Returning to work after a having a career break can be tough. This practical guide is designed to get you in the right mindset for your job search, in order for you to return to work.
Our expert guest, Kim Wiseman, walks you through some of her tips and exercises in order to ensure you are thinking in a way designed to set you up for success.
We cover:
• Formulating a plan
• Taking Stock & Evaluating
• Mindset
• Resources
• Taking Action
Great for anyone considering a return to work this year and maybe not knowing where to start.
Watch our webinar ‘Returners: Reconnecting with your Career’, with our expert guest, Kim Wiseman and Ten2Two’s Jo Gregory linked below.
Jo Gregory (00:58):
Okay, so I think that most of you have joined. Thank you so very much for giving us your time this evening. My name is Jo, I'm one of the directors at Ten2Two. Ten2Two are a specialist, part-time and flexible recruitment consultancy. Hopefully many of you know us already. For those of you who don’t know us, you'll get to know me a little bit tonight. But the majority of your time will be taken by the lovely Kim. Kim is joining us as a guest speaker this evening to talk you through the mindset of the returner.
Jo Gregory (01:52):
So reconnecting with your professional self, trying to work through and eliminate some of the negative and unhelpful feelings that we might have returning to the workforce. This is part one of our returner series. Ten2Two, because of our specialty, we work a lot with people coming back into the workforce after an event that may have significantly impacted their life. That might be having children, it might be caring for a loved one, it might be illness. I'm sure amongst you, you have many, many different reasons as to why you might have had a break from your professional career and are now looking to get back into a professional career of some point. Kim will talk to you about her own background, so I'm not going to cover everything that she will cover. but she has lived experience and she is also now a coach who specializes in supporting people returning to the workplace.
Jo Gregory (02:49):
So she is going to be able to guide you through this very, very first stage of getting yourself in the right mindset, getting yourself in the right head space and moving forward. Just a couple of housekeeping bits and pieces. As you'll see, we don't have a chat box on the side of the screen for this evening. We do have a q and a box, however, you can pop your questions, comments, whatever it is in there. It's completely confidential, so please don't worry about everybody else seeing. I will be managing those questions. If something comes through and I feel we can interject to Kim's presentation that I will do. Otherwise, we will have a q and a section at the end. If we don't get to your question this evening, we will follow up with a q and a document in the next couple of days.
Jo Gregory (03:32):
I would love to say tomorrow, but I can't promise that. So we will come back to you and if it's something that we feel is particularly pertinent or that you need some specific support, please, please, please do get in touch with us directly. Our contact details will be at the end. I do a bit at the end about asking for reviews, but I'm going to pop it in now as well just so it really, really resonates. If you would like to leave a review after your experience, then please do so on our Facebook page, or on Google. So now without further ado, I'm going to hand you over to the lovely Kim who is going to take you through tonight's presentation. Over to you Kim.
Kim Wiseman (04:11):
Thank you Jo. And hello everybody. Even though I can't see you, it's wonderful to be here, wonderful to have this opportunity to just have a moment in time to share a bit of my experience and hopefully some tools that will help you as you start looking at what that return going back into the workplace looks like for you. So I'm going to start sharing my screen. Okay,
Kim Wiseman (04:50):
Go. Okay. So today is about how to get positive mindset and tools that will help you gain some of that positivity as you start thinking about returning back into a professional career of some kind. So it's all about how to tackle fear, feelings of fear, how to take action with confidence and clarity. So just very quickly, just a little bit about me to give you a little bit of context. I'm a mother of two with my two young boys and I've been in the health and wellness industry now for over 15 years in a variety of roles from business all the way through to mental health. I have a background in counseling psychology, and I took a relatively extensive break, four years when I had my first child. I just really wanted to just be a parent and focus on being a parent for the first time.
Kim Wiseman (05:49):
and then I started getting slightly itchy feet and I wanted to start getting back into the workplace. And that was one of the hardest times in my life, navigating the feelings of complete overwhelm and not really knowing who I was now because motherhood had completely changed me and for four years I was completely zoned into that little human and then the next human that I brought into, into the world. So sidestepping from that was really, really hard. and that's sort of what's brought me full circle into becoming a self-discovery coach. And I mainly work with mothers, where they're starting to want to look beyond motherhood. They're starting to feel that there's something more that they want to bring into their life, but they have no idea where to start. And that's where I come in. So that's just a little brief blurb about me and I'm going to get stuck in.
