Barbara is so gracious with her time
and she's gonna help two of our viewers today.
Ashley.
Hi, Ashley.
Hello beautiful. Hi.
Ashley take it away the floor is yours.
What is your question?
So I thank you so much for having me.
So I am a physician assistant.
I left my job in January of 2020,
and I was actively interviewing when the pandemic hit.
My husband is an essential worker and our daycare closed
so I had to forgo all my other interviews to stay home
with our children who are now six, four, and two.
During that time I dove into women's advocacy
and created a company called Working Mom Notes
and it has developed a pretty large Instagram following.
It does make some money, but now
I think I wanna get into maybe journalism or politics
so what's your best advice for re-entering the workforce
do I address this gap in my resume
and are there skillsets that I can add to my resume
based on my job as mother?
Barbara, this is a great one.
This is such a layered question take it away.
Okay. Well, first of all Ashley,
the hardest part of change for everybody,
everyone without exception is getting it started
you've already done that
you did that leaving the workforce
and caring for your children
and now you've already committed to making another change.
So far as your children and why you left
you should not be afraid of that
put it front and center on your resume
as a last job position,
I cared for three children under six during the pandemic.
Employers today are a lot more understanding
they're not gonna hold that against you
I mean, who doesn't get that one?
The next thing very importantly,
is you have a magic ticket to get pretty much any position
not any position but any company
to listen to you with your talent,
you're able to build a big social media following,
people can't do that easily
you should think of yourself as to what you are,
what you core competence is because of that experience,
which is you're content creator.
A content creator is the best paid person
in any kind of business today
when you're entering that workforce.
There's a shortage of talent,
and every business is willing to pay for it,
and every business needs it
it's not an option anymore.
So you should put your Instagram work
front and center of your resume
like it's an official job because it was,
you built your own business from scratch
in an area that very few people can do.
So far as where do you wanna work?
Make a list of your 10 dream companies
people who represent to you or believe in your beliefs,
share your beliefs that oh, I'd love to work for them
because I'd love to work for them
in whatever field you want
over and beyond the two fields you mentioned
and what you'll get for that is you'll get a response
and if you look and see if they have a position open
and they don't have a content creator position
write to them, and make them know that you adore them
and you really wanna work for them.
You're in a great position
I almost envy your position I wish I was your age
all over again getting started.(laughs)
And up next is Claire.
It's an email question.
I just opened my business a hair salon
called The Pink Sweet in Chicago.
My ultimate goal is to create a salon that offers benefits
oh, how lovely
to our stylists, 401k, healthcare
extremely rare in the salon industry.
I can't offer that upfront yet
how do I attract and keep the best talent?
Another great question.
Man, our viewers are crushing it today.
These are great ones.
Toughies for you though. (laughs)
Okay well, the first most important thing
is you should focus on what you can offer right now
versus what you can't
gets you in trouble.
Don't start with a promise
that you might not be able to deliver later
'cause it creates a tremendous loss of morale.
Oh, but we thought we were going to get this.
No you don't wanna go there.
What everybody wants today
in which you're in the position to offer
if you're employing people is a flexible work schedule
it's top of everybody's list,
and a fun place to work.
So in that field, a flexible work schedule
would be one week off a month or one weekend off a month
because it's not given often at all
maybe offering coffee and breakfast every morning
and lots of notes and got a boy, got it girl, good a girl,
whatever that expression is.
I appreciate you doing this, doing that,
a lot of positive feedback that you can offer
and those are the big things that people want.
They want flexibility and they want a fun place to work.
Number one, number two.
(air whooshing)