Building your personal brand

Being clear about your personal brand is so important as you return to work. But what exactly is ‘personal brand’, and how can you build it? Karen, Women Returners Head of Coaching, talked to Steph, Senior Coach at Women Returners, about how to build an authentic personal brand in a recent webinar for our professional network. Karen summarises Steph’s key points below.

Personal brand is your reputation. It includes what you have to offer – your strengths, skills, experiences – and what you stand for – your values and your purpose. It’s the experience that people have when they’re with you. So ask yourself the all-important question: is how you’re perceived consistent with what you want your personal brand to be? 

Having a clear and authentic personal brand is so valuable when you return to work. Being able to articulate your strengths, values, motivations and purpose can make you feel more confident, enable successful career conversations and drive decision making. 

Building your Personal Brand Pyramid 

Steph introduced the idea of a Personal Brand Pyramid. At the foundation lies your values. Your  purpose comes above that, then your skills strengths and experience, your behaviours and image, and finally at the top your reputation which is built upon all the layers beneath it. Each layer is important and feeds into the overall experience that others have of you.  

Your Values and Purpose  

Knowing your own values helps you to make decisions and can become the guiding compass for your life. Sometimes, it’s hard to capture what our values are. One simple method is to reflect back on the ‘golden moments’ of your career – activities you most loved doing – and consider what made them so special.  

For me, working on our podcast ‘Career Returners’ has been a real golden career moment. It has stretched me, allowed me to be creative, and enabled me to connect deeply with a number of fabulous returners!  From this, it’s clear to me that growth, creativity and connection are key values to me, so I look for opportunities that enable me to live those values. If you can choose work by your values, that will lead to more contentment and achievement. 

Many people struggle to identify their specific purpose. To help you uncover yours, think about the difference you want to make in the world: what is your ‘why’?  

When you’re thinking about whether a role is the right one for you, coming back to your purpose and values can really help.  

Your Strengths 

One element of personal brand is the strengths you can offer, so being able to articulate them in an evidence based way will be key. If you’re not clear on your strengths, you could: 

  • Look up past work reviews 
  • Speak to friends and family about what they think your strengths are 
  • Consider what comes naturally to you 
  • Reflect on your proudest achievements, both before and during your career break, jotting down what strengths were in play during those times 
  • Use a strengths assessment tool to help you, eg Insights discovery, spotlight, Strengthsfinder, jobmi.com, or principlesyou.com 

Your Behaviours and Image 

To live your personal brand from the inside out, your behaviours must match who and what you say you are.  One way to demonstrate this at interview is to think about the stories you can tell. These stories can make you memorable, while illustrating your strengths, where your values come from and why they’re important to you. 

Body language is important too. Smiling helps build rapport and trust, particularly in online interviews where tone and speech are often ‘flattened’ on a 2D screen. You may also want to use more hand movements to illustrate what you’re saying and become a little more ‘3D’! Do also think about your online background, ensuring the image you portray reflects the type of role you’re going for.  

Other ways to express your Personal Brand 

In addition to how you physically show up, your online presence can also reflect your personal brand. Your LinkedIn profile is an opportunity to showcase your strengths and experience in your chosen style, while your posts can reflect your interests, values and thought leadership. The activities you choose to engage in and talk about, from hobbies to volunteering, also speak volumes about your motivators and values.  

So, as you return to work, remember to be clear about your personal brand. Live your values and play to your strengths in what you do and in your interactions with others. It will help build your inner confidence, consistency and trust with others. 

Return to Work Book Recommendations

My bedside table has a wobbly stack of books on it. There’s usually a ‘Top 10 bestseller fiction’ I’m half way through, a few well-worn novels that have been passed around the womenfolk in my family, and then there’s 1 or 2 non-fiction books that I dip into and re-read for inspiration, and which somehow never find their way back to my bookshelf!

The Women Returners team were recently ‘WhatsApping’ about those non-fiction books that have inspired us in our coaching work and we wanted to share our 8 favourite books with you. Our hope is that, wherever you are in your return to work journey, they give you a little lift and some practical tools too!

