There is a business case for hiring part-time. We can now say this with confidence, based on two simple facts:

• Last year, our company – Flexforce Professionals, a niche staffing firm specializing almost exclusively in part-time placements – experienced 400% growth in revenues. Companies are indeed hiring part-time!

• Today, more than 50% of our business comes from referrals and repeat clients. So the companies that hired our exceptional candidates come back for more, or they tell trusted colleagues to give the model that is working for them a try.

Our growth even surprised us. When we launched Flexforce in 2010 to tap into a largely untapped pool of talented working moms looking for quality part-time jobs, we knew the candidates would come running. We were not so sure about the clients.

What Flexforce has unearthed over that past two years is a market of small- to mid-sized companies experiencing rapid growth and seeking cost-effective ways to support that growth. We have become a “secret weapon” for these companies by providing affordable, seasoned resources that can bring order and infrastructure to the chaos that is common to high-growth companies. Our candidates are willing to work at competitive rates and without benefits in exchange for flexibility. Hot areas include part-time accounting, human resources, sales and marketing, web, social media and administrative resources.

Today most of our business comes through referrals and repeat customers such as PC Recycler, Astute Technology, Catapult Consultants, Office Remedies and Cassaday & Company who have embraced the part-time model. Our value, these companies say, is getting experienced professionals who don’t need training, have real expertise, and can hit the ground running – without the risk of overloading the company’s cost structure with full-time employees requiring benefits or draining the expense budget with high-priced consultants.

Flexforce’s value to its clients is our high-touch approach. We source our candidates through non-traditional means – no job boards or Craigslist – and have built a powerful grassroots network that attracts quality talent. We also carefully screen all of our candidates through face-to-face interviews and reference checks. We are not about volume – we are about the quality of the fit. We stick with a client until we help them find the right match, which creates a much more likely long-term win for both the clients and candidates we serve.

Do you have a good second-career story to tell?  SecondAct writer, Kerry Hanon, wants to hear your story.  Go to Kerry Hannon.

Do you have a story to tell?  Post writer Brigid Schulte wants to hear your story about opting out of and/or re-entering the workforce.  Go to Washington Post’s Story Lab.

Having confidence in yourself and your professional qualifications is critical to re-entering the workforce.  You may be uneasy and even apologetic about the time you have taken off.  You may have been out of the professional environment for awhile and feel insecure about the latest technologies, tools, workforce trends, and even dress and style.  You may have lost command of your former industry or functional area of expertise and lingo.  And your memories of your accomplishments and professional strengths may have become fuzzy.  These are all real concerns that can quickly derail the job search process if not earnestly addressed.

The first step in regaining your confidence and feeling bullish again about yourself and your ability to contribute to the contemporary workforce is to figure out where your insecurities are.  Once you have done this, you can put a specific plan of action in place to address each area.  Make a list.  Then, make a plan!  It may take a few months to work through it all, so plan ahead, but do not jump back in until you are armed with confidence to hit the interview trail.  Here are some of the most common insecurities and, more importantly, strategies for overcoming them. 

Refresh Your Industry and Functional Knowledge

It is your responsibility to be as current as possible in the industry or area of expertise you are pursuing.  So put a plan in place to bring yourself up to speed.  Read up on trends and major developments.  Have lunch with some colleagues or friends in the industry and pick their brains about the most significant changes they have seen while you have been away.  If there are specific areas in which you are behind, sign up to take a course to refresh your knowledge or gain new knowledge.  And by all means, for the fundamental infrastructure tools such as MS Office, internet communications, and social networking that are ubiquitous in the workplace, make sure you know the latest (see our Tune Up Checklist for Re-Entering the Workforce).  We recently worked with a candidate pursuing a financial analyst position.  Her last work experience was with Excel 2003, but the spreadsheet she was asked to work on for a new client was created in Excel 2007.  She struggled to manipulate the tool which in turn worked against her ability to make an immediate impact at the client.  A quick brush up on the latest version of MS Excel would have prevented this from happening. 

