Our guest blogger, Julie Cole, is a force! She runs Mabel’s Labels,has six kids and, somewhat remarkably, appeared sane and balanced in my short meeting with her at BlogHer2010.  We convinced her to debunk four common myths facing female entrepreneurs …

Maternity leave gives women the opportunity to step away — if only temporarily — from the traditional workforce. But suddenly, baby’s first birthday is around the corner and it’s time to start planning. The questions begin: Where will baby go to daycare? How will I transition from being a stay at home mom to being a working mom?

A strange phenomenon can occur at this point – Mama starts thinking about alternatives.

Julie Cole, mompreneur, with one of her six children, Clancy

Maybe she has an urge to stay-at-home or perhaps a small business idea, which has been nagging at her seems possible. This is where more questions arise. The timing is perfect, but can it happen? What would her family think? How could they afford to have her drop out of the workforce? Is she willing to take the risk? Where would she start?

Speaking as a weathered Mom Entrepreneur, I thought it appropriate to share some of my Mabel’s Labels experiences.

Over seven years ago, Mabel’s Labels was created when I got together with three other moms and we put our clever little business plan into action. Mabel has felt like another child we have nurtured along with our other children.

The 4 big myths

We belong to a huge network of Mama customers, friends and entrepreneurs — here are some of the thoughts that swirl around taking the plunge into becoming a Mom Entrepreneur.

MYTH No. 1: I am going to have more time to spend with my beautiful children. I will be able to talk to customers while the baby naps, breastfeed while reading reports, and go on play-dates around meetings. I may even volunteer at the nursery school co-op a couple of mornings a week!

REALITY: While you may have more time with the children, you don’t actually have more time. What you now have is flexibility. Flexibility is what allows you to drop the kids off at school or go to the park in the afternoon. What it doesn’t do is get your work done and tuck you into bed at a decent hour. Trading time for flexibility has its drawbacks. The play-date you do in the afternoon equals sitting at the computer til the wee hours. The result is a pretty exhausted Mom Entrepreneur, which can make that activity you do with the kids less enjoyable for everyone.

As for thinking you will make phone calls during nap time — you may need to re-consider that one. If your children are like mine, they have an internal sensor that notifies them when there is an important phone call being made. In my experience, this career path is best suited to those who are not too hung up on getting sleep and are very functional without it.

MYTH No. 2: It will be fantastic to be my own boss and set my own rules. I won’t be accountable to anyone or have to report what I’m doing or where I’m going. Bring on the freedom!

REALITY: It’s true you are not likely going to fire yourself, but that is where the job security ends. If you’re not accountable to everyone you have business dealings with, the business will fail. So while there may not be one single boss breathing down your neck, there will be numerous other “bosses” who hold even more power — the ability to make or break your business. At Mabel’s Labels, our list of “bosses” is endless and includes customers, staff, suppliers, business partners, just to name a few. Suddenly one nagging boss doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

MYTH 3: I don’t have the money to start a business

REALITY: Clearly this aspect will be different for every business plan, but don’t assume that because you want to start a business it’s going to cost a bomb. Many Mom Entrepreneurs have started successful businesses on buttons and pocket lint. Women are not inclined to go to banks and get big loans to start a business. We prefer to hit up the people close to us – parents, husbands, partners, neighbors, innocent by-standers. Many successful Mom Entrepreneur start-ups are the direct result of “love money.”

“Many successful Mom Entrepreneur start-ups are the direct result of love money,” says Julie Cole, founder of Mabel’s Labels.

So before writing yourself off as an Entrepreneur, sit down and budget what you need to start your business. You may be surprised by the resources you can tap.

MYTH 4: Working alone will be isolating. I’ll miss interacting with adults and the office social scene.

REALITY: You may not be attending power lunches or catching after work drinks on a Friday, but you are hardly alone. The Internet provides Mom Entrepreneurs endless opportunity to research, network, blog, message and Facebook. It allows you to communicate with customers, peers, colleagues, moms and experts. The best part is no one will ever know that you are doing it all from the comfort of your home while wearing pajamas soaked in sour milk. The Internet provides resources that never clock out. Once ensconced in the Mom Entrepreneur scene, you quickly discover the invaluable network the Internet provides both professionally and socially.

Is the Mom Entrepreneur lifestyle for you? That may be up for debate. It is certainly not for everyone and there is a lot to consider. For me the answer was clear — though you can often find me hunched over my computer well-past midnight, I wouldn’t trade foggy-brained afternoon playdates for anything.

