Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / How a Stay-at-Home Parent Returned as a Pricing Analyst
Transcript
- Lucas: So today we're getting into something we haven't touched on yet: returning to work as a pricing analyst. And I've got a specific story that just makes it click. Luna: Oh good, because pricing always felt like one of those mysterious back-office jobs. How does someone even start? Lucas: Right, and that's exactly why I wanted to bring this one in. So there's this woman I'll call Sarah. She spent five years at home with her kids, and before that she worked in retail management. Not exactly a data-heavy background on paper. Luna: But I'm guessing there's a spreadsheet chapter in this story. Lucas: There's a spreadsheet chapter. But before we dive in, if today is actually useful to you, the way these shows stay ad-free is listener support. You can buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's what keeps us going. Luna: Yeah, it really does make a difference. And it's nice to know people find this helpful. Lucas: So back to Sarah. When she decided to go back, she didn't just start blasting out resumes. She looked at what she'd actually been doing at home, and she realized she'd been running a small operations hub. Budgeting, scheduling, negotiating with contractors, comparing prices on everything from groceries to summer camps. Luna: That's real work. But how do you put 'comparing summer camp prices' on a resume without getting laughed at? Lucas: That's the trick. She reframed it. Instead of listing activities, she described a project: 'Managed a household budget of X amount, reduced discretionary spending by 12 percent through vendor comparison and negotiation.' She put it under a section called 'Family Operations Management'. Luna: Family Operations Management. I love that. It's confident without being coy. Lucas: Exactly. And then she went one step further. She volunteered to help a local nonprofit with their fundraising event. They needed someone to figure out ticket pricing and sponsorship tiers. She said yes, and she built a simple pricing model in a spreadsheet. That became her portfolio piece. Luna: So she turned volunteer work into a tangible example of her skills. That's smart. Lucas: Yeah. And when she applied for a junior pricing analyst role at a mid-sized software company, she didn't just list that on her resume. She brought the actual spreadsheet to the interview. And she walked them through her logic: how she set the tier prices, how she tested sensitivity, how she accounted for different donor segments. Luna: That's bold. Did they respond well to that? Lucas: They did. The hiring manager later told her that the spreadsheet showed more practical thinking than most candidates with a finance degree. And she got the offer. She started at sixty-five thousand, which was a step down from her pre-kid salary, but within two years she'd moved to seventy-eight. Luna: So the gap wasn't a dealbreaker. It was actually part of her story. Lucas: Right. And that's the key thing about pricing roles specifically. They're not about having a fancy degree. They're about being numerate, curious, and able to explain your reasoning. And a career gap can actually help, because it gives you a different perspective on value. Luna: How so? Lucas: Well, Sarah told me she thinks about pricing differently because she's been the one pinching pennies at home. She knows what it feels like to see a price and think, 'Is that worth it?' And in pricing, that consumer empathy is gold. You're not just crunching numbers; you're understanding what people will pay and why. Luna: That's a really good point. And it's something you can't learn in a classroom. Lucas: Exactly. So if you're returning to work and you're drawn to analytics but you don't have a formal background, pricing is a great entry point. It's a field that's growing, it's data-driven, but it's also very pragmatic. Luna: What kind of skills do you actually need? Like, is advanced Excel a must? Lucas: I'd say intermediate Excel is a solid baseline. VLOOKUP, pivot tables, that kind of thing. But you don't need to be a programmer. The bigger skill is being able to structure a problem and tell a story with data. Sarah had to explain why ticket prices should be tiered, and she did it with a simple table. Luna: So it's more about the thinking than the tool. Lucas: Exactly. And that's good news for anyone coming back after a gap, because that thinking can be developed with practice. She actually took a free online course on pricing fundamentals before she even applied. Just to brush up on terms like price elasticity and margin. Luna: That's a good tip. Free courses, YouTube, whatever. You can learn a lot without spending money. Lucas: And the other thing she did was network. She reached out to a few pricing managers on LinkedIn and asked for informational interviews. Not for a job, just to learn. And one of those people gave her a heads-up about the opening at their company. Luna: So she got the inside track just by being curious. Lucas: Yeah, and that's something anyone can do. It doesn't require a big network or an MBA. It's just about being proactive and genuine. Luna: I think the biggest takeaway for me is how she reframed her gap as a period of developing relevant skills, not a void. She didn't apologize for it. Lucas: That's exactly right. And that's the mindset shift that matters. When you walk into an interview and you're confident about what you've been doing, even if it's not a traditional job, that confidence reads. And it makes the interviewer think, 'This person can handle ambiguity.' Luna: And pricing is all about ambiguity, right? You're working with imperfect data, you're making assumptions, you're testing. Lucas: Completely. And that's why Sarah's story works so well. She proved she could handle that kind of thinking in a low-stakes environment first. The nonprofit got a better fundraising outcome, and she got an interview story that landed her a job. Luna: So if someone's listening and they're thinking about this path, what's the first step you'd recommend? Lucas: I'd say start with one project. Find a local charity, a church group, a school PTA, anything that needs a pricing or budgeting decision. Offer to help. Build a simple model. And then document it. Write a one-page summary of what you did and what the outcome was. Luna: And that becomes your portfolio. Lucas: Exactly. And then when you apply, you're not just saying you have skills. You're showing them. That's the difference between a resume that gets skimmed and one that gets a call back. Luna: That's really actionable. I love that. Lucas: So if you're returning to work and you're analytical but you don't know where to fit, pricing is worth a look. It's a field that values practical intelligence over pedigree. And as Sarah showed, a career gap can be a feature, not a bug. Luna: And the spreadsheets don't hurt either. Lucas: Never do. That's all for today. We'll be back tomorrow with another comeback story.