How to get back to work after a career break | Carol Fishman Cohen | TEDxBeaconStreet

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