If you’re wondering how to get started

How to get a job you love – John Lees  A careers guide which will help you reflect on what you want to do now, and how you can take those first few steps

If you’re unclear about how to make sense of your career path and what you’ll bring to a new role

The Squiggly Career – ditch the ladder, discover opportunity, design your career – Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis  A brilliant practical guide to help you understand your strengths, values, motivators and explore future possibilities

If you’re thinking about a complete career change 
 
Working Identity – Herminia Ibarra  A research-based perspective on the “test and learn’ approach to making a successful change, with stories of professionals who have reinvented their careers
 
If fear is stopping you from moving forwards and achieving your goals
 

Mind Flip – change the way you think about yourself and reinvent your future – Zena Everett  Will help you to adjust your mindset, helping you to flip your focus away from yourself and instead look outwards to the value you can uniquely bring

Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway – Susan Jeffers  A self-help classic, backed by psychological research into self-confidence, providing practical strategies to get past your fears

If you find yourself setting limits on what you can achieve or should aspire to

Playing Big – Tara Mohr  An intuitive step-by-step guide that helps you overcome doubt and pursue your aspirations

If you’re wondering how you can maintain your sense of balance through your return to work journey 

Thrive – the third  metric to redefining success and creating a happier life – Arianna Huffington  Focuses on the transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging and giving and how these are integral to personal success and leading a healthy, productive, and meaningful life

What Happy Working Mothers Know – Cathy Greenberg and Barrett Avigdor  Takes findings from positive psychology to help you to create a work-family balance

 
This is only a selection of our favourites from the hundreds of relevant books out there. We’d love to hear your recommendations for books that you’ve found useful during your own return to work, so do let us know on our Facebook group or Facebook page or on Instagram about any books that have inspired you.
 
 Happy Reading!
 

 

Posted by Karen, Women Returners Head of Coaching

Employers’ Rationale for Hiring Returners

On the first Employer Panel at our Women Returners ‘Back to Your Future’  Virtual Conference last month, Isabel Berwick, Work & Careers Editor of the Financial Times, talked to 6 of our employer partners about their Rationale for Hiring Returners. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Bank of England, Bloomberg, Civil Service HR, Facebook, and Moody’s, in an uplifting conversation, discussed the key role returners play in their organisations’ talent strategy. If you’re doubting the value that you can bring to an employer, get confidence from their comments on why employers see returners as a strong talent pool:

Why organisations hire returners

“As an organisation we’re really committed to increasing the diversity of our representation. We want our teams to represent the broader range of experiences, backgrounds, identities, abilities. Finding diverse talent can be challenging – returners offer a new pipeline of talent.”

“If you want a truly inclusive strategy and value people from all backgrounds and experiences, returners will offer a unique set of experiences and skills.”

“Returners are a key part of our overall talent strategy. We want employees from all backgrounds with diverse perspectives that can connect to and support our customers.”

“Returners are an important aspect of improving gender diversity and helping us to reduce our gender pay gap.”

Why organisations run returner programmes

“We want to represent the diversity of the community in which we operate. Returner programmes represent a dedicated alternative channel to ensure we’re accessing the full breadth of diverse talent available.”

“The structure of a returner programme is really valuable – joining as a cohort, the inbuilt network, the coaching. It’s an opportunity for returners to try out returning to work.”

“It’s important to have a returner programme so that mechanisms are in place to ensure we’re hiring returners into the business, and that the environment they come into is supportive and inclusive, so that they can thrive in their careers and have access to a support network.”

“The returner programme enables us to ensure returners are provided with the right opportunities in role, and access to networks and training, to help them to bring the skills and experience they have to bear and to be successful.”

“A returner programme offers peer support and structured management support – an induction, line manager support, mentoring, external coaching (from Women Returners) to help returners’ confidence grow in role. All are particularly helpful after a long career break.”

“The returner programme is part of our overall strategy to bring more diversity into our organisation. A programme ensures we’re being deliberate about it and are setting returners up for success.”

The skills returners bring to the workplace

“Returners have broad experience and technical ability and qualifications, plus the talents which have increased with their break. They learn other skills – perseverance, communication, flexibility – during their break. Change is constant, and we need people who can adapt. Technical skills and life skills are key.”

