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Tips for Staying Relevant While You Take a Break From the Workforce

October 19th, 2009 by Emira · 2 Comments

When I first met Jan­ice, a col­league and friend who I very much admire, and a whip smart con­sul­tant to boot, she was just re-entering the work­force after hav­ing taken a few years off with her kids. As she recounted for me some of the tales of inter­views she had been to, where HR reps looked at her sus­pi­ciously and asked her to explain just what exactly she had been doing with the cou­ple of years she had taken off, my jaw hit the floor. We all know that women reg­u­larly get penal­ized in the work­force for tak­ing time off to be with their kids, but some­how I guess I had thought we were for the most part past that, and that par­tic­u­larly some­one with Janice’s level of skills and expe­ri­ence would be given a full pass for step­ping out for such a short time par­tic­u­larly when stacked up against her expe­ri­ence and skills. But appar­ently I was wrong.

Jan­ice, fol­lowed up that con­ver­sa­tion by send­ing me some links for women who are tak­ing time off (for what­ever rea­son) from their careers on stay­ing “rel­e­vant”. I put that last word in air quotes, as I feel those women are more than rel­e­vant as they are, but … well you all know what I mean. Any­way, as I clean out my inbox and get rid of some pieces that rightly should have been filed last May, I thought I’d share them here for those of you think­ing about step­ping off the merry-go-round for a while.

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Tags: Business Advice

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Caitlin // Oct 19, 2009 at 1:25 pm

    “where HR reps looked at her sus­pi­ciously and asked her to explain just what exactly she had been doing with the cou­ple of years she had taken off, my jaw hit the floor. We all know that women reg­u­larly get penal­ized in the work­force for tak­ing time off to be with their kids, but some­how I guess I had thought we were for the most part past that, and that par­tic­u­larly some­one with Janice’s level of skills and expe­ri­ence would be given a full pass for step­ping out for such a short time par­tic­u­larly when stacked up against her expe­ri­ence and skills.”

    Maybe I’m miss­ing some­thing here, but I would think the HR per­son would be remiss if they didn’t at least inquire about the “miss­ing years”.
    I can’t imag­ine some­one get­ting a “full pass” based on the HR person’s assump­tions about what they were doing with that time.

  • 2 Suzanne // Oct 20, 2009 at 9:37 pm

    I found that peo­ple gen­er­ally accept and appre­ci­ate the fact that women take some time of for a child, as long as it is just a short period, like not over a year, and as long as they are will­ing to give it more than 100% again when they do re-enter the work-force.
    I feel that you have to make up your mind and say YES or NO! Tak­ing a year off is accepted, but try­ing to work part time or need­ing a few extra hours off beca­sue your child is sick, is not accepted.
    I under­stand the point of view from an employer, though. Why hire some­one who can­not be counted on for the full 100%?But it makes is very hard for mums to get back into the work force.

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