Kim Wiseman (06:45):
And let's get started. So the returners journey back to work. Now, there are a variety of stages. The whole journey from considering a return to work, preparation to start work, and then stage three, which is returning to work. Now, all these stages are obviously very important, but stage one is very much the precursor that's going to lead you into stage two and three with more confidence and clarity and the more confidence, clarity that you can have right in the beginning. Figuring out what work means to you, what is motivating you to actually start to think about work. What are the values behind work? How does work fit into your life, especially your life as it is now, your other commitments and responsibilities? And this is not just to assume, as Jo also pointed out, that you've taken a career break to start a family.
Kim Wiseman (07:44):
There are many reasons for that. And, and you know, what I'll be taking you through applies no matter whether you have started a family or you've taken a career break for, for other reasons. So all of these tools and principles you can apply. So you're returning to work, you really need to get through that process of consideration and sort of pouring everything that is out that's in your head onto paper. And that's what I'll take through, I'll take you through that. So that allows you to get a clear idea when you start preparing to start to work what you are actually preparing for. You've got a clear idea of the kind of role you want, the work you want, the kind of situation, the working culture, how it's going to fit into your life. You have a very clear idea of what all those parameters actually look like.
Kim Wiseman (08:36):
And from there, the stage three, once you've actually achieved and found that exact position that you are looking for, then you can actually build on the confidence and clarity that you would've worked on in stage one. So I hope that kind of makes a little bit of sense, in terms of where we going and where we, where we going to focus on today. So before I carry on any further, in terms of being at stage one, you're at the point where you're starting to look beyond. You're starting to look beyond where you've been at now, where your focus has been at currently, whether motherhood or otherwise, yet the feelings of overwhelm, the feelings of feeling lost, the feelings of feeling scared and anxious about where to even begin. I'd like to get a little bit of a touch point with all of you. On a scale of one to 10. So we are going to flip it around. So one being where you are not feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling pretty clearheaded, you're feeling pretty confident, and 10 being you are, you're feeling very overwhelmed and you're feeling lost and you actually have no idea where to start. If you can just type in between one and 10, where you are at right now, it'll be great to get a sense of where everybody is at in their life at the minute.
Jo Gregory (09:53):
You pop that into the q and a box and let us know where you feel on that scale. So we're getting quite a lot of high numbers through. We're getting some nines and some sixes. We've got a 10.
Kim Wiseman (10:06):
Yeah,
Jo Gregory (10:08):
Lot, lots of high numbers. I don't think there's anyone who's feeling low numbers, unfortunately. Oh, we've got a three. We've got a three.
Kim Wiseman (10:18):
Okay. Um,
Jo Gregory (10:19):
Mostly, mostly quite high numbers, so I'd say that, oh and a four. Not too bad. Okay. I I'd say we're averaging around an eight.
Kim Wiseman (10:29):
Averaging around an eight. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much everybody for contributing and, and sharing that and also really gives a good sense that there are so many people that are very much in a similar position and going through something very similar. Even though your stories are going to be different and why you here is going to be different, there's still going to be a commonality and I hope you are feeling a sense of support within that as well. That you are not alone going through this journey. So now I'm going to start moving on, and I'm going to start slowly dipping into the actual toolkit that can help you gain some of that confidence and clarity to start figuring out what your next steps are going to be in order to get to stage two. But first of all, in terms of getting that confidence and clarity, it's actually about focusing on how you're going to get started.
Kim Wiseman (11:22):
And that takes a, it takes time and it takes a certain amount of commitment. It's, it's almost like a project. It's a project for you, for your journey back to work. Otherwise you're going to go in all sorts of different directions and then you're just going to get busy and even more confused. So first of all, we need to look at where to start. So this is just a little brief outline of what I'm going to go through with you before I touch on the commitments and the time aspect of it to get started, get. So that's step, that's step one, formulating a returners plan, getting practical to get a head start. And then from there, we're going to start to talk about taking stock and evaluating where, where, where you are in your life right now. What it is that you feeling, what your challenges and blocks are, what your motivators are in terms of your career and how you see your career and everything around that.
