5 Tips for Building a Career Strategy After a Career Break
62% of American workers have taken a career break at one point in their working life according to a recent LinkedIn survey. If you’ve taken one, or are considering one, you shouldn’t feel like you’re the only one to ever do it, because the numbers show more than half of people have. Once you decide to get back to working, how can you start building a career strategy after a career break?
What You’ll Learn After Reading This Article:
· The definition of the term career break
· The most common types of career breaks
· A career strategy guide for navigating a career break
What is a Career Break?
The term career break can be defined as:
An intentional pause from one's career for reasons like personal development, family responsibilities, or travel. It allows individuals to return to the workforce with new skills, experiences, or perspectives.
The Different Reasons for a Career Break:
· Sabbatical: Extended leave from work for rest, study, or travel.
· Parental Leave: Time off to care for a newborn or adopted child.
· Study Leave: Taking time away from work to pursue further education or training.
· Travel Break: A period spent traveling to explore new cultures or for personal growth.
· Volunteer Work: Taking time off to participate in charity work or social causes.
· Health-Related Break: Time off to recover from an illness or care for a loved one.
· Personal Development: A break to focus on self-improvement, such as learning new skills or hobbies.
· Career Transition: Stepping away to explore a new career path or industry.
· Relocation: Taking time off to move and settle into a new location.
· Entrepreneurial Break: Leaving a job to start or focus on a personal business venture.
Before we get into a career strategy guide to use after a career break, it’s important to understand the foundations of a career strategy. You can do that by reading this article from Your Career Strategy.
Now that we have an understanding of how to build a career strategy, let’s look at how you can start building a career strategy after a career break.
5 Tips for Building a Career Strategy After a Career Break
#1: Assess and Update Your Skills
If you’ve taken a career break, it’s highly likely that you’ve stopped using the skills that made you successful in your previous career. If it’s been a long break, you might have even forgotten what those skills were.
Let me give you a quick case study on a Career Coaching client I once had:
Andrea was a woman who started out her career in the financial services industry in sales but then took almost a 20 year break from her professional life to raise her children. While she might have used some of the same skills, she used in sales to raise her kids, she developed a brand new set of skills as a mother.
She took some time to list all of the skills she acquired in her life, so she knew what types of roles she’d be qualified for. After listening to her skills and thinking about her interests, she decided she wanted to stay in sales and pursued another role in the industry she had previously left.
What’s important about assessing your skills?
1. Think about the skills you had before you took your break.
2. Think about the skills you gained after taking your career break (if any).
3. Determine your skill set and what your interests are, which will help you determine the career path to take.
#2: Refresh Your Resume and LinkedIn Profile
When I was writing resumes for clients, you’d be surprised how many people who had been on a career break just gave up on their old resume. They either never updated it or just wanted to write a brand new resume.
Explaining what they did during their break was also usually a pain point. Clients would struggle to come up with something to help fill the gap or demonstrate their skills and experience in the field they were looking to get into.
In many cases, they also either had a skeletal LinkedIn Profile page or didn’t have one at all because LinkedIn wasn’t popular before and during their career break.
How to Refresh a Resume:
1. Highlight New Skills: Showcase any new skills or certifications acquired during the break, such as online courses, volunteer work, or freelance projects.
2. Update Your Career Summary: Revise your professional summary to reflect your current goals and how the break has enhanced your skills or perspective.
3. Address the Gap: Include a brief explanation of your career break in your resume, focusing on the positive experiences or skills gained during this time.
For the ways to be refresh your LinkedIn Profile and how you can stand out of the platform, check out this article.
#3: Network Actively
Networking is something that should be done throughout a career break, not just when you’re ready to go back to work.
It’s important to figure out what you want to do once your career break is over as soon as possible, so you can focus on who you will be networking with. If you need help trying to figure out a career path, check out the article here.
Here are the best ways to network while on a break:
1. Join groups (virtual or in person) related to your area of interest.
2. Volunteer: Depending on your personal responsibilities, this is a great way to meet people in the field you’re looking to get into.
3. Slowly build connections: Don’t rush the relationship to ask the person for something too soon. Especially if you’re on a long break, take your time to build up the relationship.
#4: Be Transparent About Your Career Break
Honesty is always the best way to approach anything with your career, especially a career break. Whether it’s on a resume or in an interview, it’s good to give the real reason as o why you were on a break.
One of the most difficult forms of a career break is a forced one in the form of a layoff. This is an area where people are most tempted to lie, but focusing on the positives and skills you’ve built during your time off from working is the way to go.
Here’s 3 reasons why you shouldn’t lie about a career break:
Risk of Discovery: Employers often conduct background checks and may easily uncover the truth, leading to immediate disqualification or job loss.
1. Loss of Trust: Being dishonest about a career break can damage your credibility and trustworthiness, which are critical in any professional relationship.
2. Missed Opportunity to Showcase Growth: A career break can be a valuable opportunity to demonstrate personal growth, new skills, or experiences that can make you a stronger candidate.
#5 Explore Part-Time or Freelance Work
Since you’ve been out of the workforce for an extended amount of time, it may be difficult to jump back in full-time and full-speed, so working parti-time or freelance can be a great option.
A graphic designer in my network had been working full-time for a company for a number of years until she left before her first child was born. After getting in the grove of being a parent, she decided she was ready to start working again, but rather than working the grind of a 9 to 5, she decided to open an Etsy store.
This gave her the freedom she needed to raise a child with the ability to be able to earn money to support her family. It can be difficult at times, but it’s enabled her to have the work-life balance she needs.
Tips for getting part-time or freelance work:
1. Connect with others in your industry to find out the best ways to get to work.
2. Have a portfolio or website to show your work.
3. Don’t be afraid to start out working for free for a very limited time until you have some reviews and testimonials that can get you paid work.
What Takeaways You Should Have from This Article:
· Everyone does their career at their own pace, so taking a career break shouldn’t be frowned upon or taboo.
· Being purposeful about what you do during your break can set you up for your next career move.
· Prepare to learn skills that you might need while you’re not working so you can be marketable when it is time to go back to work.
· There’s no right or wrong length of time to take a break for, but if you are going back to work, you’ll want to be ready to tell your story and market yourself.
Navigating a career break can be difficult. If you need help along the way, don’t hesitate to reach out to your friends at Your Career Strategy. Our expert coaches and career strategists are available to guide you through the difficult questions and roadblocks you might face. You can book a free discovery call to learn more.