Relaunching your career? Don't miss this Q&A with iRelaunch's co-founder, Carol Fishman Cohen
by NY Working Moms Examiner Amy Impellizzeri
Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin - graduates of Harvard Business School and co-authors of Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work - resumed their own careers after years out of the workforce raising children.
Later, continuing their mission to help other moms jumpstart their career reentry plans, Cohen and Rabin founded iRelaunch which, among other services, presents career reentry programs to moms, employers, universities and other organizations.
Cohen, who has actually been featured in a Harvard Business School case on Professional Career Reentry, took a break from planning iRelaunch's upcoming Career Relaunch Forum on October 29 at Seton Hall University to talk about her own relaunch story as well as iRelaunch's partnership with many corporate sponsors who fully recognize the benefits of hiring relaunching moms.
Q: Recently, the New York Times article entitled “Recession Drives Women Back to the Work Force” highlighted women that are returning to work after a hiatus at home to raise children. In your experience, is the economy the main reason women are seeking to re-enter the workforce these days? What other factors have you found play into the equation?
A: Money has always been the number one driver for women returning to work and that's even more true today. Other motivators are:
Validation: For those without
pressing financial need (more of a rarity today), the reward is not
the purchasing power of the income per se, but the legitimacy and
validation that comes from earning it.
Leveling the Marriage Playing Field:
Pulling in their own income, and contributing in a material way to
family finances, makes some women feel self-sufficient, confident,
and independent within their marriages. Spending decisions replace
spending negotiations.
Intellectual Stimulation: A lack of
intellectual excitement in their lives drives some full time at
home moms to think about relaunching careers.
Serving as a Role Model: Wanting
children to see that there is a dimension to mom's life that
goes beyond running the household.
Ambition: Recognizing unfulfilled
career ambitions and realizing it is time do something about
it.
Q: What are the challenges of relaunching in the current economy and how can iRelaunch help women navigate those challenges?
A: Relaunch strategies for a weak economy are not different from those used at other times. You may need to be more creative about where your skills fit and have more patience because the process may take longer. But the key success factors of having a strategy, maintaining your momentum, and keeping a positive attitude remain the same. One of the reasons we wrote Back on the Career Track was, when my co-author, Vivian Steir Rabin, and I were relaunching our careers back in 2000, we felt isolated and without a game plan. We developed the "7 Steps to Relaunch Success" career reentry strategy so no other person on career break interested in returning to work would have to feel like we did. Now we offer our Career Relaunch Forum (one day return to work conference) and Relaunch Circles (small group coaching programs) to help people on career break through the return to work process. In fact, our Career Relaunch Forum is coming to Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ on October 29 .
Q: As you’ve been talking with corporations, including corporate sponsors of the upcoming iRelaunch conference, what are you hearing about the desirability of hiring relaunching moms?
A: The corporate response to the New Jersey Forum has been
robust and extremely encouraging. Companies are genuinely
interested in hiring relaunchers and in learning more about the
pool of talent on career break, even in this weak economy. In fact,
our Forum sponsors believe the relaunching pool is well suited for
specific opportunities they are offering: For example, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is hiring financial
advisors and is targeting relaunchers as candidates for this
role. Goldman Sachs has a Returnships program for
people returning from career break and MomCorps has national
franchising opportunities that may be perfect for the
relauncher with the right background. Our lead sponsor for
the third time is Accenture , and
Bloomberg , Credit Suisse , Deutsche
Bank , Tyco , MIT Professional Education , and MomCorps are
also sponsoring. All of these companies will be networking with our
participants during the Forum.
Q: You have your own relaunch story, having
successfully relaunched your career after 11 years at home raising
your children. Tell me a little more about your relaunch
experience.
A: I graduated from business school in 1985 and worked first in manufacturing and then in corporate finance at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert. Drexel collapsed in 1990 when I was on maternity leave with my first child, so there was no “should I go back, shouldn’t I go back” decision to be made – there was no company to which to return. However, I did have to decide I wasn’t going to look for the next big job. My husband and I weren’t getting any younger and we wanted to have more kids. We had three more kids over the next five years.
I worked part time during the five-year period while I was
having more children. When I had my fourth, I left the paid
workforce entirely to be home full time for the next six years. I
relaunched my career by taking a demanding, full time job at a
major investment firm. My four children were ages 5-11 at the time.
Eventually I realized it was not the perfect match, but I stayed
for a year. After I left, Harvard Business School decided to make
me the subject of a case about a mom who built a career, took a
career break, and then returned to full time work. When it was
published, I got called into the classroom to tell my story. I
started speaking and writing about my experience and about career
reentry in general, and then Vivian and I got the contract to write
Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home
Moms Who Want to Return to Work. Subsequently, we formed
iRelaunch to provide career reentry programming for
employers, universities, organizations, and individuals.
Q: Tell me about the upcoming iRelaunch conference on
October 29. What can participants expect? In particular, what can
you offer moms who are stuck as to where to begin their relaunch
strategy?
A: The Career Relaunch Forum is a one day return to work conference for mid-career professionals on career break looking for strategy and advice on returning to work. We have been bringing the Forum around the country and are looking forward to coming to Seton Hall. We always hold the Forum at a university because the Forum is an educational event. We partner with a small group of prestigious employers in order to provide the opportunity for informal, but meaningful interactions with participants. Vivian and I present our popular keynote on the "7 Steps to Relaunch Success" career reeentry strategy, and we lead workshops on key parts of the process. Employers talk about their interest in the "relaunch pool" and successful relaunchers tell their return to work stories. We are honored to have great panelists and moderators for the NJ event. We usually have about 125 attendees. You can hear directly from past participants by viewing the short video on our Career Relaunch Forum home page.
For more on this topic:
How do you begin the process of re-entering the workforce after a hiatus at home?
Can you return to the practice of law after a multi-year break?