Julie Cole is the Co-Founder of Mabel’s Labels Inc. and the mother of six. She blogs at Mabelhood and the BabyMachine. Find her on twitter: @juliecole

No names is best perhaps

How do you protect the anonymity of  your children online? Do you use fake names or nicknames? Or do you use your children’s real names online?

Consumer Reports recently found that among adult social network users, 38% had posted their full birth date, including year. And 45% of those with children had posted their children’s photos. And 8% had posted their own street address.

It also found 26% of adult Facebook users with children posted those children’s photos and names.

It’s hard to blog or use social networks without mentioning those whom we mother and love. But in our rush to show off our child’s latest achievements … those photos of your darling with a bowl upside down on his head … are we putting the ones we love most at risk?  Are we abusing the online privacy of our children in our rush to show off how cute they are?

Please tell us how you handle this by taking the MomsToWork survey here (no names required ) and we’ll post the results online for everyone to see.

Please take the MomsToWork quiz here before you go. You can read our other post on children’s privacy online here.

Cute expat kids by Shermee on Flickr. Available by Creative Commons License

This guest post is by Nancy Anderson, the author of Job Search for Moms.

Resume is NOT the beginning for moms starting a job search, says Nancy Anderson

When deciding whether to jump back into the workforce, many women think all they need is an updated resume.

Unfortunately, they get to the first heading, and stop typing. They only know what they “used” to do, and they don’t know how to articulate everything that has happened since then.

I see this frustration in many of my job search training sessions. In response, I ask these women:  “What do you really want to do and how can you go about articulating it?”

The first big step in any job search or career change is to put away the resume. That’s the last thing to work on.

Job Search for Moms

You first need to plan and dream,  and take time to think about you and all that you do.

All about you

Before you apply for a job or touch your resume, take some time to reflect and jot down your answers to these questions. Try to do this exercise by yourself. After, ask your friends (ask other moms, too) and family if they have anything to add.

• What did I like about my last job(s)?
• What activities did I enjoy?
• What type of work energizes me?
• What don’t I like to do?
• If I could do anything, what would it be?
• What are my interests?
• What are my values?
• What type of personality do I have?
• What am I really good at?
• What am I really bad at?
• What skills do I have?
• What skills have I developed over the years that I have been at home? (Consider volunteer activities, work with the school, child and elder care, etc)

Nancy’s  book, Job Search for Moms , takes women through the steps needed to identify their strengths, network properly and effectively design their job search or career change strategy.

Follow her on Twitter at Nancy_1.

Bio: Nancy Range Anderson is the President of Blackbird Learning Associates, LLC a company that specializes in job search training. She has over 25 years experience in Human Resources and Learning & Development. Nancy teaches resume preparation, interviewing, networking, and career change tactics to individuals and groups.

MomstoWork’s career coach Aunt Jobby got this question:

Dear Aunt Jobby

How quickly should I apply for jobs? It often takes me a week or so to redraft my resume, cover letter and get the supporting documents together. Is that too slow? Gimme a break, I am a working mom with too many kids …

Sleepless (and overworked) mom in Seattle,

Mary

Dear Sleepless Mom in Seattle,  Stop your whining. You probably have plenty of  spare time. Not! We jest. To find out what Human Resource and recruiters expect, we asked Melanie Chin, a recruiting director with Trilogy Technical Services who said:

Applying for a job is like speed skating in the Olympics: time is of the essence. The faster you are, the more likely you will beat out your competition.

Aunt Jobby suggests: “More haste less speed: Don’t apply so quickly that you crash and burn by missing big mistakes … “

The job market is saturated with hundreds – maybe even thousands! – of job applicants with backgrounds similar to yours, and they may be applying for the same jobs you are.

To get yourself to the top, not only will you need a great resume but you will need to get it to the employer quickly.

What specifically does this mean? As soon as you see a job posted or discuss a position with an employer, HR Manager or Recruiter, make sure to apply no later than 24 hours after seeing or discussing the opportunity.

This does not mean that you should not apply for a job if you noticed that it has been posted for some time. You should definitely apply for any and all positions for which you qualify, regardless of when the positions came out. However, please keep in mind that the more quickly you can apply for a job after it has been posted, the better your chances of being selected for an interview.

Info: Melanie Chin is a Recruiting Director with Trilogy Technical Services in Rockville, MD. She has 10 years of recruiting experience and has extensive experience working with candidates on job hunting, resume writing and interviewing tips.

Got a question about applying for a job? Ask MomstoWork by emailing Julie Power at julie@momstowork.com or post a comment below. We’ll try to get you an answer. And don’t forget to read our posts about returning to work.

Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons license. Photo by JohntheScone

Dear Aunt Jobby

I am rewriting my resume but don’t really know how to deal with a resume gap that occurred a long time ago. About 10 years ago, after a long period of job hunting, I finally landed a job. Within a day, I knew it wasn’t going to work. Within a week, I knew I’d get fired if I didn’t find another job quickly. Because we needed the money, I hung on until the inevitable came Friday afternoon on the fourth week.

I was told to pack up and not come back on Monday. It was clear to me from the very start that it had all been a mistake … a mismatch of skills and personalities.

Should I mention this resume gap in my work history? I got another job a few weeks later and the gap doesn’t really stand out. Now I wonder if a search will spot this resume hole and make me look like a liar? What should I do?”

Jane  D.,  Sacramento, CA

Aunty Jobby’s response:
Poor you. It’s horrible to fear something like this coming back to … dare I say it? … bite you in the rear end. I was stumped by this question, but HR expert, Kris Plantrich of Resume Wonders had very sensible advice.

Got a big black hole in resume?

“Hi Jane, I think since you only worked there a month and it was 10 years ago, I would leave it off your resume. It was such a short period that you worked there and because of the termination and mismatch of the position, it is better to not even include it.

“Also your resume should be a targeted commercial or marketing tool which you use to sell your qualifications and so you want to include only information that is relevant to the position you are applying for. That job probably wouldn’t apply here. Even if it was found out, I don’t think it would be an issue since you were only there a short time.

“If questioned – just be honest about the situation. You can even use it to your advantage and say that since then you’ve learned not to jump so quickly at just ‘any offer,’ it is only a waste of time for both you and the employer. Turning the negative into a positive or learning experience is always a good way to answer interview questions. Good luck.”

Kris Plantrich, ResumeWonders, is the owner of ResumeWonders Writing and Career Coaching services. She is certified in resume writing (CPRW) and career coaching (CCMC) and offers support and services in document development and career coaching services. Follow Kris on Twitter, http://twitter.com/krisPlantrich

Photo:  Photo of a big hole by Sheadonato at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sdonato/ courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons License.

The recession has spawned a growth industry in lay-off tracking sites, which provide a weird and wonderful array of intelligence for any mom looking for work (or any mom’s husband, son, etc.).

Use these sites to find out where the hot, and ice cold, spots are in your industry or area, or to inform your job search when you decide it is time, really, really time, to move on before the ax falls.

Try these sites:

Worried your job is on the line? Try Telonu’s LayOff Tracker, which includes gossip and intelligence on companies that plan to lay folk off … they just haven’t got around to telling them yet. (The site includes job ads, too.)

GeekMBA360 tracks lay offs every day, and includes lots of advice for the newly chopped, minced or diced. Includes a cover letter for a laid off worker.

JoblessandLess promises to help the “employmentally challenged” by listing companies  where you shouldn’t bother sending your resume.

Law Shucks tracks law firm lay offs.

There are many more sites. Don’t know how to find them? Let me Google that for you.

Photo source: Dallas1200am at Flickr under the Creative Commons License. Thanks.

Recently, there’s been a number of stories extolling the virtues of finding a job on Twitter. Such as Job-Hunt.org’s list of The 101 Best Job Search/Career Twitter Accounts Plus 6 and CareerRocketeer’s lists of 150+ Experts on Twitter and 158 places to find your job on Twitter.

And, last but not least, JobMob’s list of over 400+ Twitter Feeds of Job Openings From Around the World.

Whew… That’s a lot of twitterers to follow. Who has time for all that?

You could use the following online tools to aggregate your twitter job search (courtesy of Twitdom)

- Twitter Job Finder

- twtjobs @twtjobs

- twitter jobcast @davidpew

- tweetCruit

- TweetMyJobs

- TwitterJobSearch and the super cool TwitterJobSearch Map.

- Twithire

- Jobfeedr searches listings on major job boards and tweets them.

- Job Shouts

Pondering the future? Agonizing over your resume?

Updated July 1, 2009

Resumes for moms

Think about adding strong verbs to your resume to get hired.

My view: Many women underplay their successes, hesitant to make strong statements about their achievements. Career coach Catherine Palmiere of  Adam Personnel says many people submit lame resumes that don’t use strong verbs to show their achievement or they undersell their abilities.

