When you’ve spent years of your life wiping bums, managing cookie negotiations, outwitting stall tactics, and juggling naps, the concept of putting yourself out there — whether for a career relaunch or even just a transition — can feel daunting.

You have children on the brain during most waking hours, you’re self-conscious of any gaping holes on your resume, networking seems like a double dare, and especially if you have little to no recent paid experience, your confidence may be at an all-time low.

Seems like a perfect foundation for building a personal brand, right?

Kidding.

But hear me out. Let me tell you why it’s essential for your job search and how to do it, even if you have a gap and all the self-doubt in the world.

WHAT IS PERSONAL BRANDING?

A personal brand is the culmination of things that distinguish you from your job-seeker competitors: it is a reflection of your unique skills, passion, values, work strengths, personality traits, and unique experience(s), accomplishments, abilities, and soft skills, among other things. It’s a marketing tool — a strategy — for your candidacy that encapsulates who you are, what makes you unique, how you solve problems, and what solutions you offer a target company to reach their goals and achieve their mission.

A personal brand is a “career identity” with a dynamic message: a unique value proposition to prospective employers. A powerful personal brand delivers a clear solutions-focused message that is impactful and captivating.

You might feel unworthy of “be”-ing a brand. Or, this all might be a bit of a turn-off. Trust me, I used to think personal branding was foolish and fake — synonymous with embellishment. You may be thinking, as I did:

I am not a brand.

I do not want to market myself.

I do not want to whip up a fake version of myself.

I want to honor my whole self and what I bring to the table without trying to be someone I’m not.

I get it.

One thing I’ve learned about personal branding — within the context of a job search — is that I can be true to myself while curating a relevant message toward a target role.

I see personal branding in two parts: Authenticity and Curation. When it comes to personal branding as a jobseeker, you need to both build and inhabit an impactful brand that lands call-backs.

Here are four delightful things to understand about your personal brand:

1.         You have one, whether you realize it or not. Whether you think it’s silly or not. We all have a personal brand that follows us around in the world. Simply put, it’s your reputation. The things you’re known for.

2.         If you decide not to communicate clearly what you’re about, you’ll blend in. If you decide to craft a targeted message about solutions you offer to employers, you’ll stand out.

3.         You’re in charge of it. You get to ensure it’s authentic, relevant, and that you’re content to embody/inhabit this version of yourself, in this particular season.  It doesn’t need to be flashy or “loud” (unless you want it to be). It simply needs to be clear, concise, and intriguing.

4.         It grows and changes with you. It’s never set in stone.

WHY DO I NEED IT?

Your interview chances are nil unless you stand out from other applicants. Google any stat about your chances of landing an interview, and it won’t inspire confidence. For applicants with resume gaps, take that number and reduce it again. Caregiver bias is alive and well, even in a pandemic-era hiring landscape riddled with resume gaps. So crafting a message to employers that flies in the face of their assumptions is essential. That means having a fleshed-out personal brand that highlights your strengths/passions and signals what you stand for, what you’ve accomplished, and what you’re capable of achieving.

This message will infuse your LinkedIn profile and will be present in your headline, in your professional summary, and in your emails and direct messaging you do for networking purposes.

And as an extra bonus, knowing what you’re about and what you offer is a huge boost to your self-worth and keeps your job search laser-focused.

But other than being a mom, what, exactly, *are* you about?

Figuring this out requires time to reflect, a bit of soul-searching, a list of solid questions, a few trusted people to be a sounding board, and good ol’ strategy.

HOW DO I CRAFT A PERSONAL BRAND?

For moms with a hiatus from professional paid work or with a career pivot in mind, building a personal brand is a two-step process.

Step 1: AUTHENTICITY

Take inventory by asking yourself the following questions and brain-dumping your honest answers. This initial phase is a sketch of your overarching personal brand. It’s the umbrella for all the possibilities. You are a dynamic individual, likely with multiple passions, skills, unique experiences, and achievements. Jot them all down. They don’t all have to make sense or come together seamlessly yet. This part should be fun! But if it’s not, and you’re at a loss, enlist a trusted friend or partner to help you out.

Write down the facts as well as your thoughts and observations about your:

•           Passions and interests

•           Education and work experience

•           Unpaid care work and volunteer work

•           Personality

•           Goals and aspirations

•           Values and mission

•           Strengths and skills

Answer these Qs:

What are you known for?

What motivates you?

Why are you unique?

What do you bring to the table?

Who do you want to influence?

What elements of your personality make you you?

