be short and below your work experience. In that case, just include your course name and your school name. You can set aside your graduation year to avoid any undue age discrimination – something that unfortunately happens in today’s hiring landscape.
If you’re back to school or a recent graduate: You should list your education at the top of your resume if you’ve recently completed a degree (while being a stay-at-home mom). Include the name of the school, the degree you graduated from, and the program you graduated from. Depending on the type of degree you received and the position you plan to apply for, you can also add the most relevant courses you’ve taken (like “Data Analysis” or “Software Engineering”) if they include related keywords. the job you are applying for.
If you have a sufficient number of technical skills, include a skills section in your resume. This can be placed on the right side of the page or at the bottom. The skills listed must be appropriate for the position you are applying for. For example, if you’re applying to be an office manager, you could list “QuickBooks”, “Microsoft Office”, or “Google Calendar” as your skills. If you’re getting into graphic design, list programs you’ve worked with before.
Simple Professional Resume Return To Work Stay At Home Mom
For all of your skills (in the summary, in the body of your resume, and in the skill bank), you should include those that align with your background and the job you are applying for. Consult this list of resume skills and keywords to get an idea of what hiring managers and auto-crawlers are looking for.
Chances are, being a stay-at-home mom has given you a host of transferable skills (such as time management, communication and follow-up skills). You should definitely include these on your CV if you can, but remember not to list them directly on your CV – for example, don’t mention ‘time management’ skills, but show how you delivered a project that required a strong time management.
While it may be tempting, especially if you run a complex household or go above and beyond with your day-to-day tasks, avoid listing “Head of Household” or “CEO of Household” in the body of your resume. No matter how elaborate your work in this role is, claiming it as work experience means you run the risk of signaling the hiring manager that you consider your family equivalent in scope of duties and level of responsibility as if it were a business.
Generally speaking, corporate CEOs have a much greater responsibility (from the company’s point of view) than heads of households, and there is much more financial risk involved.
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That said, if you’ve ever made a spreadsheet to manage your family’s finances, you can certainly include Microsoft Excel in your technical skills. You can also include it in your cover letter to demonstrate your commitment to the organization.
Once you’re done building the bones of your resume, you can use a few different tools to optimize it and make tweaks that will allow it to pass through automatic screenings.
As a stay-at-home mom, you can write an effective resume highlighting any volunteer work, online courses, freelance work you did while being a stay-at-home parent.