“Every time I came back from maternity leave, I came back stronger, more resilient, more confident. As people come back from career breaks, I see they bring greater skills and perspectives because of their break than before. As corporations, we mustn’t miss out on all the skills and experience that resides within this talent pool”

“We’re interested in the other diverse skills that returners gained on their career break, and how they can bring these into the workplace. It’s a win-win.”

“We look at the totality of a returner’s experience and what you bring, and how it’s a good fit for the roles available.”

Final thoughts

“Diversity & Inclusion is more and more becoming a lens through which we view what we do and the choices we make. An inclusive culture that allows people to perform at their best isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s good for business!”

“Returners are very highly valued for the experience they have”

“It’s really hard to hire good talent – we need you!”

 

In our next blog post, we explore more highlights from our Conference Employer Panels: what employers are looking for in returner applications and the key skills and strengths that will help you succeed on your return to work journey.  For more advice, support and news of job opportunities, sign up to our free Women Returners Professional Network, and check out our wide range of articles on our Advice Hub.

Returning to work? Don’t let Imposter Syndrome hold you back

Do you sometimes feel that you don’t deserve your success or that your achievements are flukes that can be put down to just good luck? Do you feel that it’s only a matter of time until you are ‘found out’?

If you do then you’re certainly not alone. These feelings are so common they have a name – Imposter Syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome was first identified by psychologists in 1978. There are three defining features: a belief that others have an inflated view of your abilities, a fear that your true abilities will be found out, and a tendency to attribute your success to luck or extreme effort. There have been many studies into Imposter Syndrome since then, including one in 2011 that found that 70% of people will experience the phenomenon at some point in their lives. And it’s not just a ‘women’s issue’ –  research now suggests that men are just as likely as women to experience impostorism. 

Imposter Syndrome is most common when we’re moving out of our comfort zone and facing periods of change or uncertainty … such as returning to work after a long career break.

If Imposter Syndrome strikes, here are our tips to help you tackle it:

1. Remember these feelings are normal. Imposter Syndrome can affect anyone, even people who seem to be the most confident and capable. Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg has been quoted as saying: “There are still days when I wake up feeling like a fraud, not sure I should be where I am.” And even Albert Einstein considered himself an “involuntary swindler.” 

2. Avoid putting your successes down to luck. Write down all your career and personal achievements to date, and think about the role that your abilities and hard work played. It will become clear to you that your successes were largely due to your hard work and abilities – not ‘just luck’. Read this blog for advice. 

3. Reconnect with your professional self. If you’re doubting yourself because it’s been a while since you were in the workplace, remember that you are the same professional person you always were, you are just out of practice. Aim to reframe your time outside the workplace as a positive not a negative.

4. Ask friends and family for feedback on your strengths and skills. Listening to what others say about what you do well will help you challenge your negative thoughts. Remember – you’re often your own harshest critic.

5. Keep a feedback log. Once you’re back in a new role, keep a log of all the positive feedback you receive – via formal feedback sessions, thank you emails or verbal compliments. If Imposter Syndrome does hit, look at this log to remind yourself that you are a competent and experienced professional who deserves to be where you are.


Sign up to our free network for more advice, support and job opportunities.You’ll find much more help and advice on our website.

Why your career break is a positive not a negative

There are lots of reasons for a career break – to care for young children or other relatives, for health reasons, to study, to travel or simply to recharge your batteries.


Far from being something to try to hide when you want to return to the workplace, there are very good reasons why you – and your potential employers – should celebrate your break.

We know from experience that returners re-enter the workplace with a fresh perspective, together with renewed energy and motivation. Employers value this too. At our Women Returners ‘Back to Your Future’ Conference 2019, O2’s Andrea Jones told the audience:

“There’s so much experience the returners have before their career break and they’ve gained so many skills on their career break. They come in with a really fresh pair of eyes….they can look at our processes and our systems and the ways we work quite differently. I think it’s a real breath of fresh air – and that’s what we hear from our managers.”

Other employers spoke about the enthusiasm of the returners they had hired, the fact that they are incredibly efficient as time management comes more naturally to them, and their desire to contribute more broadly to the organisation rather than just doing their job. Returners were also valued as role models for younger employees of people who had taken a non-traditional career path.