Think back to your pre-baby professional experience, think about your unpaid or volunteer experiences and the people who have worked closely with you and reflect:

Do you have a reputation for something specific?

What do people say about you when you’re not in the room?

What do they say when you *are* in the room?

What do co-workers or teammates appreciate most about you?

What did colleagues or bosses say about you at your last jobs?

What does upper management or leadership appreciate most about you?

What do your neighbors say about you?

What do your community members (school, drop-in centers, library, moms-n-tots groups, faith groups, etc.) say about you?

What do trusted friends or family members say about you?

Once you’ve had a chance to jot down the answers to these questions, you might identify some themes, or you might see a whole lotta jumbled up unrelated pieces of your life on paper. Whatever you’ve got will be a great foundation.

Completing this first step – jotting down everything that comes to mind when asking yourself the above questions – is a huge task. Congrats! You’re ready for the next phase. It’s time to curate.

When creating a targeted resume for the role you’re after, you’ll take your “master resume” and select only relevant items (as opposed to cramming it with every single skill and experience you’ve ever had). In the same way, when you build a personal brand, you’ll take your “umbrella brand” and select the elements that will strengthen a personal brand that are relevant to the role(s) you’re after.

It’s about curating for relevancy. Not curating for dishonesty, to be someone you’re not, or to hide behind pretense. It’s about putting your best foot forward. It’s about your solutions offer.

What’s a solutions offer? This is your application trio (resume, cover letter, LinkedIn presence). Stop thinking compartmentally about a resume, letter, LinkedIn profile. Think holistically about your application trio as a clear, targeted message: a unique value proposition. What solutions do I offer? How do I solve problems? What have I accomplished? What am I capable of? What makes me unique? All within the context of specific industry trends, target companies, target roles. All three elements of your application will complement each other to accomplish one strategic message: “I’m the candidate you need for this role; these are the solutions I offer to help take company X to the next level, make money, save money, save time, improve efficiency, or make a bigger impact.”

Step 2a: PRE-CURATION

Now it’s time to narrow your focus to a particular type of role you’ll be applying to (based on strengths, skills, passion, etc.) and then curate your brand toward that target role. A personal brand must be relevant to the type of job you’re after.

You’ve got about seven seconds to win over a decision-maker. A personal brand will streamline and synthesize things for them on your application documents, and make it easier for them to say “yes” to a call-back or interview.

Avoid a “Where’s Waldo” application, sending recruiters and hiring teams on a hunt to piece together what you’re about. Do the legwork for them. Make it easy.

You’ll need a key message, or unique value proposition — an intriguing and irresistible solutions offer.

Many re-entry parents and career transitioners aren’t quite sure what role would be the best fit. I get that. Here’s what to do:

With the skills you identified in your “umbrella brand,” do a bit of sleuthing. There are a ton of free tools on the internet that will match your skills to particular roles or will suggest career paths according to personality traits and strengths. This will give you a place to start.

1. Free career assessment tools          
2. Career quizzes to help you find your dream job        
3. Free career aptitude and assessment tests        
4. Even more career aptitude tests

Also, it’ll be super helpful to do a few informational interviews, especially if you’re looking at roles in an industry you’re unfamiliar with, or if you’ve been out for a long time and would appreciate a refresher in terms of “a day in the life.”

Reaching out to someone cold for an informational interview can feel daunting. I’ve put together a guide and email template you can use here.

If you’re considering positions that are super outside of your umbrella skillset, you’ll need to upskill and then craft a brand that connects the dots to show how you’re the perfect fit in the new role:

What diverse perspectives or experiences do you bring?

What have you achieved that translates to the new role?

What transferable skills are relevant?

What new/innovative/unexpected insight can you offer that brings value?

What courses have you taken or what projects are you working on to sharpen skills required for this role?

When considering roles, companies, industries, along with your skill set, also consider:

–   the season of life you and your children/family are in

–   the bandwidth you’ve got within it

–   the strength of your support system

–   what your long-term goals are

–   your list of non-negotiables (location, remote, benefits, hours, values alignment, etc.)

This will help to narrow down your potential role matches.

Step 2b: CURATION

Once you *know* the job/role/industry you’re after, then you curate your brand. This means review the job postings, and take note of the key words, skills and experiences they’re looking for. You likely won’t tick all the boxes, but if you’ve got 60% or more of what’s listed, that’s a good sign!

Pluck the things from your umbrella brand that align with your target role(s) to start crafting a personal brand message.

Does what you wrote down align with the way you want to present yourself professionally, when you think about the role(s) you plan to apply for?

If not, how would you change it?

