Ramit Sethi talks to someone returning to work after eight years as a stay-at-home mom. He says motherhood is often a self-imposed barrier, not a real one. Focus on researching job titles and companies, do informational interviews, and show hiring managers concrete skills and problem-solving ability.
How do I approach a job search after being a stay at home mom for the past eight years? One of the things about finding your dream job is about what to pay attention to as well as what not to pay attention to. The same thing is true of money, right? Like, if you're 25, do you really give a damn about estate planning? No, you don't give a damn. And yet so many estate experts, so many financial experts are like, young people, you really need to maximize your taxes. You need to do all this planning. Let's get you in to see a financial advisor. And you're like, shut up, I don't want to think about this. And so you do nothing. So in I Will Teach youh Be Rich, both the blog and the book, I always try to focus on what matters to you right now and the rest of the stuff you can deal with later. Trust me, you'll get to that. But right now, let's just get you to dominate what's important to you right now. And so you'll notice that I don't talk about a lot of stuff because it's not relevant to you. So like seeing me talk about the difference between corporate and municipal bonds, who cares? Not going to talk about it. In fact, I rarely even talk about taxes. I think chapter eight of my book, I have like the basics of what you need to know about taxes. And they're fairly simple for most people. And once you get past that, you will know. Same is true of this question. How do I approach a job search after being a stay at home mom for the last eight years? Honestly, you do a lot of what everyone else, a lot of what I'm recommending everyone else do. The stay at home mom part is this ancillary thing that I can tell is in your head. It's a barrier, like, oh my God, they're not going to hire me. I've been a stay at home mom. That's like you coming to me and saying, oh, you're not going to hire me. I'm wearing checkered shoes. Checkered shoes, look at my shoe. I don't care if it's checkered or striped. I don't care. It's irrelevant to me. If you come to me and you say, ramit, I have terrible time management. I'm gonna be like, goodbye. But I don't care about your checkered shoes or the belt you wear. The same thing is true of being a stay at home mom. What do I care about that? The only thing people would say is, oh, maybe her skills have Atrophied. Well, prove it. Show me if it has or not. The way you do this is by doing your research, making. Making sure you understand the universe of potential job titles and companies, then narrowing it down, picking one, going through the system. I'll show you the system later on. And you say, you know, hey, I decided I really like this title at this company. And I've done deep research, I've taken people out to coffee. I've done the online research. I know the challenges they have. I can go into a hiring manager and I can articulate them better than he can himself. And you go in there and do you think the fact that you're a stay at home mom is coming up at all? No. You're solving my problem. I'm the hiring manager. You're solving my problem. You show me a why you're amazing. Why your experience is incredible and you've done the research, you've taken the initiative. You think I'm going to be like, excuse me. Oh, you're a mother. Nah, sorry. Don't hire mothers. Sorry, not going to happen. This is something in your head. Focus on the research. Focus on the person who you're trying to get a job from. Don't focus on what's in your head. That's just a barrier right now.