Kim Wiseman (12:19):
And then following that, we are going to then touch on mindset and ways that you can start shifting your perspective on how to start building your confidence. And then from there, we are going to tap into the kind of resources that you may not realize that you actually currently have in your life right now that you can tap into and can be very powerful to help you move forward. And then step five is the taking action. And you're going to walk away with something at the end of this, which will help you put a lot of what we've then gone through into action. So I'll just give you a brief, brief overview of what I'm going to take you through. So step one, setting yourself up. So this is your returners project plan. So before you even start getting into the nitty gritty, you really need to ‘A’ look at what is your work goal.
Kim Wiseman (13:14):
So you want to explore what your ideal work situation looks like in terms of how it fits into your life as a whole. So you want to look at, start getting an idea of how big pie is in terms of your career with the rest of your pie. We all have a pie and we all have different areas of our life that make up a whole. You want to start getting idea of how important is your work goal, your career plan is compared to everything else. You now get a sense of what is your ideal work life balance. And then you want to start putting a little bit of structure around this project and give it a name, give it something, give it something that sparks you, something that resonates with you. It could be a fun name, creative name, or just be a simple name, such as Back to Work project, anything that just as soon as you read that, it makes you fired, it makes you motivated, it makes you want to dig into it and, and work on it.
Kim Wiseman (14:12):
and it really puts it into black and white. This is my project. And then once you've done that, you need to start looking at your schedule. When can you actually fit time in? You're going to need time to be able to focus on this, to work things out, to work out where you want to go with your career. So when in your week, when in your week can you fit this in? How much time can you give yourself to this project? You might find that putting a big chunk of time aside works best for you in terms of your commitments and your day-to-day schedule. Or you might find doing a little bit every day or a little bit every other day actually works a lot better and is a lot more realistic. It might also be where you find that nighttime is the best, for example.
Kim Wiseman (15:01):
And, and as a mother, personal experience, nighttime is often the best for me whenever I'm trying to work on a new project that's outside of my current day to day. And there might be a little bit of compromise, you know, you might be, oh, but I'm a morning person and nighttime is not actually the easiest time, but it's also looking at other aspects - when you're going to be least distracted, when the, the time is going to be calm, where you can really sort of like focus and just put yourself into your project headspace. So there's going to always be a little bit of compromise, but you do need to work out a schedule so that you can commit to that and that is your time for your project. So that is step one, really important. Now we are going to move on to step two. Now this is the taking stock and this is the evaluating part.
Kim Wiseman (15:50):
Now this is where we start getting into the nitty gritty, starting to ask yourself certain questions so you can start picking apart all the different things that are going to be swirling around in your brain. So first you want to ask yourself why do you want to return to work? What value does work have for you? And what is your motivation behind returning to work? And I'll, I'll dig into some tools that will help you drill more into what value actually means. It's hard, it's, you know, it's a word we often use, but actually put that into some kind of, uh, realistic black and white that can you actually work with. It's quite hard. So I will, I will give you some tools to actually break that word value down. and then you want to start looking at obviously the practical implications. So what current responsibilities do you have in your life and how will going back to work however work will look like?
Kim Wiseman (16:48):
How is that going to impact what you currently have day to day and the responsibilities that you have? And then you want to explore what work means to you. So what your ideal work situation looks like? Think about how this fits into your life right now, which we've touched on a little bit. How has your life changed since before your career break? And how have your priorities, your values, your outlook on life, how has that all changed since your career break? Because you've likely, you, you've likely changed and grown and not, you're not going to be the same person necessarily, compared to when you first started your career break compared to now. So it's also looking at that change and, and getting a sense of who you are now. So this is where you want to start mapping all this out and this is where we're going to get to something that can help you do that.
Kim Wiseman (17:48):
So now this is a career wheel and wheels are fabulous. I use wheels with my clients all the time. You can have a wheel that represents your whole life. You can have a wheel that focuses on a specific area in your life, such as your career. So in this case, this wheel represents your career as a totality. So how you can work it is that in the middle you would scale it number one, and towards the outer edge you'd scale it to number 10. And you can look at what each segment would mean to you. You can look at intrinsic values in terms of - how does passion fit into your career wheel? So you could have passion as one segment. You could have your day-to-day tasks, the actual role itself, how important is that to you? And you can scale that from one to 10.
