Adding Caretaking To Your Resume

Episode Transcript

Episode 3: Adding Caretaking To Your Resume- with Riccarda Zezza

S: Got Skills? Of course, you do! But can you talk about the skills you have and how you use them? Whether it’s with your cousin, your potential new boss, or the mentor who has 20+ years in your dream role, skills talk is hard, but it doesn’t have to be.

M: As a spinoff to the Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby Podcast, each week on Got Skills the Skills Baby team is taking a deep dive into a key takeaway from an episode of the podcast, focused on actionable ways for professionals to Skill Up.

S: I’m your host, Sari Weinerman and with me is Michelle Smith. We’re here to help you breeze through the next family reunion, interview, or mentorship opportunity by better understanding the skills you have and how to talk about them!

M: This week, we’re diving into Season 2 Episode 9 of Let’s Talk About Skills Baby. On this episode host Kelly Ryan Bailey speaks with Riccarda Zezza, CEO of Lifeed. Lifeed is the only learning platform in the world that transforms life transitions and care activities such as parenting, caring for an elderly person, or going through a crisis, into opportunities to train workplace skills.

S: During the episode, Riccarda explains some of the skills that stand out as key learnings from parenthood, and how they directly build essential professional skills. Now, if you’re scratching your head trying to figure out how cleaning spit up or taming a temper tantrum has prepared you for your next job, we can explain. Let’s hear from Riccarda on how we can frame caretaking experiences with skills-based language;

R: I would say, there is a whole set of very practical skills, so skills that really make the difference in your daily life because they make you more effective. And they’re about how you are able to relate to other people, understand and communicate, listen, motivate and so on. And that’s pretty clear to mothers, I think, but also about how you organize time, how you’re capable of setting priorities, how you’re able of deciding what to do now and what’s never, you know, setting priorities is about that and its organizational skills.

And that, of course there is a lot still on the practical side about creativity, innovation. Think about lateral thinking. Think about mental agility. I mean, while our children grow, our mind keeps on growing with them. They change every day and they challenge us to understand every day a new reality.

And that’s an incredible exercise of mental agility.

M: Mental agility is enormously important when it comes to the workplace. Competing deadlines, new challenges, trainings, meetings, you name it! Juggling the demands of a job requires you work at a fast pace while remaining attentive. Just like caretaking does.

S: Absolutely. The more you can see your time spent caretaking as an asset, not a distraction, the more you can tell the complete story of your skills, and more importantly of who you are. These experiences shape you. They build your empathy and resilience. They definitely deserve to be highlighted when presenting yourself to a future employer, and you deserve to feel empowered by them.

M: Yes! Far too often we see people who needed to step out of the workforce to care for a child or loved one frame that period as lost time when they are re-entering professional life. The hustle nature of workplace culture makes them see that time away as a detriment to their growth. It becomes a resume gap, when actually, it is a resume filler! The skills you hone while caretaking are so valuable, and they should definitely be included on every resume you send, professional profile you create, and work-related conversation you have.

S: 100 Percent. These caretaking skills must be included in your skills story! But how do you talk about them in workplace language? Riccarda has some light to shed on this. In her conversation with Kelly, she goes on to explain that caretaking skills like communication, innovation, and mental agility, are part of a larger grouping of skills that she calls “Meta Skills.” Meta skills are fundamental behavior building skills that when properly trained, actually help you strengthen even more skills that will help you find success. She says;

R: And then there is a whole set of skills, we call them meta skills. There are skills that allow you to learn all the other skills. So, they’re not just life skills, but they are really skills that if you have them, you will, live better in complexity.

It will be easier for you to keep on learning as you are asked to do nowadays. One is emotional literacy. That’s interesting because basically when you have a child or someone you take care of, you really challenged it to be closer to his, her or your emotions.

You have many more emotions to handle. And you can become more familiar with your emotions, which means, you can really get closer to good and bad emotions. So emotional literacy is very important because life is more and more complex.

And in all our relations, we need that. And then there is a reflective capacity that overall makes a difference because we don’t learn from the things we hear, but we learn, from how we reflect on what happens to us. When we started this, some people are asking me, so you’re telling me that just becoming a mother makes you a leader.

It doesn’t work like that. You have to reflect, you have to have the capacity to reflect on it and really, really take the best out of it. So, understand what’s going on. And then every day it’s about reflecting every day on what you do, and then you will find the resources. So, the reflective capacity, I think it’s a very important meta skill.

M: Wow, Meta Skills. I wish we studied these when I was in school. Riccarda mentions how these skills encompass both emotional literacy and reflective capacity, so I want to take a moment to really talk about what these are and why they’re so essential to both personal and professional success. Emotional literacy is the ability to identify, label, understand and act upon the emotions of oneself and others in a healthy and socially acceptable manner. This improves relationships, makes co-operative work possible, and facilitates the feeling of community.

S: So, basically what you’re saying is, emotional literacy is what makes you a successful team member right? It is the skill upon which collaboration with your fellow employees, colleagues and clients is built. Like for example, you could be the best coder in the world, but without emotional literacy you won’t be able to explain to the sales team how they should market your product, or talk to the designer about what is and isn’t possible for you to code for them.

M: Exactly. Emotional literacy is the glue that keeps a team together. It goes hand in hand with reflective capacity. Reflective capacity, often referred to as mentalizing, is the ability to understand ourselves and others in terms of intentional mental states, such as feelings, desires, wishes, goals and attitudes.

S: Okay that was a lot of fancy words, but in simpler terms, reflective capacity is the ability to observe thoughts and feelings so that you can best interact with those around you.

M: Yes, you nailed it.

S: Thanks! So, for instance, let’s say you’re in a pitch meeting that turns super tense because all 5 of your coworkers have a different opinion on what the client really wants. Without reflection, you might just get frustrated that your idea wasn’t picked and resent having to work on the project for the duration of the contract, complaining to anyone who will listen about why it is stupid. However, with reflection, you can slow down and realize your feelings of frustration are valid, but that your coworker’s ideas are too. Perhaps their idea IS the most effective, and you can let go of your frustration to help the project be as successful as possible.

M: That’s right. Without a reflective capacity, we would all be making everyone around us exasperated or angry, and just be terrible teammates. Even more, without a strong reflective capacity, you will also struggle to synthesize your previous experiences and tell your Skills Story. So, learning to talk about your skills is actually a great exercise in reflection!

S: Talk about Meta skills, now this whole episode just got meta! When it comes down to it, being a parent or caretaker is a deeply challenging experience that is highly rewarding. What you learn helps you develop an invaluable perspective on work. You build skills in taking ownership and responsibility, organization, decision making, priority setting, and high-pressure problem solving to name a few.

M: The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is, all of these skills necessary for parenting and caretaking, are also skills you need to be a successful employee. Not to recognize these experiences as valuable to talk about with a future employer or colleague would be a huge, missed opportunity! So, keep talking about these experiences and developing your skills story! You’ve definitely “Got Skills,” you just need to practice talking about them

S: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Got Skills. The podcast where we explore how to understand the skills you’ve got, and more importantly, how to talk about them. Got Skills is a Growth Network Podcasts production. “To learn more about the hosts of Got Skills head to skillsbaby.com/gotskills. Find out what we’re up to, the latest news in the skills world, and what events are coming up that you should keep an eye on! Last but not least, make sure to follow Growth Network Podcasts on LinkedIn for more awesome shows to add to your podcast feed. We’ll see you next time on Got Skills.”