Stay at Home Mom Resume Examples & Writing Tips

How to Write a Stay-at-Home Mom Resume

As a stay-at-home mom, putting together a resume when you are ready to go back to work doesn’t have to be a frustrating experience. It’s just a matter of looking through a different lens.

If you want to return to work, deciding whether to include being a stay-at-home mom on your resume is one of the most challenging choices. If you have been out of the workforce for a long time, gaps in employment can be tricky if not handled correctly. Read on to learn how to fill out your resume in a way that won’t make your time at home a red flag for employers.

Write a compelling professional summary or resume objective

Your professional summary or resume objective is your sales pitch to employers. A well-written summary or objective tells hiring managers what you’ll bring to the table if hired. However, stay-at-home moms might worry about how to sell themselves if they have been out of the game for a while.

Choose a professional summary if you have relevant experience in the role you seek. Consider your summary as a billboard advertising your greatest accomplishments, most relevant skills, and an accolade or award, if possible.

Here is an example of a professional summary:

Choose a resume objective if you are applying to a job for which you have no relevant experience or if you are new to the workforce. A resume objective should list your transferable skills and can include a brief explanation of your professional goals.

Here is an example of a resume objective:

If you want more help writing your summary or objective, then check out our AI Resume Summary Generator, which can quickly put together a customizable statement tailored to you.

Skills to consider for your stay-at-home mom resume

For functional and combination resume formats, especially, skills are the heart of your resume.

The skills you add to your resume should be targeted to the specific job you are applying for. Study the job ad to determine which skills are most important to the employer, and add those to your resume.

Even if you have little to no work experience, your stay-at-home mom resume should focus on transferable skills. These are skills you have mastered but may not have obtained in the workplace. For example, being a stay-at-home mom means managing children and a household. This would include communication, problem-solving, scheduling and organizational skills. These can all be added to your resume for a stay-at-home mom.

Writing a strong work experience section for a stay-at-home mom resume

As a woman looking to reenter the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom, you have a wealth of skills and experiences to offer a future employer. These valuable skills, such as time management, multitasking, problem-solving, communication and leadership, are valuable to employers, even if you didn’t develop them in an office. 

When crafting your work experience section, it’s important to highlight these transferable skills and provide examples of how you used them. Also, include any volunteer work, community service or coaching you’ve done. These activities, too, help comprise a valuable skill set. 

Summarizing your education on your stay-at-home mom resume

Your resume must feature an education section, even if you never went to college. You can supplement a sparse education section with extracurriculars, relevant coursework, certifications, and professional development courses. The important thing is to be honest and not sweat the actual degree. There are plenty of no-degree jobs for working parents that value transferable skills over a formal education.

Choose a Resume Format

The next order of business is to determine how to lay out your resume. For this, there are three main resume formats: chronological, functional and hybrid.

• Chronological: These resumes put your work history front and center, usually in reverse-chronological order, with the most recent experience at the top. This format is useful if you have relevant work experience, albeit from several years ago.
• Functional: A functional resume focuses on your skills and achievements and can be an excellent way to deemphasize a lack of work experience. This format can also help you highlight the transferable skills you’ve used over your months or years as a stay-at-home mom.
• Combination: As the name suggests, a hybrid resume combines elements of the above formats by featuring work history like in a chronological resume and highlighting skills like in a functional resume.

So, which resume format is best for a stay-at-home mom? The answer depends on your circumstances. 

If you have only been a stay-at-home mother for a short period of time and have a wealth of relevant work experience, then the chronological format will quickly connect your qualifications to the needs of the employer.

However, if you have been out of work for a while or lack the relevant experience, you may want to consider the functional format to make your transferable skills the center of attention.

If you fall somewhere in between the two above scenarios, such as being out of work for a long time but having the relevant experience, then the combination format is a good compromise.

3 Writing Tips for a Stay-at-Home Mom Resume

While many tips about how to write a resume are the same regardless of your experience level or job title, there are some that can help stay-at-home moms write a terrific resume.