Return To Work on Shine

Beginning the journey of re-entering the work force

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Career Coach Lisa Chenofsky Singer leads our Relaunch Circles Return to Work Coaching Program in New Jersey. Here she writes for the Millburn-Short Hills Patch about how to begin the relaunch process. This article is reprinted in its entirety below. The original piece can be accessed here.

You want to relaunch your career, but how do you do it?

GUEST POST by Lisa Chenofsky Singer

Dear Career Coach Lisa,

How do I begin my journey of re-entering the work force either on a part-time or job-sharing basis? Although I have kept up with my professional journals and conferences, I have not worked in my field for the past several years.

Money is the #1 driver for women returning to work. What are the others?

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NY Working Moms Examiner Amy Impellizzeri interviews Back on the Career Track co-author Carol Fishman Cohen about returning to work after a career break. Amy's first question to Carol focuses on what motivates women to return to work.

Two Events Feature Return to Work Success, Opportunity, Despite Economy

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Last week I had the privilege of participating in two excellent return to work events; one for lawyers and one for computer scientists/engineers. My co-author Vivian Steir Rabin and I have participated in almost 80 return-to-work events in the last three years, and these two definitely ranked among the top.

Relauncher Tammy Thurow, Bentonville, Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, tells her return-to-work story

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This week we are featuring a guest blogger – Relauncher Tammy Thurow, Vice President, Marketing and Membership Services, for the Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce (as in Bentonville, Arkansas where Wal-Mart is based!). In fact, we were introduced to Tammy by Lucretia Pruitt, aka @GeekMommy, who is one of the Wal-Mart “Eleven Moms” influential mom bloggers and product testing group, and whom we profiled a few weeks ago. Tammy’s relaunch story was so authentic and instructive, that we asked her if she would guest blog this week so you can hear it from her directly, and she agreed. So here’s Tammy…

36 real examples of how to stay connected to your field while on career break (including 5 from retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor!)

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The highlight of our research for our career reentry strategy book Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work was interviewing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor about her five years as a stay-at-home mom (she was still on the court when we met with her). Justice O’Connor was a master at staying connected to her field during her career break. Her contacts from one of her career break experiences, her volunteer work for the Republican Party, helped O’Connor relaunch her career in the Arizona Attorney General’s Office in 1965. And we all know what happened after that. Vivian and I are regularly asked for ideas on how relaunchers can stay connected to their fields while on career break. Rather than just give suggestions, I thought it would be more useful to see a list of actual examples. Here they are, beginning with five from Justice O’Connor:

Help. Mother of four, including severely disabled child, trying to get back to work

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My iRelaunch co-founder Carol and I recently received the following e-mail: ”Hi. Thanks for taking my e-mail. I'm 37, and I've been a stay-at-home mom for 13 years. I tried working when my two oldest children were young, but because I have no family to help when the kids are sick (my husband works) I've been unable to keep a job. In addition to the two older kids, we have a child who isn't in school yet and a 5 year old with a severe disability, Angelman Syndrome http://www.angelman.org/ who is sick a lot and has seizures. I've found that no one wants to hire me even for a night position because of my family. I assume it's also because I've been out of the workforce for so long.

Get out of the house! Network like crazy during this economic downturn

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Rather than just assume “what’s the point, there are no jobs out there anyway”, think differently. Get out of the house! Use this time to meet people both informally and in more professional situations, whether it’s a school committee hearing, a women’s conference, a PTO meeting, a lecture at a university, a writer’s workshop, or sitting on the sidelines at your child’s sports event.

Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Calista Flockhart and Teri Hatcher are all "Back on the Career Track"

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With the tragic loss of jobs and money by so many in the last week, I had to distract myself by focusing on something totally unrelated to Wall Street: Hollywood. At the same time financial markets were collapsing worldwide, the movie “The Women” was released, starring Annette Bening and Meg Ryan, two actresses who took multi-year career breaks and then returned to the screen. They are not alone. Michelle Pfeiffer, Teri Hatcher and Calista Flockhart are among the growing group of prominent actresses who have relaunched back into acting after time away. Pfeiffer took a five-year break, Hatcher took six years, Flockhart took four, Ryan took six, and Bening, took not one, but two three-year breaks when her first and fourth children were born.