It is common to find many people, especially women, who have been out of the labor market, either for taking care of their children, or because the recent economic crisis has not allowed them to find a job, and they firmly believe that they do not have the right set of competencies and experience to find a rewarding job.
Please forget it, we all have many skills and most of them are not learned in the work environment, as a good friend often says, you bring them from home.
Let´s take as an example Mary´s case. Mary is a mother of two children under 6, with a partner in a temporary job and a tight income just enough to pay monthly expenses. She has been a stay at home mum for a few years, because without any family support, the different schedules of her children, have not allowed her to find a job that could be compatible with her family needs.
If we look carefully, we can see that Mary has not lost this time at home with her kids, on the contrary, she has been developing many skills.
A few days ago, her two children had the School Carnival, and of course, what father or mother restraint themselves from buying their children the best costume? She looked at several tutorials in YouTube, bought the materials in the outlet shop near her house, and made them some fantastic costumes that could be mistaken for those from any grand Musical. There they are, critical competencies: learning agility, results oriented and budget management.
Maria doesn't have any kind of help, her family lives in another city and she must be autonomous: she cleans her house, cooks, brings and collects her kids from the school, buys their clothes, buys food... you will agree with me in believing that Maria is demonstrating a solid set of skills: she is able to relate with different people, she is able to multitask, she can effectively plan the short and the medium term including critical tasks and organizing her time schedule.
With this proven record, would you hire Maria? I would sure do.