What action can you take to move towards the personal brand you want to embrace, identify with, and put into the [professional work] world?

The result should be authentic and something you are fired up about, something that uniquely encapsulates “you” — a you that people see, and a you that you want people to see.

Here’s an example. Maybe one of your children had a health issue that you managed for several years. If this experience and skill is relevant to the role you want, weave it in.

Here’s a mom who writes poetry (for fun, catharsis, creative outlet) and wants to land a data analytics role within healthcare. She’s currently upskilling in data analysis, taking free courses online. Her personal brand statement (that she can insert as her LinkedIn headline) might sound something like this:

Healthcare data analyst with 7 years in disease management | Telling stories with numbers helps avoid blunders | Type 1 Diabetes expert | Intrinsically motivated, data-obsessed | Poet | In a relationship with SQL & Python

It’s quirky, out there, clearly communicates what she’s about, solutions she offers, and how she’s unique. It’s fun and witty, and contains relevant keywords. She may want to switch up the order. She may want to make it less quirky. She may want it to speak directly to one target company based on their goals, mission, struggles found through company research and items outlined in the job description … Lots to play around with!

Also: She may not feel comfortable calling herself a “data analyst” quite yet. However, if she’s applying for a data analytics role and she’s upskilling to sharpen that skillset, then upon landing the role she’ll be a data analyst.

Take home message: don’t hesitate to use the job title of the role that you’re  applying for.

Lastly, putting a face to a name makes you stand out among other applicants. You may not want to upload a photo to your LinkedIn profile (many valid reasons for this), but if you choose the photo route, picking one that increases your likability might very well be the icing on your personal brand cake. 

Hot tip! A personal brand with a photograph on LinkedIn will rank you higher in recruiter searches and get you more overall views. And the cherry on top of your personal brand? A smile. Check out the test here, where my smiling photo received a likability rating 2x better than a non-smiling one.

CONCLUSION

Navigating a job search as a mom — whether re-entering the workforce or making a career change — is hard work, but worth the effort. Crafting a personal brand will immediately elevate your candidacy on LinkedIn, on your resume and cover letter, and in your networking. Plus, the image-boost comes full circle, infusing you with confidence and ease in reaching out.

·  LinkedIn is the largest professional networking site on the planet. A clear, strategic, targeted message makes you easy to spot.

·  A resume (and cover letter) laser-focused and infused with your brand will stand out.

·  Networking fans the flames of your application; without it, even a good resume can fall through the cracks and decision-makers quickly lose interest. Your personal brand is the springboard to these conversations.

If your job-search hasn’t gotten you very far, or you’re just starting out, give it a try — you’ve got nothing to lose.

Now, go and build a personal brand and kiss that self-doubt good-bye.

Rebecca Joy Tromsness is a workplace re-entry educator and job search coach based in Toronto. Follow her on LinkedIn here and reach out to her anytime at hello@joybeforework.com.

Your manager hands you a stretch assignment or even better, gives you a promotion. But all you feel is a nagging sense of doubt about your own ability — like a Greek chorus warning: “You’re not ready for this!”

Getting a vote of confidence from our leaders should leave us feeling more confident and powerful than ever, shouldn’t it? For many women, it actually does just the opposite, giving us intense pangs of self-doubt. We criticize our own performance, convinced we’re not measuring up, even when we’re getting good feedback.

Why is this happening? 

Meet Your Inner Critic

Some self-doubt is natural when we take on new responsibilities. After all, we may not have 100% of the skills and experience we need going in. A little fear can even be useful when it motivates us to assess our gaps and make a plan to fill them.

But sometimes the voice of self-doubt can feel more like an unruly backseat driver. Researchers tend to call that negative, critical voice our “inner critic.” Everyone has one.

But, bottom line: if self-doubt leaves you anxious at the end of the day, or second-guessing what you (or colleagues) say in meetings, then you’ll want to learn to turn the volume down on that inner noise.

Sometimes the inner critic is strong enough that it begins to undermine our confidence. Known as Imposter Syndrome, it’s characterized by strong feelings that we’re a fraud, and that others will eventually find out the “truth” about our abilities. And it can start to impact our performance at work. 

This was the case for my client Erin*, who secured a coveted promotion to the executive VP ranks of her firm. On the surface, it was a crowning achievement of her decade of success in a heavily male-dominated field. But her smile felt forced. She felt like all eyes were on her, waiting to see if she measured up to her new title.

