SAHP = No references =no work

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I have been a SAHM for 10 years. This has been due to wanting to be a SAHM, having no extended family to help, chronic health problems and COVID. I am now finally in a position to return to work but can’t see a way back to the workplace as I no longer have any references, and foolishly didn’t maintain contacts.
Research has taught me that I should start with a voluntary job, but even those require references which I don’t have. I can’t afford to do any courses. I want a call Centre job or shop work. For anyone who has been in my position, how did you get back to work without any references?

He was, and honestly if you are a degreed professional with a non retail career prior to being a SAHM, you don’t need the kind of skills from working as a cashier in a charity shop to get back into your career. They’re no good to you if they are not transferable.

As well as your prior employment references (already covered how you do this) what really helped him get interviews and job offers were his evidence of keeping his skills current and up to date. He did online refresher courses/qualification recertifications in his field to show he was up to date sort of evenings and weekends chipping away at it for the year prior to job hunting. (It depends what your career field is how critical this can be or not be)

The other thing that helped was to reach out to employment agencies that headhunt in your profession- they will help you polish your CV, advise on any online refresher things you might want to do, and will actively put you forward for job interviews with their clients. My DH was actually advised to start one qualification that was the U.K. equivalent to his foreign one by an agency and just adding to his CV that he was “completing certifucation x with expected completetion date of y” (with y being in a few months) resulted in more interest and better job offers more in line to where he was on the career ladder before taking a sabbatical to raise the DC

Same. Total waste of time and a box-checking exercise. I work in HR and part of my role is collecting references. Nine times out of ten I get back a bog-standard letter confirming dates of employment and last position held- no other information. Pointless.

I’m sure there have been people who have given me their mate’s contact info and told them to say they were their old boss who has now moved on from the original company.* And how would I know otherwise as long as the facts lined up and they didn’t say anything mental that made me suspicious.

*I am not suggesting you do this. I don’t work in a regulated industry, so our checks are fairly basic. More in-depth reference requests will catch this out!

Honestly if you’ve not worked for a while or really done anything outside the home, I would ease yourself in with volunteer work first. It might not fit well round your children to have such an upheaval and be tied to a contract etc, so a volunteer post would ease you in AND give you relevant experience hopefully.
Are there other things you’ve done that could be relevant? I was a SAHM but was active in the school council/PTA, set up and ran a Rainbow pack, helped at toddler groups, did some open learning courses etc, not very sure how you could have just been a SAHM… but then, I never was much of a housewife.

I volunteer on the committee for a community hall, all of them around here are crying out for help, I've never known anyone get asked for a reference.

From there I got experience of balancing budgets, organising events and managing a building. It's given me loads of extra examples to talk about at job interviews, would recommend to anyone looking to increase their skill set (as well as do something useful for their community).

I work remotely for a contact centre (market research). We have all sorts of people, a lot without recent experience. So long as you can hold a conversation and and professional in your verbal communication it’s an easy job to get.