People returning to work after a career break
I call them "Relunchers"
Those are people who have taking career breaks
for elder care or child care reasons
pursuing a personal interest or a personal health issue
Closely related are career transitions of all kinds
Veterans, military spouses, retirees
coming out of a retirement or repatriating expats
Returning to work after a break is hard
because it's disconnected between the employers and the relunchers
Employers can view hiring people with a gap on the resume
as a high risk proposition
And individuals on career break can have doubts about
their abilities to relunch their careers
especially if they have been out for a long time
This disconnect is the problem
that I am trying to help solve
Now successful relunchers are everywhere and did every field
This is Sami Kafala
he is a nuclear physicist in UK
who took a five-year break to be home with his five children
The Singapore Press recently wrote about
Nurse returning to work after long career breaks
And speaking of long career breaks
This is Mimi Kahn
She is a social worker at Orange County California
who return to work in a social services organision
after a 25 year career break
That's the longest career break that I am aware of
Prominent people take career breaks
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
took a 5 year career break early in her career
And then there are the fictional relunchers
probably the most famous is Alicia Florrick
The character played by Julianna Margulies
in the TV show - "The Good Wife"
She is a lawyer who return to work
after a 13 year career break
Here is a really person who take a 13 year career break
This is Tracy and her family
Tracy answered the call for .... by the ...
from people who were trying to returning to work
but having a difficult time of that
Tracy root in a mom of five
who love the time at home
But she had gone through divorce
and need to return to work
Plus she really want to bring work back into her life
because she loved working
Tracy was doing with so many of us do
when we feel like we put in a good day in the job search
She was looking for a financial or accounting role
and she has just spend last 9 months
very diligently researching companies online
and applying for jobs with no results
I met Tracy in June of 2011
when the Today Show asked me
if I could work with her to see
if I could help her turn things around
The first thing I told Tracy was
she has to get out of the house
I told her she had to public with her job search
and tell everyone she knew about her interest to returning to work
I also told her
You are going to have a lot of conversations
don't go anywhere
expect that and don't be discouraged by it
There will be a handphone
that automatically lead to a job opportunity
I will tell you what happened with Tracy a little bit
but I want to share with you a discovery
that I made when I was returning to work
after my own career break of 11 years out of full time workforce
And that is
people's view of you is frozen in time
What I mean by this is
when you start to get in touch with people
and you get back in touch with those people from the past
the people .... worked or went to school
They are going to remember you as you were
before your career break
And that's even if your sense of yourself has diminished over time
as happened with so many of us
the far we move away from our professional identities
So, for example
you might think of yourself for someone who looked like this
This is me!
Crazy day after driving around my mini Van
or here I'm in the kitchen
But those people from the past
they don't know about any of this
they only remember you as you were
and it's a great confidence.... to be back in touch with those people
hear their enthusiasm about your interest of returning to work