Jennifer Vance, Founder at Time & Space has 15 years of event experience. But when she took seven years off to raise and care for her three children, she found she was returning to not only a vastly different landscape but with a crisis of confidence and a feeling of where do I go now. Here she talks about her decision to go freelance and what it’s like juggling a career in events with motherhood.
I always knew I wanted to work in events – at University I was the one who organised all the parties and then after graduating I helped people with events for free to build my experience before getting in-house jobs as an events organiser.
After meeting my husband we moved down from Scotland to Cambridgeshire and I started working for a network of universities that were ranked among the top 100 in the world where I was organising conferences and retreats all over the world for their directors of communications. I then worked for a health policy think tank organising conferences, retreats, seminars, and workshops – both great and exciting jobs I loved. However, once I had my son, I knew I wanted to be a stay at home mum for a while. Then, when my second child was born, Covid hit and we moved back to Scotland. By the time my third was about a year I had been out of the workforce for seven years. I was ready to go back to work, but I had been out of the workforce for 7 years.
The return to work conundrum
During the last few years of my maternity leave, I began looking at return-to-work options. I knew that I wanted to get back to work on my own terms, with my own business. I knew that I couldn’t do it in the same way as pre-kids and work full time because we don’t have support close by, and I couldn’t say to somebody ‘I can be here five days a week, from 9am till 5pm every day in the office’, because between my husband and I, we have to pick up kids, drop off kids, take them home if they’re sick, bathtime, bedtime, dinnertime and everything else that comes with parenthood.
I had to find a way to work that worked for me and that’s how I came to the idea of freelancing. When you’re a freelancer you have freedom, yes you don’t know what’s coming and what you’re going to get, but I’ve found that it gives you experience in areas where you probably didn’t think you would go. I can say yes and no to jobs and I’m more able to be reactionary – if somebody says we need somebody for 10 days right now, it’s easier for me to plan for that than it is for me to plan for every Tuesday for the next year. And the nature of working in events – evenings, weekends, out of hours work – is actually helpful to me because those are the hours my husband doesn’t work, so he can look after the kids. Also, after seven years of not earning money, sending an invoice and getting paid might not seem a lot to most, but to me it is truly empowering.
Is freelancing everything I dreamt of? Of course not, but it works for me
It sounds idyllic but there are of course cons. I am making it work because I want to, I’m determined to and it’s the way that work ‘works’ for me at the moment.
For me the biggest learning curve in transitioning to freelance is that the most important thing isn’t how good you are at your job – it’s how good you are at self-promotion. When you’ve been out of the job market for a long time, self confidence is low and imposter syndrome is high, so getting out there and putting myself in front of prospective clients took me a really long time. When you are freelance you have to rely on yourself and it can be difficult to be your own cheerleader and push yourself forward.
I also had to learn the ‘game’ of social media and self promotion. You have to be good at navigating that game the most authentic way you can and that is something I’m still learning.
One thing about freelancing is nothing’s guaranteed, so you have to be really trusting and okay with the fact that something will turn up. Tell yourself, ‘I’m doing the work. I’m making the right connections so something will turn up’, but that’s a hard mindset to keep up.
Finding balance
The other thing is when you’re starting out it can feel like there’s never any break, especially as a mother. I veer between work, kids, work – I’m usually working every evening. But recently I’ve become more strict and I’m making little changes to achieve a better work/life balance.
Those might sound like negatives but they are far outweighed by the positives – the freedom and the flexibility, the talent, brands and people that you get to work with, and the experiences you get to be part of, it is really brilliant. I love working on my own terms, and I love working outside of the home – where I’m Jen not Muuuuuuuum.
Plus, the transferable skills I’ve gained from having three small children has made me a much better event producer – the ability to gracefully manage chaos, to operate in extremely high pressure situations, the dynamism to adapt to last minute changes very well, stamina to keep going during long hours, troubleshooting, resourcefulness, I could go on!
So if you’re a mum on maternity worrying about returning to work, please remember that nothing can replace the experience, both in work and in life, that you can bring to companies. And if you’re an employer, don’t overlook the mums – they’re working two jobs – one of which never ends, but their stamina, organisation and negotiation skills will be unmatched.
Jennifer is an experienced Event Producer and business owner who helps businesses to communicate, thrive & boost engagement with high-quality, bespoke events that exceed expectations. For more information visit her LinkedIn page here.
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