Kim Wiseman (18:41):
You can look at the collaboration, working with a team, being creative, problem solving. All of those intrinsic values could be part of what makes up your career wheel. Then you also get the extrinsic values as well, such as financial needs, the prestige, the recognition, the practicalities. Perhaps you want something that's really close by; pride. So all of these things, there's no right or wrong. And what's very important is do not judge yourself. Don't put any preconceived ideas of what you should or shouldn't have as part of your career wheel. It's all about trying to be as transparent and honest with yourself about what your career wheel represents. So those are just some ideas to help you get a start of filling out some of those segments. For each segment you can rate it, you can do a little line if it's 1, 2, 3, 10 even, and then you can start to have a look and it gives you an idea of what is actually more important to you.
Kim Wiseman (19:48):
Now further to that, to help you get a little bit deeper in terms of filling out your career will and making sense of it, I want to talk a little bit about Edgar Schein. Now, Edgar Schein, he was an amazing organizational psychologist and he actually only recently passed away last year. He lived to a ripe old age in his nineties and he had a lot of influence in organizational development in many areas, but particularly in career development. And he created many different models, but one of the many that he is very well known for are his eight career anchors. Now, what he believed is that we all have one dominant anchor and by identifying what that key anchor is, it can determine help you determine the kind of role, the working culture, work situation that would best suit you for better fulfillment and better work satisfaction. So that was his theory and he identified these eight career anchors.
Kim Wiseman (20:57):
And I'll briefly go through them with you so you can get a bit of an idea of what each of them represents. Some of them are relatively self-explanatory, but it helps just to get a bit of a sense so you can actually use this and personalize it to yourself. So one of them is the managerial competence. And if that is a dominant anchor, that's often for people they don't like to be a specialist, they don't like to be an expert in any particular field, they feel that's quite limiting. They like to delegate, they like to direct their life, to problem solve. They like to mentor and train and they like to have variety in their day to day. They easily get bored. So that's your managerial competence. Then another career anchor is your security and stability. So those are people that really, really value the security that a role brings.
Kim Wiseman (21:48):
And they are often people that might stay with the same company for a long time or they wouldn't necessarily want to climb the ladder or they're very risk averse because they just really want to stay stable and they want to stay secure. And then you get your entrepreneurial creativity. So those are the creatives, they're passionate, they're energetic, and they're either often entrepreneurs or they love spearheading projects. They have this idea and then they collaborate and they get experts in to make this idea a reality. You get autonomy and independence and that as a dominant anchor, those are the people that really love to work under their own direction. They don't love to be directed by somebody else. They don't want somebody else telling them what to do. So it's often consultants or contractors or project workers that sort of fit into that dominant anchor. Then you get the pure challenge.
Kim Wiseman (22:43):
And those are the people that are super competitive. They love, it's, it's, it's like a step up from managerial competence where managers, they, they get bored, they like the variety, but it's not on the same level as pure challenge people that just, they're super, super, super competitive. So often that's in the sales industry. So people in the sales field will often identify with the pure challenge anchor. Then you get the balanced lifestyle. So they work to live, they don't live to work. Their work kind of funds their next adventure, their passion, their interests, they might swap roles quite often, whatever works to just maintain and keep that balanced lifestyle going. And you get the service and dedication to a cause where people really value being of service and value that that actually brings more than the work itself. And then you get the technical functional competence and those are your super specialized, very highly, highly skilled and they take pride in upskilling themselves and they love mentoring other people through that skill as well.
Kim Wiseman (23:51):
So that's just, there's a lot more detail that goes into each of those anchors, but that's just to give you a bit of an idea of a career wheel and of the different segments. And what you can actually do with this as a start is you can look at your career, your career life, look at the roles that you've, that you've had in the past, any roles that you've recently had, and have two columns. Have a column where it's positive, positive values, positive aspects that you really enjoyed about those roles. And then have another column next to it where those are the demotivators, the things about that role, the working culture business that you didn't like, that didn't motivate you. And then you can start using what, what you've actually listed. You can start creating a pattern and seeing how it ties in with those eight anchors.
Kim Wiseman (24:44):
You might surprise yourself, you might think that you fit into two or three anchors, but actually there might be other anchors that you hadn't considered that actually stand out. And it might not be one anchor, it might actually be two or three, but it'll start to give you an idea of what is truly you and what you truly connect with and what truly motivates you. And that's a really brilliant start to start working on that confidence and figuring out which path you actually want to start to go down in terms of getting back into some kind of career. So I hope that all makes sense. So I'm going to start moving on from that
Jo Gregory (25:24):
Somehow, we're at 25 past eight already.