Get Intimate with Your Resume and Your Accomplishments

Once you are happy with your written resume, rediscover and relive it.  Go round up old deliverables, writing samples, performance reviews from past jobs and experience them again.  Reminisce with former bosses and colleagues with whom you worked.  Brainstorm chronologically the challenges you have faced, lessons you learned and value you added to each job along the way.  Step back and think about how you matured in your professional career and how that experience can bring value in a current job.  Think in terms of tangibles and accomplishments.  These exercises go such a long way in boosting your belief in yourself and being able to convince an employer that your knowledge and experience are still fresh and relevant and ready to be deployed.  We recently interviewed a candidate who had been out of the mainstream workforce for over seven years, but when we asked her to talk about the former jobs she had held, she talked about them in detail, recalling personalities of bosses, reporting structures, industry climate, project pressures, challenges, and major accomplishments, as if they were yesterday.  It was so impressive.

Practice Telling Your Story

Armed with a resume and refreshed knowledge of your industry, qualifications, and workforce trends, you are now ready to tell your story. But do not tell it to an employer yet.  Practice it first, and test your ability to communicate your story clearly and confidently.  Practice interviewing with a friend, spouse, or former colleague, and ask them for honest feedback.  Then make adjustments.  Have them ask you questions, and formulate your responses in a way that highlights your successes and skills.  See our List of Sample Interview Questions.  Practice your responses on your own until you feel confident and proud of sharing your experience.

Another way to practice your story is to get out there and network.  Some job seekers even create personal business cards and go out and sell themselves in networking groups.  Nothing works better than networking to refine your personal sales pitch and gauge strangers’ reactions.  You also get the opportunity to learn more about what is happening in the current working world, resources that may be available to you, and potential employers.  There are many opportunities to network in this area including chambers of commerce, industry/functional groups (e.g., Women In Technology), women’s groups (e.g., NAWBO, Sterling Women’s Group, WBIS), trade shows and seminars.  Find some in your geographic, industry, and/or functional areas and make yourself known.

Make Sure You Are Ready to Go Back

Make sure you are actually ready to go back to work.  Have you thought through how you will deal with the potential impact and complications your work will have with regard to your family?  It is critical to think through how you will handle a snow day, child sick day, summer schedule, or vacation plans prior to the interview.  We have had candidates who have waited until the interview itself (or worse yet, once on the job) to explore these issues – a major mistake.  The back-peddling when asked about, for example, working weekends during the busy season or staying late, does not make a good first impression.  It is OK to have constraints, as long as you are up-front and clear about them and are willing to be flexible where you can.  Interviewers will almost certainly ask these questions, especially of candidates who have taken time out of the workforce.  Make sure you can honestly answer them with the conviction of having done your homework and knowing how you will handle both predictable and unpredictable events that may interfere with work.  The next article in our series, “Commitment”, deals with this issue in depth, but we mention it here because it is a critical factor in building the confidence you need to take a job. 

Polish Your Image

Put the finishing touches on your readiness to re-enter the workforce by creating a refreshed professional image that makes you feel good about yourself and excited to get out and meet prospective employers.  Look in the mirror and check yourself out.  Do you look like a mom who has put herself on hold while putting everyone else’s needs first?  Is your closet full of professional suits, blazers and slacks that are decades old?  First impressions do matter because, when it comes to finding a job, you may only have one opportunity to sell yourself.  Spruce yourself up and go shopping for some updated professional basics.  Just a few pieces can go a long way during the interview process.  Then you can figure out exactly what you need based on the job you land.  This is the FUN part of getting ready to go back to work, so enjoy it, enjoy getting back in touch with your former professional self, and be proud of showing off your new image as you head out the door.  It is amazing the power a positive self image can have on your confidence and on the first impression you make during an interview.  It is worth the investment.

Conclusion

The working world has been going fast and hard while you have been out, so just like the on-ramp to a highway, you have to get yourself back up to speed, be equipped with the right tools, and have the guts and belief in yourself to get back on the work track.  It can be intimidating.  Regaining confidence is probably the most difficult of the challenges of returning to the workforce because no one can really make it happen but you.  But if you were once part of the professional world, you can be there again and you have to believe you can.  Make that list.  Prepare and practice.  Convince yourself you are ready to re-engage.  Then you will be ready to convince potential employers.

• Proficiency in MS Office 2007 (including Powerpoint and Excel which are becoming norms in the workplace)

• Proficiency in MS Outlook for emailing, calendaring, and appointments and awareness of other calendaring tools such as Google Calendar

•  Access to and ability to search internet

• Access to and familiarity with social media tools including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

• Familiarity with video conferencing tools such as Skype and GoToMeeting

• Own and use a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) such as a Blackberry or iPhone that serves as a cell phone and sends and receives emails

• QuickBooks 2009 or 2010 (for bookkeeping candidates)