Many people find their career gets interrupted at some stage during their life, and they have to take time out. The obvious example is moms and sometimes dads too who leave work to care for their children, but it could be because of your own ill health, having to care for elderly parents or a partner who’s incapacitated, or taking a mature gap year. These are all perfectly valid reasons for having extended time away from work, but if you want to return to your career at a later date, a long career break can be quite a hurdle to overcome.
One of the main problems is that the world moves on so quickly, so it’s easy to start getting out of touch and fall behind even after a short time off. This means employers are likely to believe anyone who’s had months or years out of the workplace is going to find it very difficult to get up to speed. The degree to which this is true depends on your industry to an extent, so, for example, if you work in information technology, then everything changes at an accelerated pace; if you’re a landscape gardener, knowledge and trends change far more slowly.
If you’re able to anticipate the degree to which you’ll lose touch with what’s current in your line of work, you can arrange to make the effort to keep yourself in the loop by reading trade publications, blogs, and newsfeeds while you’re off work. Record the time you spend, what you do, and what you learn, and you’ll have evidence for your resume and to show prospective employers. Keeping up to date when you’re off work demonstrates the kind of commitment that employers are looking for, so could work to your advantage.
In some industries, you can take a refresher course to brush up on your skills, and that’s a good option if it’s available to you. Even if there’s no industry approved route to getting back into work, it’s worth attending a few study days off your own back. It shows that willingness to improve, do what’s needed, and behave proactively that employers want in their best employees, as well as a sincere commitment to the work.
If you’ve been out of work for a long period and you need more formal training to return to the level of expertise you had previously, then longer courses at college or night school could be the answer. For example, if you trained as a nurse and then took five or ten years out to raise your family, you might find it hard to walk into an equivalent role to the one you left when you’ve not been practicing for many years. However, there are convenient part-time and distance learning courses available that can refresh and revalidate your existing skills, or you could take the next level qualification, like the Carson-Newman FNP certificate if you’re interested in becoming a family nurse practitioner.
Flexible courses make it much easier for people returning to work to make time and budget for studying, either to fit around other commitments or to enable you to take a part-time job to fill the gap. Distance learning used to be restricted to tasks that could be carried out almost entirely online, like computing or business studies, or where a summer school each year could cover any practical areas. Now, however, you can train online for almost any role, combining online resources with the placement at an approved training location.
It does take determination and sacrifice to achieve qualifications as a mature student who’s taking courses at night or on their days off, but this can work to your advantage when applying for jobs as it shows how much you’re prepared to do to reach your goals. Gaining qualifications in your own time have become an admirable achievement for which employers will give you extra credit, so have a look at your local educational facility programs or search for online courses that could help your career.
People often believe that having a career break effectively ends their chances of reaching the heights of their profession, but that isn’t necessarily the case. There are plenty of examples of people in all sorts of trades and professions, were because they had the will to succeed, they regained their former status and, in many cases, exceeded it.
You need to believe in yourself and take time to bridge the gap between where you were when you left and where you are now. It’s not reasonable to expect to walk straight back into a job with the same status and salary as you had when you left, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen pretty promptly if you work hard.
One of the other issues faced by people returning to work after a long break is lack of confidence. People often feel that they are somehow inferior to their peers who kept working, but that’s not the case, so give yourself some time and credit and work on rebuilding confidence. If you still have contacts within your industry, make use of them. Look up people you used to work for and see if they have any tips or know anyone who could help. This is often the best way to re-enter work because people who know how good you are will look on you favorably.
You should also revitalize your resume before sending it out or using the information to fill in application forms. Look for the most up to date method of presenting the information, and make sure you emphasize not just the skills you mastered before taking time off, but how your experiences over the last few years have benefitted you. For example, being able to list home care duties on your resume because you took care of a loved one who is bed-bound would be invaluable information for an employer looking for a nurse.
Most important of all, don’t ever give up. Make the best preparation you can for the change, and keep working on improving your skills.