Dependent on the reason for your career break, you are also likely to have developed a variety of new skills. For example:

  • If you’ve taken time out to care for others you will have honed your communication, time-management and organisation skills. And nothing improves negotiation ability more than getting to a compromise with a teenager! 
  • If you’ve done skilled voluntary work you will have developed both teamwork and leadership skills – managing volunteers is much harder than paid staff.
  • If you were travelling or studying, this can signal an openness to experiences and a motivation to learn and develop. 
  • If your break was because of a personal trauma or health issue, you will have developed resilience and fortitude.

When writing your return-to-work CV and cover letter and preparing for interviews consider everything you’ve done during your break. Make sure the skills and experience you’ve acquired come across – they are an important part of who you are now. 

Switch your focus. Rather than seeing your career break as a negative to employers, focus on how it differentiates you and makes you a better employee,  gaining maturity, perspective and many new skills. You will be an asset to your next employer because of, not in spite of, your career break.

Sign up to our free network for more advice, support and job opportunities.You’ll find much more help and advice on our website.

Tips and tools to boost your professional confidence

At our 2019 Women Returners ‘Back to Your Future’ Conference last month, Anna Johnstone, senior coach at Women Returners, led a session on how to boost professional confidence. Here are some takeouts from that session.

One of the recurring themes we see when we coach returners is lack of professional confidence. The women we work with may be very confident in their personal life, but often doubt their self-worth when it comes to returning to the workplace. They may think “What have I got to offer? Will I be able to do the job? What value can I add? Will an employer even want to hire me?” We hear these doubts again and again.

Our senior coach, Anna Johnstone, focussed on tackling a lack of professional confidence head on at our recent Conference by focussing on three key areas – 1) internal feelings of worth and self-belief,  2) outer confidence – your gravitas, the impact that you have, and 3) reframing confidence as courage.

1) Inner confidence – feelings of worth and self-belief

Some people refer to self-belief as having backbone. But Anna says that improving your self-belief is a bit like strengthening the muscles around your backbone which may have become a little weak during a career break. Self-doubt – your inner critic or gremlin – may be telling you that you’ve lost your skills, you’re too old or that you’ll never get back up to speed with technology. 
Here are Anna’s tips for dealing with your inner critic and boosting your self-belief:

  • Try reframing the way you think. Instead of thinking, for example, “I will never get back up to speed” say to yourself – “my inner critic is telling me I will never get back up to speed”
  • This is a subtle, but effective, change which will make you question negative assumptions. It may also bring out the fight in you so that you think “someone is telling me that I’m not going to get back up to speed – but I am going to get back up to speed.”
  • Remember that you also have another internal voice – your inner mentor. This is the voice of someone who cares about you – it’s calm, kind and supportive. Learn to listen to this voice and to dial it up so that it becomes louder than your inner critic
  • Remind yourself of the things you are good at – it’s a great way to boost self-belief. Remember that you have a wealth of skills and experience developed throughout your career and your career break – write these down and practise saying them out loud

2) Outer confidence – how do you act more confident even if you have doubts on the inside?

  • Think about your body – if you change how you sit and stand this will change the way you think. For example, putting your feet firmly on the ground so that you feel solid can really help if you’re about to go into a situation that makes you feel stressed
  • Roll back and lower your shoulders. This will take the tension out of your shoulders and allow you to breathe better 
  • Breathe deeply from your diaphragm – in through your nose, out through your mouth – five times. This will help dissipate doubts and anxieties and strengthen your voice – particularly important just before an interview!
  • Watch Amy Cuddy’s Power Pose TEDTalk – and practise ‘power posing’  every morning and before facing any situation you find stressful
  • If you hear yourself speaking quickly make a conscious effort to slow down. People will hear more of what you say and speaking slower has the added bonus of giving you more time to think
  • Feel more confident at interviews and meetings by wearing something that makes you feel good about yourself and gives you a boost

3) Reframe confidence as courage

  • The problem with thinking “if only I had more confidence I would send this email, apply for that role, phone my contact etc” is that you end up waiting to feel more confident, which can stop you from taking action
  • Instead of focusing on having more confidence, try focusing on having more courage
  • Courage is when you decide to do something difficult even though you may have doubts, even though you feel afraid
  • Courage is a much more positive word – aim to dial your courage up a notch to help you to take action despite your self-doubts.