Kim Wiseman (25:29):
Okay, thank you for that. Thank I get passionate. This it,
Jo Gregory (25:35):
One point to the audience I'm having a lot of people ask, and I'm sorry if I didn't mention this in the beginning, you will receive a recording of tonight's webinar in a follow up email. So please don't worry about scribbling down notes. Please don't worry about drawing your own wheels now. A recording will come out, and Kim and I are both available for, kind of follow ups if you've got specific questions afterwards. So do just relax and enjoy all this knowledge coming at you.
Kim Wiseman (26:02):
Yeah, no, I know it, it can feel like quite a lot and you might feel like you don't want to miss anything, but you know, absolutely, like Jo said, this is all available to you. so yeah, okay, so that is the career wheel. So that's all about just getting a sense of where you're at, what work means to you, and that is the looking ahead then it's also taking stock of where you're at right now and what your biggest blocks and challenges are, what your biggest fears are, that you need to overcome, that you need to jump over, that you need to work through. So here is a list of some typical blocks that you may or may not connect with. It might be the work life juggle that scares you, the family commitments. And also, you know, from a family perspective, the guilt that comes with it. And I know it full well, the guilt that automatically comes in as soon as you start stepping slightly away from just purely being a parent. So often guilt is a bit of a tricky one. It could be time restraints, mental capacity because it's going to use part of your brain that you might not have tapped into for a while. Fear of not being good enough, being out of practice, being out of touch with new technology, which is always evolving.
Jo Gregory (27:19):
Just to jump in on this, Kim, so many people are in the q and a saying how all of this resonates with them. Yeah. People are saying that they're all of these tick boxes. People are saying that they're, you know, some specific, some suggestions outside of what we've got listed, but I think it's a really important, I'm sure you were going to say this in a minute, sorry if I’m treading on your toes. Yeah, no, no,
Kim Wiseman (27:39):
No. It's all good. All good.
Jo Gregory (27:39):
It's so important for everybody listening to know that you're not alone. You know, everybody feels these things. Kim and I both have lived experience of coming back into the workplace after a break. Yeah. Nobody <laugh>, nobody has an easy time of it. We all have these blockers and these, thoughts that, that prevent it from being an easy journey. So you are definitely not alone, any of you.
Kim Wiseman (28:07):
No, definitely not. And I think most of all, be understanding with yourself, if this was a friend going through all of these feelings and blocks, just think about what you would be saying to them. So while you are grappling with these feelings of fear and anxiety, try and be kind to yourself and be patient with yourself and be understanding with yourself because this is quite a big step. It's a step out of where you've been at, the bubble that you've possibly been in. Especially as a parent, I know that full well and suddenly there's the big wide world that you need to reconnect with. and you are, you know, as Jo said, very much not alone. So please just, just do try to remember that. So being quite conscious of time, I do want to go into this next slide because I would love to get your input.
Kim Wiseman (28:59):
Now this is all about how to start creating a bit of that mindset shift. And I just want to quickly say something, and this is a stat that amazes me every time I think about it. Our brains process 4 million pieces of information every second. Every second through all our senses. Our brain is processing 4 million pieces of information. So in order for our brain to actually handle that, it's going to filter the information, it's going to distort the information, it's going to categorize the information in such a way to make it easier for us to absorb. And so through that distortion, information is not necessarily the truth. So when you think about all those blocks that you have, those limiting beliefs of not feeling good enough, being out of practice, all they are are just strongly held opinions. It's not fact, it's one tiny perspective out of many and one, one way to show how perspective can actually change. I want you to have a look at those three pictures. And I'd love specifically if you have a look at picture two and in the q and a box, I'm not going to say anything. I'd love you to tell me what do you see?
Jo Gregory (30:29):
So people just pop into the q and a box, what image you see when you look at what
Kim Wiseman (30:34):
What image do you see?
Jo Gregory (30:36):
Okay, now we've got different ideas coming through. Uh, a maid, a girl with a bonnet, a young lady, oh there's, there's somebody who's got a young lady and an old woman. So they're able to see both perspectives. Someone can see a judge,
Kim Wiseman (30:54):
Oh wow.
