Recycle your skills

In search of a job

Giselle had been a graphic designer before taking a six-year break to care for her two children. Once the youngest started school she felt she should go back to work but was convinced she’d be seen as out of touch and unable to compete with the newly qualified. And that was exactly what happened. ‘Most of my applications never even resulted in a reply and I had one dreadful interview that made me feel like a dinosaur. They weren’t interested in my design ability, just keen to show me how little I knew about the latest software.’ That experience made her more angry than resigned. ‘I felt that what they were looking at was so superficial and that I wasn’t getting the chance to show the real me, so I decided to approach things differently.’

With the help of a friend Giselle drew up a profile of herself that concentrated on the personal skills she had gained during her six-year break. ‘We looked at loads of job adverts and picked out the things they commonly asked for. We found they were looking for well-motivated individuals with lots of creativity and initiative, able to prioritise, work to deadlines and communicate effectively.

Those were all things I’d been doing superbly for the last few years so I decided to make that clear. Learning how to use new software seemed to me to be quite a minor skill compared to devising strategies for keeping two under fives busy on a wet day. I gave concrete examples of my communication and time-management skills, described some quite ordinary problems I’d found creative solutions to and enclosed design ideas. It paid off, a month later I had two job offers.’

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