Working Mums in Recruitment

Working Mums in Recruitment

Some people may say that working in the recruitment industry and being a mother are very similar because there are lots of highs and lows, good days and bad days, and occasionally you cannot control the outcome no matter how hard you try!

I have worked for Class People for 20 months now and only work 4 days a week. This is not normally heard of in the recruitment industry but we have made it work so I can have a career, as well as being a mum to four young children as well. The key to making it work is organisation and flexibility. It is also interesting to note that in a report published by Business in the Community 52% of employees believed flexible working hours would make them happier. My flexible working, like many other mums, is a necessity rather than to just ?make me happy?.

 

I love being a working mum and it helps that I am super organised. Having exceptional organisational skills is something motherhood has taught me (especially with having triplets), and being able to multitask in the office enables me to always be prepared for any challenge that the world of recruitment throws at me. One of the biggest challenges for me however, is logistics. I spend a fair bit of time juggling hospital appointments, inset days, meetings, holidays and much more, so it?s important to have a strong family / support network that can help me take on each task.

Working for Class People, an education recruitment agency, means no day is ever the same. We look after a variety of schools in Gloucestershire, from small rural school to large inner city schools, dealing with day to day requirements or long term/permanent vacancies but always have teachers ready to work across all key stages.

Being an SME and independent agency, we can offer individual and bespoke plans to our schools, depending on their situation as ?one size, doesn?t fit all?. This works the same for working mums. There are a few of us at Class People and all have different arrangements to suit our personal situations. Our teachers also have the flexibility to work as little or as many days as they wish, again depending on their home lives.  Being able to offer this flexibility then provides staff and teachers to have a healthy work life balance.

Where a typical day can change direction in a heartbeat is exactly the same with motherhood because you never know what will happen next and you are often tested, but watching the children grow up is a wonderful sense of achievement - just like placing a teacher in a permanent role.

As any working mum will know, time, what little you have of it, is precious and I feel to be successful in both areas of your life, it is imperative you split your time well. This is often easier said than done and balancing both is difficult. According to the Business in the Community report, 43.6% of mothers with dependent children are employed full time so this is a large part of our workforce who are juggling two jobs.

One important thing I have learned as a working mum is that you can?t always ?do it all? ? it can be counter-productive as all that happens is you wear yourself out.

If you are a school looking for an agency to create a bespoke package, a teacher looking to work flexible hours around your home life or a recruitment consultant looking to work for a supportive, independent agency, then please contact me for a confidential chat by emailing BeckyO@classpeople.co.uk or call me on 01242 898 124.

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