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People returning to work after a career break

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I call them "Relunchers"

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Those are people who have taking career breaks

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for elder care or child care reasons

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pursuing a personal interest or a personal health issue

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Closely related are career transitions of all kinds

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Veterans, military spouses, retirees

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coming out of a retirement or repatriating expats

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Returning to work after a break is hard

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because it's disconnected between the employers and the relunchers

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Employers can view hiring people with a gap on the resume

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as a high risk proposition

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And individuals on career break can have doubts about

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their abilities to relunch their careers

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especially if they have been out for a long time

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This disconnect is the problem

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that I am trying to help solve

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Now successful relunchers are everywhere and did every field

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This is Sami Kafala

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he is a nuclear physicist in UK

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who took a five-year break to be home with his five children

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The Singapore Press recently wrote about

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Nurse returning to work after long career breaks

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And speaking of long career breaks

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This is Mimi Kahn

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She is a social worker at Orange County California

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who return to work in a social services organision

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after a 25 year career break

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That's the longest career break that I am aware of

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Prominent people take career breaks

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Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

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took a 5 year career break early in her career

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And then there are the fictional relunchers

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probably the most famous is Alicia Florrick

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The character played by Julianna Margulies

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in the TV show - "The Good Wife"

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She is a lawyer who return to work

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after a 13 year career break

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Here is a really person who take a 13 year career break

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This is Tracy and her family

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Tracy answered the call for .... by the ...

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from people who were trying to returning to work

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but having a difficult time of that

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Tracy root in a mom of five

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who love the time at home

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But she had gone through divorce

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and need to return to work

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Plus she really want to bring work back into her life

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because she loved working

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Tracy was doing with so many of us do

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when we feel like we put in a good day in the job search

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She was looking for a financial or accounting role

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and she has just spend last 9 months

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very diligently researching companies online

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and applying for jobs with no results

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I met Tracy in June of 2011

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when the Today Show asked me

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if I could work with her to see

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if I could help her turn things around

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The first thing I told Tracy was

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she has to get out of the house

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I told her she had to public with her job search

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and tell everyone she knew about her interest to returning to work

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I also told her

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You are going to have a lot of conversations

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don't go anywhere

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expect that and don't be discouraged by it

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There will be a handphone

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that automatically lead to a job opportunity

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I will tell you what happened with Tracy a little bit

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but I want to share with you a discovery

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that I made when I was returning to work

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after my own career break of 11 years out of full time workforce

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And that is

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people's view of you is frozen in time

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What I mean by this is

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when you start to get in touch with people

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and you get back in touch with those people from the past

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the people .... worked or went to school

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They are going to remember you as you were

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before your career break

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And that's even if your sense of yourself has diminished over time

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as happened with so many of us

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the far we move away from our professional identities

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So, for example

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you might think of yourself for someone who looked like this

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This is me!

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Crazy day after driving around my mini Van

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or here I'm in the kitchen

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But those people from the past

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they don't know about any of this

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they only remember you as you were

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and it's a great confidence.... to be back in touch with those people

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hear their enthusiasm about your interest of returning to work