Author Archive

Why Working Parents Should Be Networking More in 2013 and How to Make it Happen

Working mom

Photo by van city 197

Working parents, I invite you to add another resolution to your list this year: do more networking. While networking is important for everyone’s career, I’m aiming this post specifically toward working moms and dads. Why? Because it’s something we often let slip. We working parents are often so focused on being efficient at work so we can get home to little Oliver or Sophie as early as possible that networking get pushed to the back burner.

Adding a little bit more networking to your routine, however, — or simply having a networking mindset — can add a lot to your career and personal happiness this year.    Read More →

Having It All and Yahoo’s New CEO Marissa Mayer

The Exciting Game for Career Girls

I have been following with great interest the reaction to the news that Yahoo just named Marissa Mayer as their CEO. Mayer is young (37), female (now one of only 20 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies), and 6 months pregnant.

Most of the commentary I’ve read on her big break starts by acclaiming that this is a great thing.  Yahoo is being super progressive!  One giant step for womankind! Champagne all around!

But fairly quickly that celebratory tone dies down and the articles and posts move on to a different theme.     Read More →

Who Says Moms Can’t Launch Successful Startups?

Last Saturday the New York Times’ business section ran an article (“Nurturing a Baby and a Start-Up Business“) about women with small children who launch high-growth tech companies. It profiled several women launching and running highly successful start-ups while they are pregnant or have very young kids and how their success is “dispelling the image of the tech entrepreneur as a single, usually male, wunderkind.”

The article goes on to say that the investing world remains skeptical about a woman’s ability to launch a tech startup and make it work while also raising young kids. Apparently some — but not all — venture capital firms are concerned that women with small children won’t put in the long hours and give the 150% required to make a fast-growth tech company work in the first few crazy years.    Read More →

Just Back from Maternity Leave? Get a Mentor Mom!

As you may have heard, the Big 4 accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has a program that matches experienced working moms with moms-to-be about to go out on maternity leave.

What an excellent program! It gives new moms an experienced “mentor mom” to talk to about all of the issues they are concerned about while on maternity leave and in those first few super-hard months back on the job. Issues like how to function on very little sleep, how to handle the separation from your little one, and the practicalities of pumping on the job. Love it!    Read More →

Meet the Mentors: Jan Brown, Our Working-Mom Coach

The first in our series of mentorship panels will be on Tuesday, May 8. Titled How Does She Do It?, it’s for working moms at all stages of their careers. As the date approaches, we wanted to find out a little more about the diverse ways in which the panelists approach working outside the home while also being caregivers. First up: Jan Brown, a life coach who focuses on helping moms grow, develop, and maintain their careers.

Are any careers better than others for working moms, in your experience? I would say that it’s not about the career, field, or company per se. It’s about the amount of control you have over your schedule. A higher degree of control over one’s schedule makes it easier for a working mom. That can be sought and found in lots of careers and fields.    Read More →

Just Keep Swimming: Survival Tips for the Really Rough Patches—from a Working Mom

Have you ever had one of those days? When the carefully crafted “balance” between work and home just comes crashing down on you like a house of cards?

Maybe it’s your babysitter getting sick while your husband is on a business trip (true story – mine), or the call from the day-care center to say your child has a fever in the middle of an all-day client meeting you’re leading (true story -– my sister’s), or your kitchen ceiling caving in from a burst pipe just as the babysitter shows up so you can get to an interview (true story –- my friend’s).    Read More →

The Five Best Things About Being a Working Mom

Jan Brown recently left corporate life to work as a life and career coach. She blogs for The Hired Guns about ways that working moms can achieve balance in their life, and also about methods that stay-at-home moms can use the reenter the workplace effectively. Before heading out on her own, Jan advised Fortune 500 companies on philanthropy.

If you are a working mom like me, you already know what’s hard about it. And pretty much every portrayal of a working mom on TV and in movies and magazines depicts the stressed-out, crazy nature of it.

I’m not saying it ain’t so. But just as there are so many things I love about being a parent, there are also many things I like — sometimes even love — about working outside the home. To kick off the New Year, I want to spend some time celebrating a few of my favorite things about working.    Read More →

Working Moms — How Do You Handle the Guilt?

We’d like to welcome to the blog Jan Brown, a life and career coach who will be blogging for us about working mothers and the unique challenges they sometimes face. As she does in her workshops and coaching sessions, she’ll cover ways that working moms can make their lives more fulfilling and a lot less stressful; she’ll also be providing guidance for stay-at-home moms who are thinking about going back to working outside the home. Before heading out on her own, Jan served as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, advising them on their philanthropic giving.

How do you handle the occasional twinge of guilt?I have a lot to say about guilt this week — recently, my six-year-old daughter declared that she “wished there were no babysitters. Only mommies and daddies to take care of their kids.” This was after I explained that she was about to start swimming lessons (yay!) and that her after-school babysitter would be taking her instead of me (boo!).

I am no stranger to guilt. There was a period from when my daughter was 1 ½ to 2 ½ when I swear every single morning when I left for work, she would literally cling to me — my leg, torso, bag, whatever she could reach — and sob “Mommy don’t go!!!! Staaaayy with me.” Our nanny would have to physically remove her from me. I would then cheerfully say goodbye and head to the subway platform to cry. Every. Single. Morning. It was rough. So what to do about guilt?    Read More →

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