Sydney Williams has a busy life as a marketing director and the mom of two boys under 3. Despite the hard work she puts in balancing motherhood and her career, she’s seen firsthand how the experience of raising kids is often undervalued at the office. After being shocked by reports that show more and more women are being forced out of the workforce during the pandemic, Williams decided to create a resume that shows exactly what skills women gain from being mothers and why more of them deserve a seat at the table.
“I was curious what my resume would look like if I rewrote it with only the skills I’ve learned as a new mother,” Williams writes in a viral post on LinkedIn. “Here is what I wrote.”
Williams’ “new mom resume” includes vital skills every parent can relate to, like doing everything with one hand because you’re holding a baby or always thinking 10 steps ahead to make sure you’re ready for anything. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” she writes, “but I adapt. I maintain the highest level of creativity and energy I can muster so the people around me feel safe, valued and inspired.”
Other skills on her resume include qualities and traits suited to almost any workplace. Williams list things like:
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I maintain positivity when my patience is pushed to the limit.
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I lead with empathy.
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I communicate powerfully and prolifically.
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I am in constant search for a better way.
Many moms probably haven’t considered just how many skills they actually use in getting through a single day of parenting, but Williams emphasizes the teamwork, creativity, forward thinking and initiative required to be a good parent.
“You can find me iterating on everything from process improvements, to product development to communication tools,” she says. “I forge and foster relationships between diverse groups of people in order to support, elevate and maintain life among my team (looking at you #MomsGroupChat).”
Williams’ post has gotten over 2,000 likes and resonated with hundreds of moms on LinkedIn. “This last week in particular, I felt overwhelmed by the lack of formal experience and skills I hold within the job market,” one mom writes in the comments. “Reading this post, I was reminded of my incredible skills in being a mother to three children. Thank you!”
“The competition for top talent is fierce even in a pandemic,” another person writes. “I hope your post inspires women to reimagine their skills and pursue better opportunities with confidence and conviction.”
The past year has been impossibly difficult for working women and mothers. Since the start of the pandemic, women have lost nearly one million more jobs than men, according to the Center for American Progress. In December alone, women in the U.S. lost 156,000 jobs, and the latest jobs report shows that another 275,000 women left the workforce in January.
Though U.S. unemployment is slowly declining, women — especially women of color — are not regaining their jobs as quickly as men. While the overall unemployment rate fell to 6.3% in January, it rose to 8.5% for Black women who are 20 and older and 8.8% for Hispanic women in the same age group.
Some working moms are dealing with an ongoing lack of child care, and many work in industries, like retail and hospitality, that are experiencing continued cuts during the pandemic. But it’s clear that in at least some cases, women are also simply being passed over for opportunities, and Williams is tired of it. She knows how hard moms work and how capable they are. She wants society to see that too.
“I have no doubt that the moms within the 156,000 women who left the workforce in December hold many, many more of the evasive skills we look for in our teams, colleagues and leaders,” she writes. “Something is fundamentally, catastrophically broken if we are letting this type of talent leave the workforce. Perhaps if we shift the way we evaluate, prioritize, develop and protect the skills we learn outside of the office, moms would have a fighting chance.”