Instead of relaxing and enjoying her upgraded role and salary bump, Erin was feeling more pressure than ever. In meetings, she scoured the faces of her new peers for signs they might be doubting her performance. She resisted sharing her own ideas, worried that she might say the thing that would expose her as woefully unprepared for her new duties. Ironically, she was probably the most prepared person in the room; the constant self-doubt led her to double-down on the amount of time she spent shoring up her knowledge and double-checking presentations. But the extra time at work also meant less time with her five-year-old daughter, and an embarrassingly short fuse when she was at home.

She started to wonder if the promotion had even been worth it. In her old role, she knew her stuff, and hadn’t needed to work this hard. She even considered trying to get her old job back.

We worked together to quiet her inner critic, so that she could begin to see herself as the trailblazing leader that others saw.

The Role of Bias

Imposter syndrome is regularly “diagnosed” in women in leadership roles. Even high achieving women who have collected prestigious degrees and titles aren’t immune from feeling it. 

Early psychological research led many leadership scholars to conclude that imposter syndrome was some sort of pathology. If they could just “fix” their imposter syndrome, the thinking went, these people could stop doubting themselves and start feeling happy, confident, and fulfilled.

But new research suggests that imposter syndrome is not some sort of failing. If anything, it’s a sign of how finely tuned our internal radar is. If you’ve been socialized as a woman, you’ve likely absorbed big and small cultural messages about who belongs in leadership and who doesn’t. This can be as subtle as the holiday newsletter picturing the all-white, all-male executive team. Or it can be a pattern of how women are treated in meetings.

In the Harvard Business Review, Ruchika Tulsyan and Jodi-Ann Burey assert, “Many of us across the world are implicitly, if not explicitly, told we don’t belong in white- and male-dominated workplaces.” 

In cultures that routinely insinuate that female leaders are less capable, and that working mothers are more expendable, it’s not surprising that we end up questioning whether we really measure up.

So, it’s helpful to understand that feeling like an imposter often has roots in real biases. And yet, that doesn’t mean we’re stuck feeling this way.

Taming the Inner Critic

The most common advice for dealing with your inner critic is “fake it til you make it.” Or maybe you’ve been encouraged to recite affirmations of how amazing and smart you are. The trouble with this advice is that it doesn’t do much to address the real anxieties and pressures that come up when we’re working outside our comfort zone.

So, what can you do to regain your mojo?

1) Learn to identify the voice of your inner critic

Listen in and learn to identify the voice of your inner critic. You’ll probably realize that the voice of the imposter typically offers a predictable monologue of a few doubt-inducing phrases. Maybe it says, “you have no idea what you’re doing,” or “they probably think you’re clueless.” 

You might even give that voice a name. One colleague of mine calls hers Frank. She’ll then tell herself, “Oh, there goes Frank again, telling me my work isn’t good enough.” Calling out your imposter voice can remind you that it isn’t the voice of truth. It’s just good old Frank, like the reliably cranky uncle at your holiday dinners.

2) Question internalized messages about your capabilities

Once you understand how your inner critic speaks to you, consider where it got its script. When you notice the critic in your ear, ask yourself, “What is it that I’ve heard or experienced that’s making me want to believe that voice?” 

Question whether you truly believe those outside messages. Chances are, you don’t. 

3) Seek out diverse role models and mentors

Part of what can make our inner critic so pernicious is feeling like we don’t have a place to share our doubts or any help navigating them. Imposter feelings aren’t something we can easily discuss with our colleagues or friends… and certainly not our bosses. 

Tulsyan and Burey posit that those socialized as men often benefit from a built-in network of colleagues who look like them. Those networks can offer encouragement and advice at critical moments. Having that support and camaraderie may help men to view doubt as a normal phase of growth, and allow them to move through it more easily.

Women may have to work harder to build those support systems, but they’re no less important. If your workplace isn’t teeming with a diverse set of successful role models — and let’s be honest, few places are — then it’s time to expand your circle. Women’s leadership groups, a trusted mentor, an experienced coach, or even a supportive alumni organization can provide steadfast support to help you move through challenging circumstances. 

4) Recall your options and resources

Even in a recession, your current gig is probably not the only game in town. If your imposter is right — unlikely, but let’s go there — and you’re not cut out for your work, remind yourself of the skills and abilities you have to fall back on, the things that got you this far in your life and career. When clients do this exercise, they often discover that they have options —  usually a lot of options. Seeing how resilient, resourceful, and capable you are can take the pressure off and get you back into the zone of enjoying your current opportunity to learn and grow.

If you start hearing your own inner critic, these steps can help you successfully manage it. In fact, learning to silence that negative voice can shore up your confidence to take on even bigger challenges down the road.

