Changing priorities

Caroline Hukins used to work in management. Then she had twins and her priorities changed. She now wants to help women who find themselves in a similar position to her, wanting to be there for the children, but also to work on something that fulfills them as individuals.

She is a trained life coach and specialises in career transition which she sees as a growing area as more and more women head back into the workplace after time out looking after small children.

“Many women want to do something different from what they did before or set up on their own once they have had children,” says Caroline. “A lot of people know they want to do something different, but are not sure what and hesitate to invest in the next step.”

Caroline offers advice on career transition on a one-to-one basis on the phone or in person and in group workshops. She is also trialling giving advice via email with one woman with two young children, though she thinks people get more benefit from face to face contact and workshops where they can network and support each other. This means she can work both locally and further afield. Indeed, her own coach is based in Belgium.

“It’s all about self-discovery, looking at motivations, skills and achievements,” she says. “You start from your dream job and look at what is possible rather than at the practicalities that might stand in your way and might hem you in. If you start from what you really want you can probably make some of it come true and enter the job search from a more positive point of view.”

Novelty
She says it can be a novelty for some mums to spend time thinking about themselves. Caroline, who lives in Gloucestershire, knows this from experience. She has two-year-old twins and a nine-month-old baby. She had been working full time when she became pregnant with the twins and commuting. She says she may have been able to negotiate a four day a week return to work, but adds that she knows the job she was doing – as a senior manager in, among other sectors, charity fundraising – would have stayed with her over weekends and evenings. “I knew I didn’t want to go back,” she says so she saw a coach who got her to look at what she loved doing and she decided she wanted to help other women in a similar position to herself.

Her business is gradually growing – she gave her first training session 18 months ago and is building it up part time. Since last September, she says she has been more proactive at marketing her services and put the twins into childcare one day a week. She likes working for herself as she can control her workload and let it grow with her children. She admits, however, that being self-employed is not easy and she has to put in a lot of unpaid hours and work during the evenings and when the children are asleep. “It’s a massive learning curve,” she says.

She started marketing herself through her existing contacts, including nurseries, baby groups and playgroups. She hopes soon to target mums of schoolchildren, who, she says, face other challenges in terms of returning to work – holidays, short school days and the like. Another target is the general workforce.

Caroline, who also provides help with cv writing, says she uses a lot of her previous experience as a senior manager in her coaching. “I recruited a lot of people in previous jobs as a manager and director so a lot of cvs have crossed my desk and I know what organisations are looking for,” she says. “There are some basics like making sure your cv is readable and that key information is high up. You also need to tailor your cv to particular jobs or industries and you need to know what the employer is looking for. You also need to cut out any waffle,” she adds.

If your education is not that relavant to the job in question, she says, you can bury it and put what is relevant higher up the cv. Plus you don’t have to put the same amount of information in about every job you have done. She adds that coaching can work well with cv writing as coaching increases people’s confidence and can help them see what may have been holding them back in job searches.

Confidence
Caroline says for women the main issue in returning to work is confidence. “Confidence is everything – the practical barriers come afterwards,” she states, citing the example of one woman who rang a charity about work and almost had to put the phone down in panic when they asked her to come in for a chat. “She had spent four years just talking about her children and she panicked,” says Caroline.

For Caroline her work runs in parallel with her own transition to life after children. She says she really enjoys having something to do outside of looking after the children, but likes being around for them. “I like having something to think about other than the children and having adult conversations,” she says. “Being at home can be a bit isolating and I like doing something which can be of value to people. I had every excuse to shelve the business, but it lured me in and is compelling and motivating.”

www.careerspluskids.com