Any mums in IT? Advice appreciated

[HappyDuck]

I used to work in the IT industry 4/5 years and am looking to return to this industry next year when my 2nd child would be ready to go to nursery. What are my chances of getting a job in the IT industry. How shall I go about contacting employers? What are my chances of an employer giving me a job? Advice much appreciated.

What do you mean by IT industry? Anything particular?

Lots IT recruiting is through agencies. Starting with monster.com is a good place have your CV ready and follow up on some jobs there - then the agents get your name and can fine tune for exactly what you're looking for.

IME IT is perfectly compatible with children.
HTH

I used to work in Development. It was a non- technical role back then but I am aware that it has become a bit of technical role which is not a problem for me.

Catilla why do you say that IT is perfectly compatible with children? I'm thinking the complete opposite...male dominated industry.

Perhaps it depends which part you worked in. Did you work for an IT company or for an IT service within a company whose main focus was not IT?

I've worked within IT in the financial world, and my DH still does. I've also worked in IT/business consulting. I'm a project manager type and have worked part time since having my children (4.5 and nearly 2) without problems. I'd say that as a project manager there was a bit more pressure on me to do a "professional day" ie. stay late if necessary, than there was for developers. Having said that my DH works in an investment bank, and while he works a reasonable day most of the time (sees the children briefly at one or both ends of the day), when the pressure is on I've always felt it was me who'd have to drop everything and be home in time. But he earns a fair bit more than me so I'm happy with that.

I did work with one relatively senior male project manager who worked 4 days/week. Occasionally he'd work on his day off by arrangement, but mainly was pretty fierce about protecting it, and encouraged me to do the same. I also found that many of the men around had small children themselves and though many had SAHM wives, they were reasonably aware of the issues and pretty sympathetic.

Is your role/experience quite generic? I'd think that by shopping around you could find a reasonably family-friendly employer with a job which could cope with part-time or fixed timings if you need to get away for childcare. Another benefit of IT roles is that it's often setup well for working remotely. I work about half-time from home and find it convenient that I can do the odd bit in the evening/weekend if my day has been interrupted or the children are sick.

Tell me more about your previous role if you want my thoughts.

Hi HD! Like Catilla I would say that IT can work relatively well with having a family, reason is that a lot of the jobs seem to allow more flexible working than some other areas seem to. It does vary of course, but I think you are more likely to find flexible start/finish times and ability to work remotely/from home (with childcare though! - not combined with looking after DCs!) than in some other sectors - partly because of the technology; if I have a laptop, internet connection and a phone I can work anywhere and any time! Where I work now is much less male-dominated than when I first started, and loads of the other people have kids so they are usually fairly understanding. The flip side is that some roles involve long hours and sometimes out-of-hours or on-call work, but again that depends on the specific job and company you go for.
If you have been out of IT for a few years, one thing employers may be concerned about is whether your knowledge is out of date as things change so fast in IT - so spending some time reading up on new developments & maybe getting some training would be a good idea if you can, to help you impress at interviews etc. The other big change is that a lot of larger companies are now sending a lot of their technical work (e.g. programming) overseas to save money, so it may be getting harder to find a really technical job, though smaller companies and specialised areas are more likely still to use local people.
Hope that helps and again if you have more details of the sort of thing you did before I may be able to help more.

Hi HD,
I'm looking for a job too. I worked in IT for 6 years (+4 years before that in manufacturing). I've been home for 4 years now with my kids and am desperate to go back.
But everyone I talk to just tell me that they'll 'get back to me'. I've been wondering about volunteering as a website designer/manager/programmer whatever just to have something up-to-date on my CV.
I used to be a Java developer/team leader and so am also thinking of Sun Certification for something uptodate again. But it's expensive and I would rather get a job without - if possible. That's why I've been dithering so long.
Also, all the part time work seems to come after working full time with someone. So would I really get something flexible after all this?

You could try using LinkedIn to find former colleagues - lots of IT people on there - although recruiting has always been mainly through agencies, with less jobs and less money around a lot of firms are offering referral fees to employees who recommend someone.

My experience is all in the IT vendor side, but although male-dominated I would say that it is compatible with children in that most organisations now support/encourage mobile working and the larger firms support flexible working.

I work in IT, in an end-user department. I am lucky in that my employer is very cooperative. I can work from home when I need to. And I spent 5 years working school hours only.

And FWIW I am the only female in the dept. Not been a problem.

It's perfectly possible to work from home IME. Unless you are regularly in a customer-facing role as you might be in a consultancy.