Helping women to re-enter the workforce

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By Becky Beaupre Gillespie

Many of the 200 people who filled a conference room at the Hilton Garden Inn in Evanston on Friday had one thing in common: They had taken breaks from the workforce and were now facing the daunting task of relaunching their careers —in some cases as first-time entrepreneurs.

As I wove my way through the tables at the iRelaunch Return to Work Conference, hosted by Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and run by career re-entry experts Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin, I flashed back to my own re-entry after five years as a stay-at-home mom. I was a reporter when I left the workforce; newspaper journalism was the only career I'd ever pursued. Even when other teens were bagging groceries after school, I was stringing for my local weekly.

When I decided to return to journalism, I was my own boss — researching and writing a book, freelancing and eventually building a speaking business. An odd combination of exhilaration and self-doubt swirled in those early days: Had I lost my edge during those five years at home? Could I work effectively without a city editor telling me what to do? And what about my family — could I do all this stuff and still be a good mom? I flip-flopped and fumbled before jumping in whole-hog.

Turns out, my experience wasn't unusual.

“People tend to wrap up all the issues involved in returning to work into this one big question: Should I return to work? It feels very overwhelming, and then they tend to get lost in the details of it, and they flounder around for a while,” says Ms. Cohen, a mother of four from the Boston suburbs. “We call it the floundering period.”

Carol Fishman Cohen

Ms. Cohen and Ms. Rabin's company, iRelaunch, produces career re-entry programs, events, webinars and conferences for professionals, companies, universities and organizations. The typical iRelaunch conference attendee is a female in her 40s who has been on an intentional career break for seven or eight years to care for children. But the programs also draw men who have taken breaks, and people who have left for other reasons, including to care for aging parents or pursue personal interests. And although many of those who attend the conferences are looking for traditional jobs, nearly a third are looking to relaunch in a flexible role or as an entrepreneur, Ms. Cohen says.

That was the case for Philomena O'Halloran, of Chicago, who took a short break after being laid off from her job at Abbott Laboratories. When she began plotting her comeback, she realized she wanted something different. So she and three partners — each of whom, like Ms. O'Halloran, have about 25 years of experience in the health care industry — began developing GROWnet Healthcare Partners, a management consulting business that launches this month. A Kellogg alumna, she attended the conference to get ideas and ensure that she was on the right track.

“There's a fear: Can I get paid? Can I build this business?” Ms. O'Halloran says. “But if you never try it, you never know.”

For some, however, the desire to relaunch — and the direction that re-entry should take — is less clear. Sometimes needs and interests have evolved, and that's what makes the assessment period so crucial.

“We make our career decisions when we're very young,” Ms. Cohen says. “Women (tell us) they never had a chance to evaluate whether they were in the right career because they were go-go-go, nose to the grindstone for so many years until they took their career break. It was only at that point that they were able to step back and reflect.”

Sarah Pearsall, of Chicago, had worked as an employee at a nanotechnology startup before the first of her two kids was born in 2005. After five years at home, she decided to choose a different career path. She launched a business selling jewelry and accessories for the social-selling company Stella & Dot, gradually ramping it up from a part-time hobby to a full-time business with a six-figure income.

“It was a gentle re-entry,” says Ms. Pearsall, who had an information table at the conference. “I like to call it ‘full-time flexible' (because) I can work my schedule around the needs of my children and my family.”

To get a handle on relaunch readiness, Ms. Cohen recommends boiling it down to three issues: How much do I want to be back in the working environment? What are my family responsibilities right now? How much support do I have from my spouse, family or others right now? The iRelaunch website offers a readiness quiz designed to help people examine these questions.

For those who choose the entrepreneurial route, having the confidence to take the leap is key.

“I think women sometimes get tripped up if they are not confident enough in their own concept and whether they can pull it off. If they are surrounded by naysayers … this will cause them to delay,” Ms. Cohen says. “I think women who are considering entrepreneurship sometimes get concerned about starting small. They should just start their idea, even if it's very small. Getting to that point where you make the first sales call, produce the first product, get the first proposal ready — those are steps that you have to actually decide you're going to take.”

Ms. Cohen also recommends building confidence and skills by practicing on a trusted group.

“When you start telling people your background and what you're interested in doing, sometimes you don't sound very good at the beginning because you need to practice,” she says. “So we say first talk among non-judgmental friends and family. They can give you feedback on how you're telling your story. The more of these informal conversations you have, the better you're going to sound when it counts.“

Becky Beaupre Gillespie is a Chicago-based journalist and the co-author of "Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood." She speaks on work/life issues and perfectionism at corporations, conferences and to women's groups, and she blogs at TheNewPerfect.com.

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