To think my career is over?

[HireStarter]

NC for confidentiality.

A few years back I was made redundant whilst on maternity leave. For a variety of reasons I decided to stay home with the kids.

It's been 2-3 years and I'm now looking to re-enter my career on a part time basis but am struggling to find any opportunities in my field. There are LOADS full-time but very few part-time and those that do exist aren't near me or pay minimum wage.

I have a degree (it's general, not career specific) and was happy with where my career was before children. I'm now left wondering if I need to retrain.

AIBU to think my career is over?

Feeling lost with it all. If anyone has any good news stories that would be great!

• working full time is not an option at the moment.

Most PT roles go to ‘imcumbents’. If you get a FT role temporarily, then negotiate or seek internal PT roles, you will significantly increase your odds of getting a PT role.

Have you looked on ten2two website, they focus on part time and flexible working

@Dozer

Most PT roles go to ‘imcumbents’. If you get a FT role temporarily, then negotiate or seek internal PT roles, you will significantly increase your odds of getting a PT role.

I'm actually quite curious as to how new hires negotiate FT down to PT? I mean 3 days a week (4 is very close and is almost FT). If the company has advertised the role as FT then the assumption is there is X amount of work to do - who does the rest? Unless they hire 2 part-timers at the same time, or the role is extraordinarily difficult to recruit for so half the hours is better than nobody at all.

What I've seen happen with incumbents negotiating down is that the nature of job/team structure has changed, resulting in PT being workable anyway. Or that people get PT because they can do the same amount of work in half the time (with the connections/experience to be extraordinarily good at their job).

I understand flexible working being the default ( e.g not the strict 9-5) but fail to understand part-time being an option offered to everyone. In my experience it's dependent upon very good management of the team, the nature of the work and ability of team members.

Nobody is going to be affected much if you pop off for a bit to do the school run for example WFH. However having you around for only 3 days means that other people have to pick up queries, or things have to wait until you are back. Some teams can support only so many part-timers so in essence those who request it later won't get a chance. In other teams managers approve part-time but don't take on the management overhead. Leaving either full-timers to pick up the slack, or part-timers to work extra which benefits nobody!

This isn't goady btw as both me and DP eventually want to go part-time. However from seeing experiences in various teams it looks like whether it's a good deal depends on the team. And if your work (like ours) involves a lot of dependencies it adds a lot of overheads as each team member is specialised and can't quite 'cover' for the others.

Few roles are advertised PT IME.

If you disclose you want a PT role during the selection process this reduces your chances of being offered a role. IMO recruiters discriminate!

Posters on MN disagree over seeking to negotiate 4 days, post job offer. I’ve done this successfully in the past, with an organisation with a ‘family friendly’ reputation. Some posters think it’s ‘wasting recruiters’ time’.

Agree that 3 days can be much harder to find advertised - and also to negotiate when in a full time role with some length of service in a role - than 4 days (or 5 short days).

@Dozer

Few roles are advertised PT IME.

If you disclose you want a PT role during the selection process this reduces your chances of being offered a role. IMO recruiters discriminate!

Posters on MN disagree over seeking to negotiate 4 days, post job offer. I’ve done this successfully in the past, with an organisation with a ‘family friendly’ reputation. Some posters think it’s ‘wasting recruiters’ time’.

Agree that 3 days can be much harder to find advertised - and also to negotiate when in a full time role with some length of service in a role - than 4 days (or 5 short days).

5 short days makes more sense because it reduces the turnaround time caused by one's absence. You could work Mon, Wed, Fri for example to get around that (only having a gap of one day) but most people don't want that, preferring a block of days off. This is just what I've observed not sure if anybody else agrees.

4 days a week is more common in my sector although only recently really

The hard part is for a client service sector - who picks up the relationship

Maybe some roles are easier to divide for various reasons

@Hulkynothunky

Thank you for your support. I don't think @MerylSqueak can understand what I'm saying. She's choosing to pick on parts of my posts and ignore others. Whether that's a comprehension issue or arrogance I'm not sure.

But thanks for the support. Im feeling extremely unconfident around the job search and a bit lost in terms of my identity while not working. So the idiotic posts aren't helpful at all.

You, and many others on this thread, have seriously helped me feel more optimistic and have given me such helpful advice on how to tailor my search better.

Thank you to everyone who's taken time to help :)

[quote HireStarter]@Hulkynothunky

Thank you for your support. I don't think @MerylSqueak can understand what I'm saying. She's choosing to pick on parts of my posts and ignore others. Whether that's a comprehension issue or arrogance I'm not sure.

But thanks for the support. Im feeling extremely unconfident around the job search and a bit lost in terms of my identity while not working. So the idiotic posts aren't helpful at all.

You, and many others on this thread, have seriously helped me feel more optimistic and have given me such helpful advice on how to tailor my search better.

Thank you to everyone who's taken time to help :)[/quote]
You are welcome. I totally understand. I felt the same when returning to work after a few years out as a sahm. Some of the doom and gloom posts on MN didn't fill me with confidence that I would get a job!

If it helps I actually got the second job I had an interview for. I am in an in demand profession which did help - but there were others interviewed with more recent experience (no gap) and I still got the job. I actually think I didn't get the first one due to nerves around the gap. But no one at either interview cared I hadn't worked for a few years at all - they were just interested in my responses.

Try to go into applications/interviews with confidence - and like I said earlier I applied for FT but they were happy for me to go PT. So it's worth applying and seeing if they can be flexible on hours

Best of luck!

[quote HireStarter]@Hulkynothunky

Thank you for your support. I don't think @MerylSqueak can understand what I'm saying. She's choosing to pick on parts of my posts and ignore others. Whether that's a comprehension issue or arrogance I'm not sure.

But thanks for the support. Im feeling extremely unconfident around the job search and a bit lost in terms of my identity while not working. So the idiotic posts aren't helpful at all.

You, and many others on this thread, have seriously helped me feel more optimistic and have given me such helpful advice on how to tailor my search better.

Thank you to everyone who's taken time to help :)[/quote]
I don't think you can mean me in fact @HireStarter. I merely made a suggestion as to where OP might look. It's a pretty rude thing to say to anyone though.

What's the difference between working 40h in 4 days and 40h in 5 days? On a practical level?

I went for a full time job and they agreed to 4 days. A while later I dropped to 3 days. They treated me badly during a restructure so that was a good push.

@MerylSqueak I apologise it's @Miseryl who was making the unhelpful posts.

Apologies - will MN ask to delete my response

@MerylSqueak yes sorry I meant another poster, apologies.

My post wasn't as rude as hers have been. It's hard to stay kind when someone goads you when you're already feeling vulnerable.

No worries @HireStarter @Hulkynothunky

I have got 2 different 4 day a week jobs over the past 20 years by applying for a FT then negotiated when I had an offer.
Give it a try