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Kathryn Mayer • Writing Out Loud

I write stuff down. writer • humorist • activist

Getting by with a Little Help from Your Friends

October 5, 2010 by Kate Mayer 5 Comments

Reinvention and discovering opportunity is exactly what smart people do to keep in the game.  It’s what the career changers, laid off, and outsourced do diligently to get employed, and is exactly what smart moms like us should do when thinking about going back to work.

Women invented Networking. Networking may be a business term to secure clients, colleagues, and sales, but it’s what we moms have been doing since the day we first joined playgroup.

Remember this as you consider reentering the workforce in any capacity. The friends you know via your stay-at-home life can substantially assist you when you want to go back to work.

Ask about returning to work.  Then listen carefully. Your network can help you with simple things like whether working friends like their jobs. Whether the commute is killing them. Or if their kids turned to internet porn the moment left alone. And important things too, like if you can still wear those shoes or not. And if you will really be tested on EXCEL proficiency or whether you can you fake it and figure it out later.

Find out who works and where. Keep notes.
It’s been awhile since we held down full-time jobs, but we are certainly not new to this networking concept. Put the bookclubs, bus stops, PTO meetings, parent pick up, and football pre-game rituals to work for you.

Talk to parents on soccer sidelines and find out what they know. Find out who they know.  People love to share what they do and want to help. And word of mouth surpasses anything Monster.com or scary Craigslist jobs will be able to offer.

Tell people that you’re looking. Tell them who you used to be. And share who you are thinking of someday becoming.


Create Flexible Work Environment Damnit
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Comments

  1. Nancy Lindstrom Boula says

    October 6, 2010 at 11:25 am

    I am still wondering..is it excel..or xcel?..or intentionally put the way U put it?..must satisfy my curiosity. I like your blog K..

    Reply
  2. Kathy (Return-to-Work Mom) says

    October 6, 2010 at 11:54 am

    duh on me — Microsoft EXCEL!!! My bad nanc!

    Reply
  3. Anonymous says

    October 6, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    Reading a newspaper and catching up on pop culture couldn’t hurt either. One can’t under-estimate the importance of knowing about “jeggings” and Lady Gaga.

    Reply
  4. Kathy (Return-to-Work Mom) says

    October 6, 2010 at 8:54 pm

    So apparently I may have been a bit premature on magazine bashing since I had to recruit assistance to define “jeggings.” Jean leggings for any other fashion losers like me. I was told to pick up a frickin’ magazine now and then to get a clue.
    ps. i do know lady gaga. She’s madonna’s daughter, right?

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. How to write a kick-ass cover letter says:
    February 5, 2015 at 1:46 am

    […] If you know somebody, say so – and don’t be shy about it. Use the subject line of your email; it will get opened. Or in the first line of your email; […]

    Reply

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About Kathryn Mayer

Kathryn Mayer

An irreverent storyteller with a foul mouth and big heart, Kathryn Mayer (aka Kathy and/or Kate) is a writer, humorist, and (former) activist writing out loud with humor and grace about little life moments with big ripples, including the space between parenting and aging parents, social issues, angsty reflections of midlife, and, sigh, gun humpers. Still. Sometimes a big deal, sometimes not Mayer is a national award-winning columnist, according to the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and her essays have been recognized as Voice of … Read More Here...

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