Jo Gregory (30:57):
Uh, an old lady, young lady maid and a witch. So lots, lots of people able to see, a young lady looking away, but also lots of people able to see an older lady or a variation of an older lady. So a judge or a witch. This is making your point, your point. So clearly.
Kim Wiseman (31:22):
Exactly.
Jo Gregory (31:24):
I personally see a young lady, and I can't see anything else. So I've obviously got a very fixed perspective, <laugh> <laugh>
Kim Wiseman (31:32):
And I saw the old lady and I struggle to see the young lady see
Kim Wiseman (31:36):
You know, so we all so different and the same thing can be seen in such different ways. So the first picture, it's either a duck or a bunny or the last picture is either the shape of a woman or it's two dancing figures. So that's just a really quick way to just really understand how many different perspectives they can be on the same thing. So again, just be kind to yourself. And another thing to start doing is a brag file. Generally have a journal, have a very happy book with lots of great happy empty pages and brag about yourself. Be proud to brag about yourself, your achievements, your skills, your accomplishments, your assets. Don't judge yourself, whatever it might be. Just put it out there, put it on paper, your experience, your strength, and you are going to have many, brag about yourself. Stop doing it even if it's just a little bit every day.
Kim Wiseman (32:35):
Brag file goes such a long way to actually remembering all the wonderful great bits about yourself because you're starting to focus on yourself again. And that might feel a little bit weird, especially coming from possibly a parenting perspective or something else that you might be going through due to having the career break. So brag file, it really works. It's powerful. Now, step four, this is tapping into your resources and you know, it's often very easy to forget what we actually have available to us right now that doesn't necessarily cost any money. So you want to look at two things. You've got your internal and you've got your external resources internally. Think about the things that light you up. What do you know that you do well? Doesn't have to connect to anything. Just what do you do well? It's a bit, you know, as a follow on from the brag file, think about your personality traits.
Kim Wiseman (33:30):
What do you have going for you? You might have patience, you might have bravery. The willingness to go out of your comfort zone. The fact that you're all here listening to this webinar really shows your bravery. That is a truly huge, huge resource that you have. Maybe your ability to focus, think about your personality traits as well, because those can be a massive resource that just needs a little bit of attention to make you realize that you actually have them. And then externally, think about possibly areas that you might struggle. Maybe you need to upskill, take a little course. There's so many wonderful online courses, they all don't cost a lot. Some of them are free, some of them just cost, you know, a little bit. Anything where you feel upskilling might just give you a little bit more confidence. It's also a great way to build that confidence.
Kim Wiseman (34:26):
And then also think about your network, contacts, people that you can chat about. Maybe it's about a specific interest that you want to explore a little bit or somebody that you know that has actually gone through this process or somebody that you know can understand your situation. Maybe they've also got kids or they've also, you know, followed a similar path, taken a career break, gone back to work. Anything where you feel that you just, I want to have a chat with that person that's going to help me then do that. And also if you've got time, you know, then use your time well, that's another resource. So that kind of like ties back into right in the beginning, creating that time for yourself to actually commit to this project. So now we move on to step five and this is the taking action. So are you going to walk away with a worksheet that Jo is going to send you.
Kim Wiseman (35:21):
And that is going to take you through the seven stages of a well-formed outcome. It's a very, very detailed goal setting worksheet. Really great, it has fantastic questions and if you answer them honestly, take your time. It's going to form a really great starting point, a really great map for you to figure out where you want to go. To then start getting into stage two where you start doing the practicalities of start, you know, putting yourself out there. So because I'm very conscious of time, I'm going to wrap it up there. I also just want to add if you have any questions, please get in touch. My contact details are there. I'm also offering for the month of February a free one hour session. So you can either email me, you can go to my website booking details on there as well. Make use of it. It's a free session, you can talk to me about absolutely anything. And if you want to dig a little bit deeper, I also do programs as well. So get in touch. I'd love to hear from you and thank you very much for your time.