Don’t pay the   “resume penalty” and miss out on a job. Here’s part two of our series (read part one here, “131 action verbs to beef up your resume” ) of strong resume verbs:

M:  Made, Maintained, Managed, Marketed, Maximized, Mentored, Merged, Met

N: Navigated, Necessitated, Negotiated, Notified, Numbered, Nurtured

O: Observed, Obtained, Offered, Officiated, Opened, Operated, Ordered, Organized, Oversaw

P: Paced, Participated, Performed, Placed, Planned, Prepared, Presented, Produced, Provided, Printed, Proofread, Pursued

Q: Qualified, Questioned, Quoted

R: Ran, Read, Reasoned, Received, Researched, Reported, Resolved, Responded, Retained

S: Spoke, Stared, Submitted, Suggested, Summarized, Supervised

T: Tackled, Talked, Tested, Timed, Trained, Translated, Treated, Trusted, Typed

U: Undertook, Updated, Upgraded, Urged, Used, Utilized

V: Valued, Verified, Viewed, Voiced, Volunteered

W: Weighed, Withstood, Worked, Wrapped, Wrote

X: X Rayed, X-rated and X-cited (joke!)

Y:  Yielded

Z: Zoomed

Catherine Palmiere, is president of HR company Adam Personnel. These action verbs were included in her newest book, Unlocking the Door to Your Career.

Many moms with a fear of paperwork and billing are reluctant to try independent contracting and freelancing.

But now there’s a way to enjoy the fruits of freelancing without the pain of doing your own taxes, invoicing, etc.

Here’s what I’ve discovered … read on slacker moms.

There’s a lot of freelance and contract work out there these days – and depending on your skill-set, it may be a great way to bridge the gap between your previous full-time job and your next great opportunity.

Or it may become your next great opportunity!  By “freelance” and “contract” work, I mean working on a project-basis as a web developer, consultant (many varieties here – social media, business, SEO/SEM, etc…),  writer, journalist, blogger, anything in tv/film/commercial/music production, graphic designer, etc. It really includes anything that involves working as an independent contractor rather than an employee.

But freelancing does come with its share of headaches.

• You are 1099′d rather than W-2′d. English translation: your contract employer doesn’t take out taxes for you and you are expected to pay them quarterly
• You do not receive health or other benefits;  and
• You can’t participate in a 401(k) plan.

Basically, you are entirely on your own.

In my countless hours of twittering and surfing the web, I came across a company that can make freelancing a breeze. They’ll take all the headache away and leave you to do what you do best: your freelance work.

MBO Partners provides independent contractors with the back-office support, tax advantages, and benefits of a W-2 employer (access to an Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield group health plan; Aetna dental, life and disability plans; and an accelerated, tax-advantaged 401(k) plan with Fidelity) without limiting your career independence and the legal hassle of incorporating.

Once you find an assignment, MBO will set up your contract and engage you as a W-2 employee. Then, as you work, MBO will bill your client(s), collect your billings (eliminating a HUGE hassle for you), withhold taxes, give access to excellent group benefits, and reimburse your business expenses. They even cover you under their General and Professional Liability insurance at no cost to you. Click for a summary of the benefits MBO offers.

Of course there’s a Services Fee for MBO’s offerings – at first, they charge 5% of your gross billings. Once they collect more than $125,000 of your billings in any year, your Services Fee goes down to 1.5% for the remainder of that year (based on your anniversary date with MBO). MBO deducts these funds from your online account before calculating your taxes—so the Services Fee is actually a tax deduction.

MBO’s service could make sense for some of you freelancers out there, especially if you’re new to the game and aren’t sure you want to spend the money to incorporate. Or if you need access to all those great benefits …

Editor’s note: This is the ninth installment of “Diary of an Unemployed Finance Mom 2.0.” This story is real, nothing is fabricated. For the sake of her privacy, and her hopes of landing a new job, she’s going under the pseudonym, job mom 2.0. You can read the other posts by clicking on the related posts button below.

Follow her trials and tribulations on Twitter @jobmom

Got a vexing job related issue? Not sure what to put in a resume?

Take advantage of the regular online forums that many newspapers hold with experts. For example, I was just reading the transcript of a great Q and A today on all sorts of job hunting and work related issues affecting working women and moms
on The Washington Post.

Here is just one of the many questions that the Post’s job expert Lily Garcia, an attorney who writes the “How to Deal” column, answered this afternoon.

Washington, D.C. Hi Lily! I am pregnant and do not plan on coming back to work once I have the baby. How far in advance should I inform my employer? I want to be fair in order to give them time to hire a replacement, but I don’t want to tell them too soon either. I’m due at the end of September, if that helps. Thanks!

Lily Garcia: If you tell them about a month before you are scheduled to come back from leave, that should give them enough time to conduct their search. However, keep in mind that they will be under no obligation at that point to keep you on the payroll.

Today’s Q and A featured questions about bad bosses, companies deciding to ban leave without pay, etc.

These columns are well worth reading if you are a job hunter or in a tough spot at work.