Sign up to our free network for more advice, support and job opportunities.You’ll find much more help and advice on our website.

How good posture can improve your return to work confidence

This week’s guest blog is by Abi Wright, who explains how maintaining good posture can help you to feel calmer and more confident when you’re returning to the workplace.

There is one habit that nearly all women share and that is the habit of making ourselves smaller. It’s something that is conditioned in us from a young age and it can have a huge impact not only on our posture, health and happiness but also on how we’re perceived. It wasn’t until I was in the position of returning to work after a maternity leave that I realised just how much this habit was impacting my confidence and presence and therefore impacting the ease of my return.

Being a posture specialist I’m only too aware that as women we need to start owning our space more in order to be seen and heard. This is especially important if you’re attending an interview, a networking session or starting at a new organisation. If we become aware of our posture, making a few small changes can be a huge support when returning to work.

There are three tips I want to share with you that have helped me time and time again. They are simple and you can begin to use them straight away.

1) Look up. Your head weighs approximately 11lbs, similar to the weight of an average cat, so if there happens to be one close by pick it up. It’s heavy, isn’t it? If you find yourself looking down, then the weight of your head will start pulling your shoulders forward and will impact your posture and presence. It will also hinder your breathing so you won’t feel as relaxed. If you walk into a room looking up, your posture will be better and you will have presence. You will feel more confident – and if you can see everyone in the room, it means they can see you.

2) Love your armpits. This might seem an odd request but bear with me. If you find you’re making yourself smaller and feeling tense then the likelihood is you’re squeezing your arms in and your armpits have no space. This quite simply means you can’t breathe fully because the movement of your ribs is constricted by your arms and so your lungs can’t fully inflate. If you bring awareness back to your armpits and allow space to be there then not only will you fill your full width and own your space but you’ll also be able to breathe so you’ll feel calmer and more confident.

3) Ground both your feet evenly on the floor – don’t put more weight on one than the other or sway between the two. When you allow both feet to release down you will naturally have better posture and feel more present and grounded.

So I invite you to give these simple tips a try and see how you get on.

One final thought I want to leave you with is to consider how to enter a room. This can massively impact what follows – whether it’s an interview, meeting or networking session – because we can make a first impression in as little as seven seconds. So, walk into the room looking up, breathe into your width and ground yourself through your feet.

Something that has really helped me is my ‘entering the room’ theme tune. We all have a song that makes us feel really energised when we listen to it. Well find that song and listen to it or sing it to yourself before entering the room. I promise you will notice a big difference.

By allowing yourself to stand tall and to own your space not only will you feel more confident and in control, but others will perceive you to be these things too. You deserve to stand tall. You deserve to own your space. And you deserve to be where you are. So hold your head high as you play your theme tune and step into the room. You’ve got this.

Abi Wright is a Posture Specialist and Alexander Technique practitioner with a background in business, performance and wellbeing. She goes into organisations working with the female workforce to increase confidence and visibility through posture. She is also passionate about raising awareness around the importance of women owning their space within the workplace and society  www.inspiringmargot.com

Sign up to our free Women Returners network for more advice, support and job opportunities. You’ll find much more help and advice on our website.

Boost your confidence for a successful return to work

Ask one of our career coaches what they believe to be the number one personal barrier to a successful return to work after a career break and the chances are they will say “lack of professional confidence”.

Women on a career break may be very self-assured when it comes to their home and social life, but the thought of returning to the workplace can bring on a crisis of professional confidence. One of the ways this lack of confidence is often expressed is in negative thoughts around the prospect of returning to work – “I’m too old”, “things have moved on in my industry”, “I’m not the same person as the one who did that managerial job” etc, etc. 

When we consider that much of our identity is tied up in our work, it’s not surprising that when we’ve been away from the workplace for any length of time, we can find our self-belief gets eroded. If you’re feeling under-confident, don’t let this hold you back – take steps to give yourself a boost and you’ll be setting yourself up for success.

