Why Informational Interviews are Great for SAHMs

When I started talking with a life coach, one of the things that she asked me to do was set up an informational interview, which I didn't really want to do because I was kind of scared.

For me the context of information interview came from What Color is Your Parachute, where the author is basically like, "call somebody up that you want to know, ask them for a few minutes of their time" and then grill them on everything related to their job. Not really my cup of tea, I just feel bad bothering people and asking for favors.

However, my life coach kept bringing it up and not wanting to reveal that I wasn't planning on doing it if left on my own, I agreed to let her contact a friend in the career field I was interested. (In retrospect, I was curious about the industry enough that I had mentioned it during our sessions probably more than once.)

Well, once the emails started flying, it finally clicked that this was really going to go down. When we scheduled our phone interview, (which was best for me because I get super nervous in person) I figured I'd better start to prepare.

How I Prepared

This basically entailed:

1. I wrote out a list of questions I had.
2. I did some basic research on the career in question.  
3. I planned on having my husband come home a little early from work to occupy our son (who ended up napping through the entire thing.)
4. I googled around for some more questions in case I forgot something.

In order to save you time here is my list:
Whatis the role like?What is the industry like?What types of other roles are in the industry? Tell me about your day?Team or individual work?Do you put on programming?Opportunities for advancement? Next steps? Where do you see yourself?What kind of education is needed?What is the best way to get experience?Are there any volunteer opportunities available?Any recommended books? Things I should be researching? 

How It Went

When the day for the interview finally came, my computer literally breathed it's last breath, and I spent several hours freaking out about how I lost all my questions and research. Luckily, my husband is a computer whiz and managed to do some sort of craziness that enabled me to view my hard drive from his computer, all with five minutes to spare.

All the stressing I did, proved pointless, because the call ended up being a breeze. Stephanie, the woman that Joanna set me up with, was super easy to talk to and friendly. We literally just had a conversation about her job and I mostly did a lot of listening. She answered many of my questions unprompted and a lot of the things I asked about weren't on my list anyway. (I was still glad I prepared though.)

 

What I Got

After I wrote all about my experience, I was kind of reflecting about it and got to thinking, but what is the point? Why is this even relevant to me, the early stage career breaker? I'm not even planning on returning to the job market until at least 2014! I almost, for a slight second, felt guilty that I wasted Stephanie's time. But once I started thinking about what I got out of it, my guilt turned to extreme gratitude, because a lot of the things we talked about will help me out in the long view.

 

1. Insider knowledge. I got a great picture of what the job really entails, how to land a job in the field, and the experience needed; all things I would have never figured out without having spoken to an insider. I had a really different perception about some things and Stephanie really straighten me out. Essentially, I was able to learn a ton of juicy tidbits without the years of investment it would have taken for me to get to the same role. Had I decided to pursue this without her advice, my first instinct would have been to go back to school (all wrong!)

 

2. Resources. Stephanie shot me an email after our conversation with tons of sites and books and WAYS TO GET EXPERIENCE that I can start working on RIGHT NOW, (which I've actually implemented and have already gotten a great volunteer opportunity out of!)  

 

3. An industry contact. I have a new LinkedIn friend! 

 

4. Confidence. Most importantly, the call reassured me that informational interviewing is not hard and that I could still have a business conversation with an adult. It was actually kind of a self-esteem boost.

 

Overall, the informational interview turned out to be a success; and just like with my inability to stop applying for jobs, there are loads of benefits. I'd definitely do it again and most certainly recommend it to other SAHMs.

 

Sincerely,

 

P.S. - Have you ever done an informational interview? Where you equally nervous going into it? How did it go?

Get Out of the House Week

I grew up in the great State of Florida, and now that we live in the chilly north I have a hard time getting out of the house, especially with baby. It is really hard to truck him around normally, with the car seat or the stroller or the shopping cart cover, but in the winter it is even harder to bundle him up and take things on and off, remember blankets and hats, and to keep him happy under all those layers. It is a real struggle for me to even leave the house at all because I just don't like being out in the cold. This can't be healthy though, never leaving the house leaves me (and baby) with little social interaction. So this week I am forcing myself to get out of the house at least once every day, with baby or without. I sat down and looked up every resource I know of for events and meet-ups and this week I will be doing it all (or at least one thing.)

Looking for some events for baby or just for you? Here are some sources to try:

Library

BABY: Our local library has several FREE baby playgroups through out the week at each of the different branches. They play a little music, tell a story, and then have some free play; plus you can get some time to talk with other adults = networking.
YOU: The library has tons of free/cheap classes in all kinds of things. Just a sampling of what is available at ours: book discussions, art speakers, computer skills, etsy-instuction class, learning languages, film screenings, meet-the-author events, performances, etc. A lot of events are available in the evening and some of the speakers during the day could be perfectly reasonable to bring baby to as well. This is a great way to build up some employable skills, or network with people of similar interests.

YMCA/Fitness club
BABY: I take a great baby-and-me swim class at a local indoor pool. I know he is too little to be really "swimming:" but his affinity for water has definitely increased and they teach great pool safety skills like how to find the wall, floating, and how to climb out of the pool.
YOU: A lot of local rec centers have free/small fee childcare while you get to hit the gym.