Jo Gregory (36:29):
Thank you so much Kim. I don’t know about you guys listening, but I found that presentation absolutely fascinating. We haven't got much time left and we do have a couple of questions that have come in. If you do have further questions, as Kim said, you can take down her contact details here. Such a generous offer for you to open up your, your February diary to people. I'm sure that they really appreciate that and, and we at Ten2Two appreciate you offering out your help in such a way. So just to touch on a couple of questions because we did promise a q&a, so I'm sorry that we've gone over, but I didn't want to rush that content at all. So one question, which I'll take if that's okay, Kim. Yeah, of course. One of our, one of our attendees is saying that prior to her career break, she wouldn't have taken, rejection particularly badly.
Jo Gregory (37:22):
However, since coming back from her career break, she's, she's struggling with, I'm assuming it's a she, I do apologize. It's an anonymous, anonymous attendee. They are finding rejection really difficult. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, everybody finds rejection difficult. It's not something that is unique. It's not something that as humans we're, we're built to be able to accept. I would say that you need to build into this project that you're working on, time to reflect, even once you're in the journey of finding. So our next webinar will be about the practicalities and it will again talk to you about treating it like a project. Build time into reflect and be kind to yourself. It’s more than likely there'll be rejections along the way and hopefully those rejections will be with reason. So they won't necessarily be a reflection on you. They might be the other people who are in the process, or a change in the business's requirement.
Jo Gregory (38:20):
There is a lot of change in the marketplace out there at the moment. We are seeing jobs become available one day and then disappear the next for one reason or another. So it's very, very rarely that it is any reflection on you whatsoever. If you feel as though there is something about your application that could have been done better, then ask for that feedback. Use that opportunity to improve what it is that you are projecting out to the world. Often it's a CV that is being reviewed and there might be the tiniest error that you haven't noticed or there could be some confusion about one of the bullet points. Ask for the feedback. I can't guarantee that you're going to get it, but you know, if you ask the question, you're doing everything that you can to use that rejection as something positive that you can actually then build on.
Kim Wiseman (39:12):
Can I quickly add something to that? Just another point is, also sometimes it could also just be a sign that it's not the right thing for you and there's something better still coming. You know, sometimes it's a way to say, you know what, no, no, no, this isn’t the path for you, so just keep going and you'll find it. Yeah, just wanted to add that
Jo Gregory (39:34):
Wonderful stuff. Lots of people sending their best to the per person struggling with rejection. There's lots of like-minded spirits out there at the moment. Another question about gaps on CVs. Again, we will cover this in the practical, the practical parts of returning to the workplace, which is a webinar happening not next week, but the week after. You will have that mailed out to you and links mailed out to you if you're not already signed up. Please, whenever you're thinking about gaps in your CV, try not to see them as negatives. In that period you will have gained skills, experience, all different kinds of things that you will be able to bring into the workforce. If you see it as something that might be viewed as negative by an employer, just make sure you're being honest about it.
Jo Gregory (40:27):
So the worst thing that you can do to an employer is present a CV with question marks. We do have separate webinar on CV writing skills and a specific webinar on career gaps when it comes to demonstrating those in your CV and your job search. but the over lining message, the overlying message is not to have any question marks on your CV. So it's better to simply state ‘career break to raise a family’ than it is to try and ignore that career break or manipulate the dates so that that career break disappears. Be honest, be confident in the fact that you've gained skills in that time and those skills will be super valuable to wherever you move on to work. We have actually come to the end of our time now, so it only leaves me to thank Kim so very much for all of that information today.
Jo Gregory (41:17):
I do hope that our audience found it useful. We're getting lots of lovely thumbs up and heart emojis coming through. Thank you so much everybody. If you do have the time to leave a review on Facebook or Google, then we would absolutely love that. If you don't have the time to do that but you'd like to get in touch then again, Kim has been very generous and opened up her appointments to you. We at Ten2Two are always available to answer your queries and questions. Please do get in touch. My contact details will be shared in the email, which will come round in the coming days along with a recording of today. And the document that Kim mentioned. Questions that have come through, we will try and answer those in a q and a document that'll also be circulated. But if there is anything specific that you do want to discuss, then please, please, please do get in touch with either Kim or I. There is no silly question. There is no silly circumstance. We've probably both heard it all before <laugh> <laugh>. We do genuinely just want to be able to help. So thank you all for your time. I do hope that you've taken something away from tonight's presentation. It's hearts and emojis and claps are still coming through. It's so lovely. I'm off to get a fresh cup of tea. Enjoy the rest of your evening.