For mums of school aged children, getting back into work during a recession may seem a daunting task indeed. However, in a recent article in Sunday Times Style section (8/11/09), the point was made that part-time jobs are often invisible.

This is true, as many smaller firms need extra help at certain times of year, but the job of recruiting seems immense, often put to one side in favour of just getting on with it yourself. So how exactly do you find jobs to match your talent and availability?

Firstly, document your strengths. Believe it or not your skills are incredibly valuable in the work place. Mothers have a certain maturity, ability to see the bigger picture, and usually don’t mind rolling their sleeves up and getting stuck into a job.

Contrast this with my experience of trying to recruit young people. I can only speak of my own experience and of course there are young motivated, well adjusted candidates for jobs. We have tried to interview/recruit 3 youngsters aged about 20 – 24 in the last 2 years. One turned up late for the interview and talked about how she was really looking for a proper career but not really sure what. Another came for interview and claimed to be ‘an expert’ in marketing at the age of 24 (sure thing!), then failed to turn up on the start date. The third couldn’t manage to phone me to make an appointment for an interview, despite several reminders that this was what was required to progress the job. The result. None of these people were recruited and we are struggling on with too much to do!

If you have a certain tenacity (which comes with the territory of being a mum: getting your child into the school you want, negotiating with health visitors, nurses and GPs, finding out of school activities, getting child tax credits (!)) then my guess is you have the tenacity to get yourself to an interview and start date!

Ask around. Don’t ask for a job – ask small business owners whether they need assistance for a few hours when they are busy, and don’t forget to specify that you would need to be paid of course – this isn’t a free service! Once you have proved yourself useful, they are likely to give you more hours than you ever really wanted. This isn’t necessarily the solution for everyone, but some small businesses are growing fast, even in a recession; as they can move fast into new markets and opportunities. From the bottom up is always the best way to learn a business and later on there may well be an opportunity for training to get you into the career you really want.

I’m just putting an order together for some new designs from Bravado Maternity Bras, so watch this space!