Key Strategies for Women Returning to Work: “Start Where You Are…”
“Rebound, rebranded, and I certainly found my voice,” said Nancy Zola, who recently returned to work as a consultant.
Rose Horowitz @RoseHorowitz31 Jan 20
Just how many smart women with experience, degrees, and hard-to-put-on-a-resume skills, such as raising kids, are interested in returning to work? To one of the women attending a conference in downtown Manhattan, the answer is obvious: simply put, many. #careers #returntowork
“I am a lawyer. Are there possibilities for attorneys to work part-time?,” asked a woman during Q & A at Inspiring Capital’s Return With Purpose Summit earlier this month at Grace Institute. “I am an entrepreneur,” a woman in the front called out. “I need a lawyer.”
“You are an experienced, highly-educated talent pool,” Stacey Delo , CEO of @apresnyc, told the more than 80 women attending the conference. But studies have shown how rough it is for mothers who take career breaks to get jobs. #RWPSummit2019
Employers prefer to hire laid-off applicants out of work for the same amount of time, says Kate Weisshaar, assistant professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In a study published in @HarvardBiz, she sent nearly 4,000 fake resumes to real job postings in 50 cities - 2015, 2016.
Results? Only 4.9% of stay-at-home moms received a callback from potential employers, compared to 9.7% of unemployed mothers & 15.3% of working mothers. Nancy Zola, an @InspiringCap Fellow who’s now a consultant, said that at first, she felt awkward networking.
Yet Zola has learned to become adept at it, she said. “I like to listen. People love to talk about themselves.” Turnaround: “Rebound, rebranded, and I certainly found my voice,” Zola said. #WomentoFollow
For women who question if the community activities they threw themselves into and led during years out of the workforce, Zola said: “If you look at the functional analysis of what you did, you were working..it’s all in your head you weren’t doing tons of stuff.”
“Start where you are,” Susie Batt, an @InspiringCap Fellow who‘s now in operations for @ConsenSys, a #blockchain software technology company in Brooklyn. Batt, a mother and former figure skating coach, had been a freelance writer.
Some women said they hadn’t been employed for years. “Even after a career break of two years, I was up against barriers,” says Judy Schoenberg, director, @InspiringCap Return With Purpose Programming. “I hadn’t looked for a job in 15 years,” she said. “A career break does not mean we’re broken.”
How to choose what area to target when re-entering, asked one participant, adding that she’s faced #ageism as a barrier. “Even if it’s not clear to you what’s next, pick something, test the waters,” said keynote speaker Harriette Cole, media personality & author.
The days’s most inspiring moment? “You know how women want to meet @Beyonce?,” said Tanea Smith, standing up. “I want to meet Melissa Norden.” Norden heads @BttmlessClstNYC, which helps underserved women dress for job interviews & get a job.
Smith, who said she was a teenage mother who had been on welfare, is now a motivational speaker and founder of a stationery company. #WomentoFollow #entreprenuer
Three #takeaways for women re-entering the workforce after a career break.
1. Use networking w/former colleagues, community members, friends, & family. Let people know you’re looking for a job. “Who you know is what you know,” said @TamiMForman of Path Forward.
2. Encountering #ageism? One approach: Increase the networking aspect of your job search versus searching through sites, such as @indeed or @Monster,” said Carroll Welch, a career and leadership coach.
3. Be direct and acknowledge your career break on your resume. Put the career break on your timeline, Welch said. “You own it…say something like I took seven years to raise my kids, but I am ready to relaunch my career,” she said.
Originally published at twitter.com on January 20, 2019.
