Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Time poor parent who just wants answers now, Kylie.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We keep on seeing it in the news. Cost of
living is biting more and more families finding themselves in
this situation where both parents need to work, and a
lot of mums in particular are kind of saying, this
is getting tricky. I don't all I've done for the
last little while has been a mum. How do I
put mum on my resume and get taken seriously? Just
(00:32):
recently there was an article on the ABC website where
jess On talked about precisely this challenge. She talked about
how even becoming a mum, she wasn't sure if she
wanted to be a mom, wasn't sure if motherhood was
for her, but then once she had that child, there
was nowhere else, nowhere else that she wanted to be.
(00:54):
We've watched that happen with our own daughter.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Having six daughters of my own, I know that feeling.
You think that you're going to be happier outside of
the home, but once you've got children who pull at
your heart strings, all you want to do is be
with them.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, and of course how our eldest daughter has made
us grandparents. She's got her baby with her husband, and
she thought that.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
She would spend a lot of time outside of the
home being the bread winner while her husband stayed at home.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
That was their initial plan. Like literally, he was like, yeah,
I'll stay at home, I'll look after the baby.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You still would I think he still would, But she
knows not giving up that role for any one, no, no.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
No, nowhere else that I wanted to be. Jess Ong
said that, and I mean there's a whole lot of
research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies that points
in that direction, especially for new mums. I love what
jess said in her article. She said, to not have
to outsource care is of course a privilege full of
tender moments, but it's also isolating, relentless, and completely undervalued.
(01:53):
And this is what I want to talk about in
today's podcast because as more and more mums are saying,
oh gosh, I do need to get out to work,
But what do I put on my regume? We've been there,
We've done something about it. So here's what Jessong said
on an Instagram post, and she wrote about this in
this ABC article, She said, I explained in my Instagram
post that I'd updated my CV and decided to harness
all of my ruminations and include being a mother because
(02:15):
why not, She says, I haven't disappeared, but in the
eyes of the system and the payroll, I have yet.
Skills and talents that I've cultivated over the last thirty
nine years are put to good use and challenged every
single day.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
But as far as the CV goes, it's almost like
you've stopped learning, you've stopped growing, you've stopped progressing, because
you don't have a piece of paper that suggests that
either you've gone to school and studied and furthered your
education or you've actually worked for high flying business owners.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So a few years ago, you were having a conversation
with somebody in your favorite retail outlet hashtag not sponsored.
But you love adairs right like anything to do with
home furnishings.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
You know you're a frequent shopper when you're on first
name time with the boss of the storm.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And all of the sales assistants as well. So you're
in a dairs, you're having a chat and she says, hey,
we've got a position going you should apply, and you
came home and said, they've offered me a job, but
I have to apply. What am I supposed to put
on my regume? I haven't worked for over twenty years,
to which I replied, you haven't had paid work for
over twenty years. You've worked your tail off for the
(03:23):
last twenty years. We need to put that you've been
a mum in your resume, which is pretty much what
jess On from the ABC said. I wrote down that
I was a mum, and I put those skills in
and so you and I sat down and wrote a
resume that had all of your mum duties as a
reason why you should get this job in retail at Adairs,
(03:46):
and I thought, in today's conversation, because so many people
are going through we should chat about what you put
into that resume so that you could score the job
that you really really wanted to have.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I loved that we were able to have so much
fun with this because at the time I was just
looking at it, going as if they're going to be
interested in me.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
You've rolled your eyes and you said, no, we can't
say that I'm a mum, and I said no, no, no, no, no, no,
you are. We're going to detail everything that you do
in your work experience as a mum. So I said,
you're a CEO, you're an operations manager, you're a human
resources manager. There's so much going on, And then we
started to list everything that a CEO would do that
you would do. Have a listen to this list.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Overseeing all managerial aspects of life for six children who
require significant levels of oversight and direction. Let's be honest
with my husband, it's seven people.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I can't believe that we put that in.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Planning strategy and policy decisions for the team based on
values and mission, coupled with short and long term goals
via weekly management meetings and quarterly strategy sessions.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
So this is legit. You and I have a weekly
family meeting and we have quarterly strategy sessions as a
couple to make sure our family's on track. So you
were saying, as a CEO, this is what I do.