Shawna Samuel, MBA is the founder of The Mental Offload, an executive coaching firm focused on the unique needs of women balancing leadership and family responsibilities. She is also the host of The Mental Offload podcast.

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I was a stay-at-home mom. When my sons were young, I stepped away from my 10-year advertising sales career to become my family’s primary caregiver and household manager. With no roadmap for my career pause, I took a leap of faith. The days were long and often tedious. And at times, I felt conflicted about how I was spending my time and energy. But to this day, I have zero regrets — my memories of those years are filled with some of my sweetest moments. 

After an 8-year break from the traditional workforce, my younger son started Kindergarten. And the next day, I dove head-first into rebooting my career. While I was away, the media and advertising landscape as I’d known it had changed, so I embarked on a crash course to get savvy. But I was confident that the skills and strengths that drove my success in v1 of my career would serve me in v2. Plus, I’d built new skills and grown immensely during my most significant and challenging role ever — motherhood. 

Within a few months and after many conversations with people in my extended network, I landed a sales role with a small advertising technology company. And a few months after that, I left for a dream job at Facebook, where I spent eight transformative years. How did I do it? 1) I leveraged my network near and far, connecting with people with whom I hadn’t spoken in years, 2) I was fortunate to encounter leaders who, despite my career pause, were willing to take a chance on me, and 3) I truly believed that I was more capable and empowered than ever and that anything was possible.

By sharing my story, I hope to help normalize career breaks and embolden women to embrace hitting the pause button. So whether you’re taking a break, considering one, or planning your reentry to the workplace, here are some of the lessons I learned along the way.

Cherish the time and have trust in yourself

If you’re taking a pause, trust your decision and honor the time wholeheartedly. This is a precious time for you and your family, so make the most of it. Your capacity, strength, smarts, and skills will not diminish! Trust that you’ll be able to access everything you need and more when the time comes. When I was uncomfortable and conflicted, I worked hard to stay engaged in the experience of being a full-time stay-at-home mom. And I had faith that I would figure out my next move when the time was right.

Keep your interests and strengths alive

If you want to do unpaid or volunteer work during your break, be strategic about your choices. I made a special effort to seek out unpaid projects that leveraged my experience, strengths, and passion points. For example, I wrote restaurant reviews for a friend’s start-up food website and helped with a monetization strategy. I also volunteered my time working for the marketing director of a local youth crisis center, and was part of the leadership team responsible for rebuilding our community playground. 

Whatever your choices, take pride in that work, and make it part of your career highlights. Showcase your volunteer achievements using LinkedIn’s recently launched Career Breaks tool, designed specifically to “make it easier for candidates and recruiters to have open conversations around the skills and experiences professionals amass away from the traditional workplace.”  

Build a support network

When you embark upon your return to work, invest in a coach to help you clarify your strengths and skills, define what you want, and chart your path. Even when it feels uncomfortable, push yourself to schedule coffees, lunches, calls, and walks with anyone you can learn from and be inspired by. The work I did with my coach in the months leading up to my reboot was essential to building my confidence and believing in what I could do next.  

Commit to your story

As you’re considering returning to work, become crystal clear on your path to date, your distinct qualities, experiences, and skills, and what you want to do in the next chapter. Write it down, practice saying it aloud, and get feedback from trusted advisors. This is your story, and your ability to articulate it compellingly is vital as you launch your career reboot. I knew that I wanted to return to a role similar to the one I had left eight years prior and that I was capable of stepping back into it. I wasn’t willing to settle for a position that didn’t meet, if not challenge, my capacity and skills. This clarity allowed me to achieve my goals.

Be unapologetic

When interviewing for new roles, own your story, and make no apologies for the time you took off. Contrary to what many may fear, pausing our careers to spend more time with our families makes us better employees and leaders. We’ve gained invaluable perspective, become wiser and more adaptable, and tackled a new set of challenges. Here’s the authentic story I told and continue to tell: I’m grateful for having had the privilege to take a career break and spend more time in my kids’ lives. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And now, I could not be more excited for the next chapter and to get back to work. Next question!

The prospect of taking a break or planning your return to work can feel both daunting and exciting. I encourage you to create your own playbook and stay open to the possibilities. And don’t apologize — it’s okay to take your foot off the gas. Finally, have trust that you’ll find your way back when you’re ready. I’m rooting for you.

Kerry Barlas is the Founder/CEO of KBar + Co, a sales coaching and advising firm. You can reach her at kerry@kbarandco.com.