placeholder
Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Be honest – Are you ready to go back to work?

You’ve taken some time off work, you think you’re ready to jump back into the workforce but are you?

This predicament faces women in particular who take maternity leave and think they’re ready to return to work but may have not thought through all the factors.

It’s something that Lauren Jeffery Recruitment Consultant at Kingfisher Recruitment sees often when she’s interviewing clients and candidates returning from maternity or paternity leave.

“There’s been plenty of times that I’ve had conversations that highlighted key things in interviews and I’ll get an email from that candidate a week later to say I think I’m going to hold off another three months or six months or I’m going to stop looking because they have realized that they’re not ready,” said Lauren.

So how do you know you’re ready to return?

Lauren has put three questions forward that you should ask yourself to really know whether you’re ready to get back to work.

First and foremost, am I ready?

If you intend to go back to the same position you worked previously, what are the demands? Can you still fulfill those demands? Those hours?

Lauren recruits for a lot of Executive Assistant positions with mothers returning to work who forgot the workload the position requires from them.

“At an EA level for example they’re looking to go back into the position and I highlight some of the key work demands of an EA that sometimes they may have forgotten and then they recognize oh actually I’m not ready,’ said Laruren.

So you need to realize that if you do intend to go back to the same position, or whatever job it is you’re going for that you do have a child now so are you ready to take on the demands the job entails.

Secondly they need to ask themselves, am I prepared?

So for parents this means do you have options in place for when your child gets sick and needs to be picked up in the middle of the day? Is there someone to look after them and do you have plans in place?

“Do they have options around childcare? What happens if their child gets sick? Being ready to answer those sorts of questions and to put those kind of things in place before you even start searching for a job is important because employers need to know that there’s still reliability,” said Lauren.

Lastly, what are your priorities?

It’s about listing your priorities now after having kids and deciding where your career sits as a priority for you.

“They need to list their priorities and make a decision of where their career fits on that list and then look for a job according to that. Just because your career might now sit fourth, fifth or sixth on your list of priorities doesn’t mean that you can’t go back to work it just might mean that the sort of job that you look for is different to perhaps what you did before or what you thought you might be looking for,” said Lauren.

So just because your priorities probably have changed, making sure you have plenty of time with your children and you’re there through their early years of growing up, that you can provide a neat and tidy, functioning household and then you want to be able to work to have a little work life balance. Automatically work already is sitting third or forth. This just means you have to readjust and look at positions that align with your priorities so you can commit to them.

It’s all about being honest with yourself in answering each of these questions and really thinking about whether you have everything in place and are truly ready to return to work and commit to it.

If you think you’re ready to return to work or need help in finding a position that fits your new priorities get in touch with Kingfisher Recruitment - https://www.kingfisherrecruitment.com.au