How to List Maternity Leave on Your Resume (+Examples)

Parents – moms and dads – who take time off to raise children often struggle to figure out how to explain the resultant gap in their resume.

Obviously, prospective employers want to know why you weren’t working during certain periods of your life. They need to know that you’re a reliable candidate who will be there when they need you. So, how should you explain gaps in employment when you’re a stay-at-home mom or dad?

Well, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, you’ll learn how to list maternity leave on your resume and also find examples of bridging the gap between working and not working by leveraging useful keywords and skills you’ve learned during your time at home.

Should you include details about your maternity leave?

The first thing to mention is that you don’t have to provide every single detail about why you were out of the workforce. All you need to do is explain the gap, especially if your time outside the workforce was more than a few months.

Expert Tip

Keep your explanation simple and to the point, focusing on skills and achievements you had that will emphasize your value to prospective employers.

A keep-it-simple example:

Work sabbatical | MM/YYYY-MM/YYYY: Became a stay-at-home mom (or dad) and coordinated school workloads, researched homeschool curriculums, managed education and household budgets, and maintained complex calendars for a family of 5.

As you can see, this example explains the gap and only briefly mentions what it was for. Then, it goes into detail about what you did while you were out, injecting some relevant keywords that will help a future employer understand your abilities and skills.

Be honest

With all of that said, you may be tempted to use clever euphemisms to pretend that your months or years as a caretaker were an actual job. While child-rearing is one of the most challenging jobs out there, you need to be honest about your reasons for being out of the workforce.

For example, avoid saying that you were the CEO of the Roberts family and trying to make your time at home look like an actual job. That is the best way to turn a hiring manager away from your application.

Instead, you should focus on the skills you learned – especially if you took any professional development courses. If you explain the gap properly during the job search, your potential employer will understand. On the other hand, if you lie about your time away, that could lead to other problems down the road.

Tips for addressing the maternity leave resume gap

The following tips can help you explain gaps in employment that occurred when you were a stay-at-home mom (or dad):

Don’t ignore the issue

If you see a gap in your resume, deal with it. Don’t just hope that the employer won’t notice, because that’s not going to happen! At some point in your resume, you are going to want to address that career break.

Focus on updated skills

One of the best ways to deal with the maternity leave issue is to concentrate on making your presentation about your skills. Make a list of skills that you learned or updated during your time out of the workforce and describe the most relevant ones under your resume skills section. When you do that, you can also mention your time away, and how it provided you with an opportunity to add new skills to your skill set.

That option for explaining your maternity leave resume gap enables you to show that you used your time away to enhance your potential value as an employee.

Include community work and volunteer activity

You should also be sure to include any non-professional activities that you engaged in during stay-at-home time. Whether you coached a school sports team or volunteered at the community center, chances are that you used important skills that employers might appreciate. Potential employers and hiring managers will want to see that you remained actively committed to using your skills.

Don’t forget freelance work

Did you do any type of work while you were on maternity leave? Freelance work, short-term projects, consulting, and similar jobs can provide great resume enhancers. They also enable you to at least partially close any resume gaps. More importantly, they reinforce the fact that you’ve continued to sharpen your skills.

Focus on the value

One mistake that job seekers often make is to focus on their time away more than they emphasize the value they can provide. You should work to demonstrate that you deal well with change, and consistently provide tangible value for your employers. Highlight your relevant skills and times when you’ve successfully responded to changing work circumstances.

Get recommendations and use your network

Finally, maximize your network and work to get references or recommendations. That hiring manager who is wondering whether you’re a good employment risk will appreciate a timely recommendation. That can help to ease his concerns and enable him to better focus on your skills and qualifications.

Use the right resume format

Now that you have an understanding of how to explain gaps in employment during the time you took to be a stay-at-home mom, it’s time to write your resume. You have to choose the right format though.