Top Tips for Boosting Your Confidence

  • Remind yourself of your achievements – Think about all you have achieved, year by year, both before and during your career break. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was, or whether it was a big or a small achievement, so long as it feels satisfying to you. To help, look out old copies of your CV to remind yourself what you achieved in past roles. Bringing your successes back to the front of your mind can give your confidence a real boost.
  • Identify your key strengths and skills – Rather than focus on what you lack, focus on what you can personally bring to an employer. It can be a hard exercise to list your own strengths, so get feedback from your friends and family, and think about what skills you demonstrated in the achievements you listed. Don’t minimise what you’ve done during your career break – for examples, caring and volunteer work create valuable new skills. Read our blog on setting your career compass for other advice. 
  • Adopt the right mindset – Your attitude has a powerful impact on your likelihood of success. We find that returners who work on their patience, persistence and positivity are more likely to make a successful return than those who give in to frustration and negativity. We discuss how to adopt a mindset of ‘realistic optimism’ in this blog and a growth mindset, in this blog.
  • Brush up your knowledge and skills – Don’t let feeling that your IT skills or industry knowledge are out of date sap your confidence. Upskill yourself. Find courses locally and look at the free online MOOCs (Massive Online Courses) to help bring yourself back up to speed. Use industry events and professional associations to find out what’s been happening in your field and meet ex-colleagues to get an informal update.
  • Update your image – If you look professional, you’re more likely to feel like a professional again. If you can afford it, it’s worth investing in a new outfit (and maybe a new haircut) for networking and interviews. Read our step-by-step advice on updating your wardrobe for your return. Establishing a regular exercise routine can also make you feel and look better, as well as boosting your energy levels.
  • Volunteer – If you’ve had a very long break, strategic volunteering can be a good way to ease you back into your ‘professional self’ and to refresh your skills and experience at the same time.
  • Body Language – Focusing on looking more confident through the way you walk and talk can actually make you feel more confident. Read more here.

And don’t forget to take a look at the Success Story Library on our website – reading the wealth of stories of a wide range of women who have successfully returned to work after multi-year breaks can help you to believe that you can do it too!

 

How to look more confident than you really are

Self-confidence – if only we could create and bottle it we would make our fortune! The reality is that many women who have taken a career break suffer from a lack of professional confidence. And it’s really not surprising – it’s natural for confidence to fade when we take a long break from an activity that formed a large part of our identity.

The good news is that your professional confidence quickly comes back after a successful return to work. However if you’re struggling with your self-confidence at the moment, take heart from the fact that neuroscience and psychology show that our actions can change our thought patterns to build self-belief. So ‘faking it until you make it’ can often lead to a real increase in confidence.

Top tips for appearing more confident than you really are

Appearance

Body language

  • Walk into the room positively, make eye contact and smile to help build rapport and convey confidence.
  • Avoid fidgeting with pens or rings – gently closing your hands can help with this.
  • If you’re standing, stand up straight with your feet apart. If you’re sitting, adopt a wider posture with your feet on the floor.
  • Avoid crossing your arms as this can make you seem defensive.
Speech
  • Speak more slowly and deliberately.
  • In interviews, don’t be afraid to take your time when answering a question.
  • In a networking situation, instead of being preoccupied by what you want to get across, concentrate on listening to what the person you’re talking to is saying and show interest in them. For more tips read Are you missing the point of networking at an event?

And if your confidence needs a quick boost – here’s what to do:


The Power Pose

  • For a quick boost of confidence before a stressful event try Amy Cuddy’s two-minute ‘Power Pose’. In her 2012 TED Talk, Cuddy asserted that adopting a dynamic physical stance can make can make us feel more confident. And we can personally attest that the Power Pose works!

For more help and advice on increasing your professional confidence, we’ve a range of articles on the Advice Hub on our website.

Make sure you have signed up to our free network for more advice, support and job opportunities. 

