The Transferrable Career Skills That Come From Being A Parent

Too often, parents get a bad rep in the workplace. The need for reduced hours, time off in the holidays, and a lack of overtime can certainly set childless colleagues grumbling. But, even if they can’t stay as late as the rest of the team, parents stand to bring some amazing skills to the workplace.

After all, few careers are more full-on and require as many skills as parenting. Instead of pushing your parental status to the side when it comes to progressing in your position or seeking a new career, it could be helpful to think about those skills, and how they transfer to your working life. Then, you can include them on your CV, and find practical ways to apply them to your working position. 

Let’s look at just a few of the parental skills that you should start transferring. 

 

# 1 – Crisis management 

Does anyone know how to handle a crisis better than a parent? Probably not. From bumps and scrapes to sibling arguments and meltdowns, parents have to find flexible and fast ways to deal with at least ten crisis moments every day. 

Crisis management also happens to be a highly sought-after business skill. Business owners value colleagues who can handle anything from customer complaints to power downs and even security breaches with a cool, calm, and confident head. Include this on your CV, or step forward when crisis strikes in your existing role, to prove just how powerful it can be for a manager to have parents on their team. 

 

# 2 – Industry insights

Most people only know about the things they’re interested in, but parents have to become experts in everything from trains to dinosaurs and way beyond. Admittedly, your in-depth knowledge of Thomes the Tank Engine is unlikely to be of any real help at work. But, there are ways to swing your niche knowledge so that an employer takes note. 

Particularly if you’re looking for a new career, your position as a parent could help you sell educational posters, enter childcare fields, or even just suggest product improvements with a young audience in mind. In your existing career, your newly broad parenting knowledge base could be useful for attracting a younger audience, expanding product reach, and more. Simply think about what being a parent has taught you, and how that varied knowledge base could apply to your industry on the whole. 

 

# 3 – Communication

It might be a cliche to mention how being a parent improves communication, but this is a point worth reiterating until it sinks in. No one, and we mean no one, is as good at communicating as a parent. After all, if you want to get through to a stubborn toddler, you need to get pretty creative about how you make your point, and how you negotiate their interest. 

In a lot of ways, clients who don’t want to buy from a brand are a lot like stubborn toddlers – they’re simply not interested in playing ball. So, the same communication skills can be invaluable here. One day, you might be coaxing your toddler to eat their vegetables with gentle parenting techniques, the next you’re closing on a huge deal by simply meeting a client where they’re at, instead of giving it the hard sell. And, that makes you someone that any manager will want on their team. 

 

# 4 – Time management

With the rise of things like remote working, the time management that already mattered a great deal to the working day has become even more important. Employers need people who can prioritize tasks and get everything done in the time given. And, no one can do that better than a parent. 

After all, as well as managing your own time, any day of parenting involves trying to fit small, stubborn people into a schedule that includes meal times, naps, and baths before bed. Any day you go out with the kids, you’re managing time like a pro, often completing a million tasks before you head out for the day. By comparison, something as simple as organizing a daily work to-do list will feel like a walk in the park. If anyone’s qualified to list ‘time management’ as one of their work-based skills, it’s most definitely you. 

*This is a collaboration post