You’ll find that there are three widely accepted resume formats – the reverse-chronological, the hybrid (sometimes called combination), and the functional. You’ll probably see a lot of advice about the reverse-chronological format being the best option. However, for someone who is changing careers or has a big gap in employment, the hybrid is your best option.

Hybrid resume

The reason the hybrid format will serve you best is that its main focus is on the value you bring to future employers – your qualifications and skills. Rather than placing a heavy burden on your work history to sing your story, you should spend more time creating career qualification statements.

Functional resume

The functional resume is an option, but one that should be used as a last resort. Sadly, there is a bit of a stigma behind its use as it’s often used to hide employment gaps. Employers know this, so when they get a functional resume, they go straight to the employment listing to see if that’s what’s going on. You don’t want the first impression your resume makes to be negative.

Example of how to explain gaps in employment

There’s no one-size-fits-all way to address gaps caused by being a stay-at-home mom (or dad).

We wrote a good post here on how to deal with employment gaps on a resume.

However, the following resume example can serve as inspiration when you craft your stay-at-home mom (or dad) resume.

First and Last Name

Baton Rouge, LA 70810 | (225) 123-4567 | email@email.com

Website Manager with 10+ Years of Experience in Development & Optimization

Strategic visionary known for delivering impactful results in everything from digital strategy to user engagement. Consistently leverage a keen eye for industry trends to bring fresh insights to the most challenging projects.

During 3-year maternity leave, maintained and enhanced skill set by taking several online courses, engaging in leadership activities at [ORGANIZATION], and focusing on continuing education to remain up-to-date on industry happenings.

APTITUDES, SKILLS, & QUALIFICATIONS:

Proficient in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Utilize A/B testing and Google Analytics to test and optimize landing pages and marketing campaigns
Employ Agile and Scrum methodologies, working cross-functionally to prioritize competing priorities on multiple and concurrent projects
Uncanny ability to articulate complex concepts to technical and non-technical audiences

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design | Major University

Relevant coursework: Digital Imaging, Illustration, Web Design, User Experience, User Interface, Coding Basics

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

AnyTown Leadership Summit 2016

Served on the Leadership Council for the 2016 Summit. Led the creation of leadership training programs, workshops, and labs. Helped institute the Young Leaders Award, given out to worthy youth leaders in our city’s schools.

Digital Media Basics – Online Study (May 2015 – Oct 2015)

Studied website management, server basics, and other business-related digital media topics

Dynamic Business Writing – Online Course (June 2015 – December 2015)

Developed business writing skills and effective written communication

WORK HISTORY

STAY-AT-HOME PARENT | mm/yyyy to Present

You don’t have to put bullets under this listing.
If you do, make sure that you’re using language that is tailored to the job you want with keywords you find in the job description

NAME OF COMPANY | Position Held | mm/yyyy

3-5 bullets MAX that show achievements you had.
Anytime you can use numbers, it is best to do so.
ATS scans search for measurable accomplishments

NAME OF COMPANY | Position Held | mm/yyyy to mm/yyyy

Your resume isn’t meant to be a record of your professional life’s events
Talk about achievements that will intrigue a hiring manager to call you for an interview

Notice how the work history section is at the bottom of the resume?

That’s intentional! This is so that your skills and qualifications are featured prominently which helps future employers know exactly what you bring to the table right up front.

Did you also notice that the mention of your time as a stay-at-home mom (or dad) was brief?

You’ve explained the gap created in your work history and that’s all you need to do. Always remember that you can keep the explanation simple!

Employment gaps don’t have to be barriers to employment

Maternity leave is no obstacle! As you can see, there are ways to explain employment gaps on your resume after you spend time as a stay-at-home mom (or dad). You just need to show the employer that you’ve remained committed to your career and have the skills and expertise needed to play a vital role in the company. So, polish up that resume and get back in the game!

If you’re still feeling uneasy about jumping back into the work saddle, ZipJob has a team of professional resume writers and career coaches who can help you.