How to Update Your Resume After a Career Break for Motherhood
A step-by-step, expert-led guide for updating your resume after taking a career break for motherhood.
Picture this: Hair up and coffee poured, you crack open your laptop, ready to refresh that old resume after months—maybe even years—out of the workforce. But one scroll through your document is all it takes for your motivation to dissolve, leaving you with the lingering question, Just how do you update your resume after you’ve been a stay-at-home mom?
Incorporating your career pause with corporate experiences to create a strong, employer-ready narrative can be intimidating. After all, there’s no societal guidebook that teaches stay-at-home moms how to re-enter the workforce, making many parents feel anxious, doubtful, and even paralyzed. American Mothers on Pause, a new study from Mother Untitled, found that one in three stay-at-home and downshifted moms are worried about the gap in their resume and that 29 percent are concerned about their diminishing work skills.
As a career coach and resume writer, I rely on three strategies for updating my clients’ resumes when they’re ready to re-enter the workforce after a career break.
3 Strategies for Writing a Resume After a Career Break
Start with a Brain Dump
Begin by documenting all the experiences you’ve had during your career break. Have you volunteered at your child’s school? Helped out a friend who is starting a business? Led a new initiative within your community? Fundraised for a charity? Even if you don’t feel the experience is relevant to your next career move, write it down. I call this a “brain dump”—getting it all out there on paper. There is some element of applicability in every experience—and you will tease it out in future steps.
Use Clear, Strong, Empowering Language
Next, think about how you can reposition the experiences you gained in your career break for a corporate audience. Leverage powerful language to describe skills you’ve gained in this time. Don’t speak in generalities—get specific! For instance:
Did you run the parent committee at your child’s school? If so, use empowering language like this:
Lead, Parent Committee | Led committee of 20+ fellow parents dedicated to enhancing student learning outcomes; pitched new classroom technologies, implemented monthly guest speaker program, and streamlined process for receiving special education services.
Did you help a small business owner with graphic design needs? If so, here’s your text for your resume:
Consultant, ABC Law Firm | Designed standout brand aesthetic for new law firm; encompassed logo, print & digital marketing materials, website color palette, document templates, and more.
Think about how you can reposition the experiences you gained in your career pause for a corporate audience.
Did you fundraise for a charity? If so, include this type of language on your resume:
Volunteer, American Cancer Society | Raised $10,000 for organization through targeted pitches to personal & professional network, social media outreach, and community advocacy.
Subtly Acknowledge Your Career Break on Your Resume
If you have been focused on family during your career break and haven’t had the bandwidth to volunteer or engage in community work, that’s OK too! In that case, I would recommend making the previous experiences on your resume as strong as possible. Use clear, empowering language, and if you have any quantitative metrics to share from your career break (e.g., the size of a team you led, money you fundraised, etc.), be sure to include them. Statistics are always a powerful addition to your resume.
Is It OK to Put “Stay-at-Home Mom” on a Resume?
Of course, there are strong arguments for acknowledging a career break on your resume—and strong arguments for omitting it. I am in the acknowledgement camp: instead of sparking recruiter speculation about a resume gap, confront it head on and note what you were up to during that time (focusing on family). The family piece is especially important—as an employer is not only choosing you, but you are choosing them.
This summary acknowledges a career pause—without force-fitting your learnings into clunky corporate language.
I would advise against adding a separate section on your resume that describes your career pause (e.g., CEO of Smith Family). Instead, you can briefly mention it in the opening profile section of your resume:
Marketing executive with 15+ years of experience. Strong track record of success architecting brand value propositions, ideating & launching high-impact marketing campaigns, and positioning products for global market entry. Eager to jump into a new, dynamic role after a three-year career break focused on family.
This summary acknowledges a career pause without force-fitting your learnings into clunky corporate language. It frames you in a corporate lens, makes note of your career break, and clarifies that you're ready to take on a new challenge.
Re-entering the paid workforce after pausing your career may come with its moments of anxiety and self-doubt. But a sharp resume—one that expertly puts your strengths on display—can offer the confidence boost you need to land a new job with greater ease.
