Taking a career break to raise your family can provide plenty of enrichment, allowing you to slow down and really connect with your little ones during their most crucial years. But it’s also perfectly normal to feel a little nostalgic for the years spent working prior to starting your family.
Thankfully, as your kids start preschool, kinder, and their first years of primary school, you may find you have more time during the day to put towards personal development again, whether that be taking up a hobby that has the potential to generate its own income, or maybe even taking on some casual or part-time work. For parents who are keen to resume their career, and perhaps dive into full-time work, however, refreshing your CV is guaranteed to be a high priority. This is where online study can come into play.
Below, we’ll be outlining some of the top qualifications that can help return-to-work parents revamp their CV, ensuring they rejoin the workforce with current, in-demand skills that transfer organically into their ideal role/s.
Project Management
With professional teams becoming more remote, project management skills have become worth their weight in gold. This is also why so many course providers in Australia are now offering online project management courses.
In these programs, students learn how to manage all the unique points that comprise a project brief, balancing project expectations, scheduling and timelines, as well as task delegation, budgets, performance reporting, and all other relevant points.
In essence, project management qualifications can be similar to an MBA or they can even be stackable with other postgraduate degrees that are foundational for management roles. If you were a business leader prior to your parental leave, refreshing your leadership skills with a project management course may be the right return-to-work strategy for you.
Business Administration
A traditional alternative to project management courses, business administration qualifications are the lifeblood of business managers. These qualifications allow students to gain familiarity with the ins and outs of managing a company or team, covering top-level decision-making like financial management, to leadership theory, conflict resolution, client relationship management, and so many more facets of professional life that business owners and their leadership teams experience on a daily basis.
Qualifications like MBAs (Masters of Business Administration) are often regarded as the gold standard for aspiring company leaders. But it’s important to keep in mind that experience can be just as valuable as having a strong academic background. In other words, if you don’t have the time to commit to a 2-year MBA program, you can still draw from experience with entrepreneurial endeavours. The right employer will definitely still see the value in homegrown experience.
Accounting & Bookkeeping
For return-to-work parents looking for part-time work, accounting and bookkeeping roles offer a lot of benefits. For starters, these roles can be fully remote and operate on a casual or part-time basis.
Qualifications also vary from 3-year undergraduate degrees to year-long certificates. You can get started as a professional bookkeeper with even just a Certificate IV in Bookkeeping, which makes this particular qualification and career pathway very accessible for most busy parents.
Human Resources
Just as a small business owner may invest in a contractor for bookkeeping, so too may they opt for a casual or contract-based HR manager. This is because most small businesses don’t necessarily need a full-time HR staff member – but they can definitely benefit from maintaining access to HR talent.
HR qualifications are also simple enough to attain, and can vary from multi-year degrees to even just a quick 0.5-1 year certificate. The flexibility of HR positions also greatly accommodates young parents looking for roles that offer consistent hours and well-defined expectations week-to-week.
Data Analytics
If you love numbers but aren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of being an accountant, then chances are you’ll find a career in data science or data analytics to be a more compelling fit. As data swiftly becomes the backbone of modern industry, data analytics skills are in strong demand, with plenty of roles available both across small businesses and big companies alike.
Like accounting and bookkeeping, data analytics roles can also be fully remote, which accommodates parents who may prefer working from home rather than factoring an office commute in and amongst their school run. These roles can also vary in scope depending on your preferred work scheduling. You can take on a full-time role as a data analyst with a locally based business, or you can even offer your services on a freelance or contract basis with international clients.
IT, AI, & Cyber Security
AI and cyber security are other burgeoning industries worldwide, with demand for industry skills at an all-time high. Similarly to data analytics, working in IT, AI, or cyber security is also more accessible than you may expect. Course providers across the globe are developing new programs specifically for building skills in these sectors, and there are ample employment opportunities available for the right candidates.
For instance, you can land a role in IT support with even a Certificate IV in Cyber Security. There are also plenty of AI strategy and skills-building courses available that will immediately strengthen the value of your CV for prospective employers looking to navigate their company’s AI transformation.
These roles are also remote-friendly, and are well-positioned to deliver a strong work-life balance, making it a great fit for return-to-work parents with a keen interest in all things digital.
Marketing & Communications
Speaking of digital, the internet is undeniably a global marketplace, and that marketplace is populated by businesses of all shapes and sizes that are looking to cultivate sales. With qualifications in marketing and communications, return-to-work parents can land roles in social media management, digital advertising, digital publishing, and a myriad of other commercially oriented roles that demand a keen understanding of the web.
These roles don’t just have to be strategy or numbers-based either – they can be creative! If you have a strong passion for writing, for instance, you could land good work in copywriting. Have a flair for web design or graphic design? There are plenty of campaigns you can contribute to here as well.
Finding roles in the marketing and communications sector can also be simpler than you think. With freelancer platforms like Fiverr, you can offer your skills at rates that are preferable to you and build up an impressive portfolio pretty quickly. Or you can even find job opportunities through your course provider or university network, ensuring you’ve got work lined up upon receiving your qualifications.
Map out your Return-To-Work Strategy
Whilst the list we’ve provided above is by no means exhaustive, these are amongst some of the most in-demand qualifications that can help return-to-work parents kickstart their new careers following a period of parental leave.
If any of these disciplines and career pathways call out to you, then be sure to look into the types of courses and programs that may be available to you across Australian universities and course providers. With the right study pathway in place, you can hit the ground running with your return-to-work strategising.
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