Two years ago I left a responsible, managerial job in order to support my teenage son and daughter through, respectively, their GCSEs and A-levels. I consider the time out well spent as the kids (and my garden) are thriving and I also managed to learn passable French through evening classes. However, appreciating that my kids no longer need me to the same degree, I last week sought the advice of a recruitment consultant, who seemed distinctly underwhelmed by my most recent ‘career’. So what should I do in job interviews? How can I best present what I’ve been doing recently to a prospective employer? I think you have lots of good messages in there, but the key is presentation. To me, it could say about you that once you’re committed to something you will see it through. You’ve made a sensible decision about your children, you believe that the time was best spent supporting them, you gave up a career that you probably and presumably enjoyed — a tough decision. You supported your children and in the meantime, on top of all that, retrained and learnt French. To me that’s pretty impressive. It shows someone who has sorted out their life priorities and gone for it, followed a plan, and according to the plan, believes it is time to get back to work. Presented properly there are some very good messages, what it mustn’t be is presented apologetically. If you went to see a recruitment guy and had your confidence knocked a bit just completely ignore that and focus on the fact that you had a plan, made a decision and, for these reasons, tell yourself, “I did it successfully, my children no longer need that support, and I want to get back to the work that I enjoy and love so much.” I think that’s a very positive message to put across to an employer.
I am in discussions with a local music shop owner to take over his business. Despite the fact that the shop is in a prime location in an affluent town, it is losing customers due to its rather musty appearance and refusal to move with the times. The trouble is that the owner is in his 60s and will not accept what I consider to be a fair price for the shop. How can I get him to see sense?You have to accept that when somebody owns a business, they own a business. It’s as simple as that and there’s nothing you can do about it. It is entirely down to the shop owner whether or not he sells and it sounds to me as if he might not be quite in the right mindset yet. It might be that it is simply a waiting game with strategic reminders of conversations, but the truth of the matter is that you are not in control of when the shopkeeper sells up — it is their business and they can do it when they like
.Deborah Meaden is author of Common Sense Rules,
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