How to Leverage Stay-at-home Moms Who Still Want to Work

Moms make the world go ‘round, and if you know where to look, they can make your business go round too. In honor of this year’s Mother’s Day, we’ll examine the largely untapped talent pool of stay-at-home moms, take a closer look at how these diamonds in the rough can be ideal contingent workers, and then dive into some tangible tips to help you hire them.

Just How Many Moms Are We Talking?

According to the Pew Research Center and information from the 2012 US Census, almost a third of mothers (29%) are staying at home, with a growing share of the 10.4 million women who make up this percentage doing so because they can’t find acceptable full- or part-time work.

What’s more, a plurality of both working and stay-at-home mothers reported that it would be ideal if they could work part time (42 percent), rather than full time (only 36 percent said that they’d prefer to not work at all).

And apart from simply wanting to work, what makes this population especially attractive is that they tend to be expert multi-taskers who, out of necessity, are effective time managers and also happen to be highly active on social media.

In light of all of this: the question shifts from why should recruiters be looking to hire stay-at-home moms, to how.

3 Tips to Recruiting Stay-At-Home Moms

1.Tap Into Existing Networks

Tapping into existing online networks is an important step in recruiting stay-at-home moms for your businesses. There are plenty of these in existence, and some, like Qeople, and iRelaunch, help connect employers with experienced professionals who are looking for rewarding and challenging remote work (stay-at-home moms will be well represented here).

The size and health of these networks (iRelaunch has served over 17,100 returning professionals since 2008) proves how important it is for many of these women to contribute to the workforce, so it’s up to recruiters to find them.

2. Know Your Target

Moms have a perspective on life and work that would bring value to any company, but it also means they’ll want some value in return (beyond monetary compensation). Many are veterans of the corporate world who now have neither the time nor desire to put in the 60-hour weeks often demanded from senior level executive positions. Rather, stay-at-home moms are looking for a way to leverage their wisdom and expertise in a fulfilling manner.

As Miranda Nash, CEO of QEOPLE, says, “Stay-at-home moms are not in it to make extra money, they’re in it to do work that they find valuable and is meaningful. Many already volunteer.”

Stay-at-home moms seek community with other parents and often look for advice about everything from new products, to parenting, to career choices from their peers online. So stay-at-home moms aren’t hard to find on social media, but recruiters be warned: a bad candidate experience or a clunky recruiting process won’t just hurt your reputation with one candidate, but likely her broad social network as well.

3. Understand Where They’re Coming From

Recruiting a stay-at-home mom isn’t like recruiting recent grads for entry-level positions, and it’s not like attracting senior-level executive candidates. That’s because, unlike those two candidates, they already have a job: being a mom.

Think about it: Stay-at-home moms can’t take sick days, they don’t take vacations, and they have the unique brand of laser-focus that motherhood brings. Recruiters should understand that the value of a stay-at-home mom hire isn’t in the long hours she’ll give the company, but in the experience and drive she’ll bring to the table. So as a recruiter, if you offer some flexibility, you can hire stay-at-home moms with more experience and qualifications than what you might find in other talent pools.

Hiring a stay-at-home mom isn’t about finding someone who can dedicate their whole life to your company; they have more important things to do. But recruiters should be looking to add value to their firms wherever they can get it, and the value of mothers’ experience and insight, even on a part-time basis, should not be overlooked.

This Mother’s Day, definitely make sure to thank your mom, but if your workforce happens to need quality contingent talent, also don’t let your recruiting team overlook stay-at-home moms.