Updating your wardrobe for your return to work

As well as updating your professional knowledge and networks to prepare for your return to work, think about spending a bit of time organising and updating your work wardrobe. Feeling good in what you’re wearing can help to boost your confidence and to shift your identity back to your professional self. If you’ve had a very long career break, workwear/styles may well have moved on and we sometimes change shape too!
Organising your Work Wardrobe
  1. Consider the culture of the organisation/industry you will be, or hope to be, working in. How formal/informal is it? What type of clothes would be most appropriate? Dress codes may have changed since you left – many sectors are less formal now – so do some research to update your knowledge.
  2. Think about how you want to be perceived and choose a few key words to sum this up, eg professional, competent, approachable.
  3. Take all your potential work clothes and shoes out of your wardrobe. If you have a rail you can use/borrow, even better.
  4. Select all the clothes that meet the first 2 criteria.
  5. Try them on to check they still fit you well and that you feel good in them. If not, sort them into piles for giving away, altering or storing.
  6. Group the remaining clothes into potential outfits. Make a note of any gaps, eg shoes, tops, and what colour would be a good match. Turn this into your shopping list and prioritise what’s most important.
  7. If you have space to store some of your clothes, such as under the bed or in a spare wardrobe, put away anything that’s not suitable for the current season. The fewer items you have to choose from, the quicker the process!
  8. I’m not a fan of selfies, but this is the exception: take photos of whole outfits (preferably with you in them) so that you can either print out a sheet of outfits or flick through your phone the night before work or an interview for inspiration and time-saving.
  9. Draw up a table (if this appeals – it may not!) and list outfit ideas on each row, eg:

Updating your Work Wardrobe

Once you have your shopping list, bear in mind the following points:
Colour: try to avoid falling into the ‘black trap’.  Black really only suits people who have ‘deep, cool and bright’ colouring, otherwise, it can be very draining, especially close to the face. Grey, for example, is a good alternative, there are many shades to suit different people and, when it comes to more expensive items like coats or bags, it will go well with many other colours.
Materials: I have a personal preference for natural fibres and avoid anything made from fabrics like polyester. Although these fabrics are often cheaper and wash easily, they can cling and feel unpleasant when it’s warm. Also, if you’re heading towards, or already in, hot flush territory, synthetic fabrics are not your friend! You might also want to avoid structured dresses with sleeves which you will feel trapped in during a hot flush unlike a jacket/top where you can quickly remove a layer if you need to. For those of you who are fortunate enough not to have reached, or been affected by, this stage, enjoy the freedom of choice!
Brands:

  • Any good department store will cater well for different shapes, styles and budgets.
  • For more formal/reasonable quality workwear, look at these high street brands: Cos, Hobbs, Jigsaw, Massimo Dutti, Zara, Reiss, Gerard Darel, Jaeger, M&S, Boss. A few good smaller brands, mostly online, are The Fold, Pinstripe and Pearls, Libby London and Rose & Willard.
  • For less formal/more contemporary workwear, consider Whistles, Top Shop, Finery, Baujken, Me+Em, Uterque, Joseph. For shoes, try websites such as Zalando or Sarenza.
  • If you’re on a tight budget, keep an eye on the sales (you can set Sale Alerts for items if you use websites such as Shop Style), look at shops such as H&M and Uniqlo and browse the charity shops in upmarket areas. If you are from a low income household, you may be able to get a referral to the charity SmartWorks which provides free interview clothing.
Prioritising: Good quality workwear is usually quite pricey but I encourage you, if possible, to buy fewer, better quality items to get a good ‘cost per wear’ ratio. Buy the key items (dresses, skirts, trousers, jackets, suits) in fairly neutral tones (eg black, grey, blue, taupe, burgundy), so you can easily change the look with more affordable tops, accessories and different colours. For inspiration on reducing the amount of clothes we tend to own, have a look at this TEDx Talk by Jennifer L Scott.
Help! If the thought of refreshing your wardrobe for work feels daunting ask for help from a friend whose advice you trust and style you admire, or take advantage of the ‘Image and Impact’ coaching session we offer at Women Returners.
For more ideas about what to wear for work, have a look at this earlier blog post: What to wear to interviews.
Posted by Natalie Hunter, one of the Women Returners Coaching Team and a trained Colour/Style Consultant. She offers these services separately, or together, for clients. Please contact coach@womenreturners.com if you’d like to find out more.