Religious Organizations
BABY: Our church's bulletin is filled with great family events. It also has a mom/baby group that meets once a week. When our son gets older they have an affordable preschool too. Our local JCC is also popular in our area, not just amongst Jewish families, for having events, mom's groups, childcare, etc. The same is true of lots of other faith-based groups.
YOU: Not only do most groups have events for baby but there are also book clubs, speakers, and community service opportunities (resume-builders!) My church even has a career builders network that hosts job search related events; and a great skill-building event that I will be going to this Saturday, (so more to come!)

Local Mom Blog
BABY: Our area has an awesome local mom blogger who posts weekly event listings and reviews of places to take the little ones. I found the site through a google search "[your town] mom blog."
YOU: A lot of the events that are posted are great ideas for a free/cheap date night with the husband.

Hopefully these resources help you to get out of the house too.

Sincerely,
Jordan

P.S. I'm always looking for ideas: share some of your own resources for how you stay busy!

My 2012 Employable Action Items

I recently read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and LOVED it. She offers a lot of great advice but what I liked the most was her method of turning resolutions into "concrete measurable actions." So a 'la happiness-project, I am here to present my much talked about, employable action items.

Using my Three Factors of Employability and my Employable & Enjoyable Skills Breakdown, I created an excel spreadsheet made of six employable action items, (things that I think will help me to get hired when I return to the workforce,) and six enjoyable action items, (things that I want to do because I want to make the most out of my career break!)

 Almost all of my goals are monthly so I'll be easily able to track them by coloring in a box for each successful accomplishment. You may be looking at this and thinking, "wow...once a month, big whoop," but for me, this is a stretch and will enable me to guarantee success for some of these. Plus, I can re-evaluate whenever I want to ensure the intentions behind these are being met. Being a new mom can be ridiculously time-consuming and so putting aside time to get through a book or get out of the house to take a class in something might be all that you can do; don't pile on too much and set yourself up for failure.

These action items are all about helping me to find my niche when I return to the workforce. If you already know what you want to do when you return, focus on that. If you are still trying to figure things out, jump around and encourage yourself to try new things.

I'm really excited to put this into writing because I think that it will help to hold me accountable. The timing for me to start this is ideal, since it's the beginning of the new year, however, you can start this anytime. Putting your goals, however large or small, into writing is crucial to success; it just makes them more real.

Sincerely,
Jordan

P.S. - I'd love to hear some of your own employable action items. Comment below or tweet me @employablemom #EmployableActionItems

The Three Factors That Will Keep You Employable

So one of the things I am working on is developing action items for my employability project, just some things I can do to keep the ball rolling on maintaining my resume and network.

Without using any expert opinions, I've kind of coined what I believe are the Factors of Employability, the things that effect whether you get a job or not. My Factors of Employability are networking, experience, and education. These may seem obvious and need no explanation but I feel like for the sake of experimentation I should define my "test areas."

To me, experience is probably the most obvious factor of employability. Most non-entry level jobs require you to have some level of experience working in their field before they will consider you for a position. 

Education is the next factor of employability. For some jobs, employers use education to make a correlation between job success and so it ends up as a sort of check box of qualifications that employers use to weed people out. So clearly, it's important that you have the level of education that is being required. For other positions, having current education requirements is crucial, there are tons of jobs out there that require continuing education in order to maintain a certificate. 

Networking is probably the least obvious but the most helpful. It can really come down to who you know when job searching. The majority of the jobs I have had in life have been because I happened to know someone and in speaking with friends and family going through the job search process, this seems to be a universal route to finding a job.

I'm going to use these three areas to define my employable action items, which I swear are coming soon.

Sincerely,
Jordan

P.S. - Lets make this a conversation: am I missing any factors? Tweet me some things that you think should be a Factor of Employability @employablemom #FactorsOfEmployability

I'm Saving Lives: CPR and First Aid Training (part 1)

Tonight I went to the first half of my CPR and First Aid Training series. I have had this planned for a while and was NOT looking forward to it. I've been trained in CPR several times and I thought it got pretty boring the second time around - and this is my fourth time. After I got out, I've been really glad that I am doing this for several reasons.

The main reason I had to attend this CPR training is to keep my teaching certificate current in my new state. I'm sure there are a lot of you out there that have jobs that require constant maintenance and continuous education which can be super daunting and easy to put off (at least for me it has been.) Plus, going to the class was a huge annoyance schedule-wise; my options were one 8 hour long class (impossible - my son is still nursing,) four 2 hour sessions (but it lasts two weeks), or two 4 hour sessions (it goes until 10pm, which is way past my bedtime, but it seemed more efficient plus he let us out a little early!)  I am really glad that I am doing it because this could become a HUGE obstacle later on down the road and if the obstacles start to add up, then the burden to re-enter the job market might be too discouraging.

One thing I was not expecting to get out of the training was that I found it to be a great place to network! All of the other people in this class are teachers and student teachers from all over our district. If I needed to get some insight about a certain school or get some contacts, these people would be super helpful.

Last and of course the most obvious benefit, is that having a current teaching certificate and being CPR certified, well that just makes my resume look good!

I have a couple more things to share about my CPR class but I'm going to have to save it for tomorrow because now it is way past my bedtime.

Sincerely,
Jordan

P.S. Click here for CPR and First Aid Training Resources