Salary Before I Had Children was X now returning after 5 years should I ask for Y?

[naughtynoonoo]

Thinking about returing to working after staying at home for 5 years to have children.

Will be going through an agency who are gonna ask me what my expected salary is, do I say what it was 5 years ago, or do I allow for inflamation (is that the right word????). Hope somebody can help on here - many thanks

allow for inflation - ask for the going rate

If you have kept up to speed with your career or training then allow for inflation if not then realistically your best would be roughly what you earned before.

thats the word I was looking at - inflation - I just couldn't think. When I allow for inflation do I do that xthe number of years I have been away??

Unfortunately I found that after returning to work after only 2 years out there was no way I could find anything paying as much as my old salary - which was about £24k.

This was partly because I wanted to work part-time, and part-time jobs pay peanuts, generally, unless they are jobshares linked to a specific skill / scale of pay.

The best I could find was £16k but I took it because the job fits in with my life, exployer is v. flexible, good benefits, and I'm sort of hoping to work back up again over the next few years.

I would definitely tell them what you used to earn, but depending on the hours you want etc, be prepared for them to tell you you won;t get it.

Sorry to post such a neagtive response but the reality of trying to return to work after a career break is a complete scandal, imo.

i think your old rate plus inflation a bit. if you are up to speed with it, maybe allow for a sideways move otherwise? I have tried looking for p/t work now (after freelancing for 6 years) and I can't hope tpo match my old salary I fear. Hoping for something interesting which I can explain on my CV as getting me up to speed with new developments.

I am with frayedknot and sobernow, what I earn these days is criminal.

But it fits in with school hours and I don't work Friday's.

I think that you need to find out what the goign rate is for someone with your experience taking into account any retraining you might need. Sometimes slaries vary by factors other than inflation (eg jobs are very scarce which can depress salaries, or candidates are very scarce pushing up salaries).

Don't be too hard on yourself. I left work on $240K 4 years ago and have just gone back at $200K pro rata. I probably could have gotten closer to the old salary but location and part-time was very important to me. What I take away from it is that it really depends on how bouyant the employment market is right now for your kind of skill set. I think being a bit older actually helps with the credibility too and I would honestly say that I have learned a lot in the intervening years as a biproduct of being a SAHM especially on the communications front.