I have these these regular meetings and I oversee all
of these aspects. Carry on, though, because the CEO does more,
and you write down another handful of roles and responsibilities
in that CEO.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Outline, delegating and overseeing all staff activities maintaining client and
employee relationships via an extremely complex calendar involving multiple moving parts.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It's so brilliant.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Building alliances and partnerships with other organizations.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
In other words, organizing playdates with other families.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Development of a culture that promotes performance, excellence and builds
team morale. Providing conflict resolution strategies wherever there is conflict
between tricky personalities on the team, and providing inspired leadership
for the team.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I'm reviewing this with you right now. I'm watching
it as you read this, and I'm thinking, we did
this without chat GPT like this. This is a really
really creative, really fun resume. That's the CEO role, but
we also included OPS manager and human resources manager. Why
don't you go through the five duties of a mum
(06:05):
being an OPS manager.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Being responsible for intricate logistics operations from five am to
team PM and later for a large team, managing a
complex schedule for eight people, conducting analysis and improvement of
all organizational processes and workflows, working to improve quality, productivity
and efficiency in the team, and occupational health and safety
(06:30):
responsibilities for the entire team.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I just love that one. And the human resources manager
we've put three things down for that as.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, determining and establishing training procedures for the team, developing
team roles for each new member of the team based
on individual development, training and capability. I love this and
capacity building of team members.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So I mean, we're having a lot of fun with this.
But as we sat down and worked through this, you
and I essentially said, all of these things that you
do with your kids, you do this with adults in
a team environment. So let's write it down in a nutshell,
Running a large family requires you, as a mum to
(07:11):
learn and master an extensive range of skills that are
really tremendously transferable to the workplace. The maturity and the wisdom,
the experience that you get from being a mum is
so valuable. And that's just a small taste of the
various things that we could write down that represent your capabilities.
So that's part one of what we jotted down, But
(07:31):
then we added some more.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So over the years, I have done extensive volunteering within
our church organization, and I added to my resume CEO
of a children's organization, president of a women's organization, and
the president of a young women's organization. And within those
I outlined the different areas that I had worked and
(07:55):
trained in to help each of those organizations flourish.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
The million dollar question, well it wasn't really a million
dollar question, but it was more of like a twenty
four dollars an hour question, did you get the job?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
When I sat down with my boss who wasn't my
boss at the time, and we had the interview, she said,
can I just tell you that your resume was the
best resume I have ever read? She said. I sat
down with my partner and we just laughed our heads
as we read everything that you've achieved, and she said,
and the reality is, yes you have. You are doing
(08:30):
all of those things on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I want to go back to the statement that jess
On made. She said, being a stay at home mum
is full of wonderful, tender moments, but it's also isolating, relentless,
and completely undervalued. But when you look at what that
unpaid work taught you and how you were able to
put that into a resume and turn it into something
(08:53):
of value, you got that job because being a mum,
being involved, getting your systems right in the family, it
teaches you so much and if I recall correctly, you
were pretty highly valued on the team. Won't you like
that number one salesperson or something like that?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
I was for a while, for a while. Yeah. If
nothing else, what it showed my future employer was that
I was able to look outside the box and really
get creative about how I might utilize my talents and gifts.
And I think that was ultimately what got me the job.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, so jess on to wrap things up, she said this.
I returned to part time paid work six months ago,
and since then I've started correcting people when they ask
how work is going, gently interjecting with paid work. You mean,
it's not to make anyone uncomfortable, but I need to
agitate the narrative because until I became a mother, I
never really gave any of this much thought either. I
(09:48):
never thought about the little value society places on the
biggest job of raising its future, about how the label
stay at home mum diminishes and simple lifies the hours
of never ending and complex, unpaid work. Now we're going
to share your resume. We'll make a couple of edits
(10:08):
and alterations so that it's not too personal, but we're
going to share your resume at Happy Families dot com
dot au and on our social media pages, because I
reckon there's going to be a lot of mums who
are going to look at this and say, hmm, I
can take this, I can tweak this, and I can
make myself look like I'm presentable to an employer because
as much as I want to stay at home, I
need to work at the moment because everything costs so much. Kylie,
(10:31):
I think it's inspiration. I think it's awesome what you did.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
The thing that really stood out to me as I
went through that process was when we started it, I
felt so unsure of myself and I felt like I
didn't have anything to offer. But as we went through
the process of pinpointing all of the various skills that
I had learnt and developed over our twenty plus years
(10:55):
of parenting, it gave me the confidence to walk in
there and say I actually have something to offer. It
was powerful. It was really powerful.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rowland from
Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd
like more info to make your family happier, or to
get more information about specifically what we've talked about today.
Visit happyfamilies dot com dot au, or go to our
social media sites at all of the major platforms.