Tag Archive for: career coach

5 Strategies for Transitioning Back to Work After a Career Break

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back to work after career breakReentering the workforce after a career break can be both exhilarating and challenging. Whether the time away was for caregiving, further education, or personal reasons, it is natural to feel uncertain about how to confidently and meaningfully reenter the workforce.  However, with thoughtful preparation and planning, it’s possible to navigate this transition successfully while leveraging the unique strengths developed during your break. Here are five comprehensive strategies to guide you:

1. Reflect on Your Values

Before diving back into the job market, take a moment to reflect on your values. Having time away from the day-to-day tasks of the work week can provide perspective on what truly matters to you, and aligning your next role with your values can lead to greater satisfaction and fulfillment. You may have a clear idea of what your values are, or you may need to ask yourself some reflective questions to get to the heart of what you hold most dear. Some ideas include:

  • What motivates you?
  • What’s something you couldn’t imagine your life without?
  • What excites and energizes you?
  • Recall a time when you felt completely immersed and alive—what made it stand out? Why was it so impactful?

Once you are clear about what is most important to you, consider creating a values-based checklist to guide your job search. For instance, if flexibility is important to balance family responsibilities, prioritize companies with remote or hybrid work options. If meaningful work is a priority, explore organizations whose missions align with your passions. Defining these criteria early can help you focus your search and identify roles that resonate with you. This intentional approach ensures that your next career move is not just a return to work but a step toward a more fulfilling professional journey.

2. Own Your Career Narrative

Reframing your career break as a period of growth is a vital step. Reflect on the transferable skills you have gained while away from the traditional work force. Managing a household, volunteering, or pursuing personal projects often involves problem-solving, time management, and leadership. In fact, recent research from Harvard Business Review points to how care work can build invaluable skills like empathy, efficiency, and tenacity that benefit employers.

Develop a concise and compelling story that connects these experiences to the position you are seeking. For example, organizing a community event or fundraiser highlights project management, teamwork, and the ability to meet deadlines under pressure. Similarly, mediating family conflicts or managing caregiving responsibilities showcases emotional intelligence, problem-solving, and adaptability—critical skills that are highly valued in professional environments. Practice articulating this narrative, emphasizing how your time away prepared you to tackle new challenges with resilience and perspective. This approach demonstrates self-awareness and positions you as a candidate with a well-rounded skill set.

3. Update Your Skills and Knowledge

Staying current in your field is essential, particularly in fast-changing industries. A 2023 LinkedIn report highlights that professionals who proactively invest in their skills are better positioned to seize new opportunities. Furthermore, if reflecting on your values leads you to consider a career pivot, focusing on areas where you can build knowledge becomes especially important. Begin by conducting a skills audit or a personal SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to pinpoint your strengths and identify areas where further knowledge or development could enhance your career prospects.

Whether re-entering your current field or trying something new, think about enrolling in online courses through platforms like Coursera, Udemy, or LinkedIn Learning, which offer flexible, self-paced courses. If you are aiming for formal credentials, consider certification programs offered by universities or professional organizations. Additionally, stay informed by subscribing to industry publications, attending webinars, or participating in workshops.

4. Rebuild and Leverage Your Network

Networking remains one of the most effective strategies for finding new opportunities. Although a good first step is to reconnect with former colleagues, mentors, and peers, research shows it is important to broaden and diversify your digital social network beyond the circle of those you know well to the more infrequent, arm’s-length relationships with acquaintances. These “moderately weak” ties can be more beneficial than you think when looking to leverage your network.

Start by updating your LinkedIn profile to reflect your current career goals and highlight any new skills or experiences gained during your break. Decide if you want to use the “Career Break” feature on LinkedIn that allows you to articulate those periods when you were away from the paid workforce. Reach out to contacts individually, expressing your interest in returning to work and asking for guidance. Attend professional events, conferences, or local meetups to expand your network further.

If networking feels daunting, consider working with a career coach to develop effective strategies and build confidence. Additionally, joining industry-specific online groups or forums can help you engage in discussions, share insights, and establish your professional presence. Networking isn’t just about job leads; it’s about cultivating meaningful relationships that support your long-term growth.

5. Work with a Career Coach

Navigating a return to the workforce can feel overwhelming, but setting realistic, actionable goals can make the process more manageable. Define what success looks like for you in both the short and long term, whether it’s securing a full-time role, gaining experience through a returnship, or pivoting into a new industry.

A career coach can help you think about the smaller, achievable steps it will take to reach the broader goal of transitioning back into the paid workforce. They provide a safe space to explore what is most meaningful to you in this transition while offering the accountability and focus necessary to keep the momentum moving forward. Beyond practical guidance, a coach can help you build confidence and navigate challenges, making the transition smoother and more rewarding.

Remember, this process is not just about finding a job—it’s about finding the right job that aligns with your skills, values, and aspirations. Setting clear goals and seeking professional support can help you create a purposeful and fulfilling career path.

If you are looking for expert support in navigating this transition, Book Here for an exploratory call to work with one of our leadership coaches.

Redefine Your Career, Your Way

Returning to the workforce after a break isn’t just about picking up where you left off—it’s an opportunity to redefine your career in ways that align with your current goals and values. By reflecting on your priorities, owning your narrative, investing in skill development, leveraging your network, and working with a career coach, you can turn this transition into a fulfilling and transformative experience. Every career break holds the potential for a remarkable comeback. With determination and a clear strategy, this chapter can mark the start of a fulfilling and purpose-driven career.

By Jessica Robaire

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Women, Get Promoted in 2020

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Get PromotedIf your goal is to get promoted in 2020, then you might consider doing an inventory of your relationships. Figuring out who your advocates or sponsors are is a good start. Then think about how you deploy them as true sponsors, so that you can secure and be rewarded for some high profile assignments. This, if you can get a great sponsor and are willing to make them look good is still a very effective career strategy.

My favorite academic Hermina Ibarra discusses the spectrum of mentor to sponsor or advocate in HBR in a way that really demonstrates that it is ok to have a mentor but to not be surprised when they are just an advice giver as opposed to an opportunity giver or “cash their chips on your behalf” person for you.

Sponsorship, almost ten years old as a named concept

We first started writing about sponsorship when the term was coined by Sylvia Ann Hewlett in 2011 when she wrote with Amex about the benefits of the relationship for female executives looking to succeed at work. We continued to write about through the early teens of this past decade as people struggled with the differentiation of mentors versus sponsors. The conclusion that Ibarra makes and I agree with as an organizational coach, is that most formal sponsorship programs haven’t delivered and in some cases have been scrapped altogether. As she states in her article,

“Typically, they abandon sponsorship because experience has shown them that while you can ask senior executives to provide advice and support to high-potential women, you cannot mandate that they spend their personal capital advocating for people they don’t know well or may not be bullish about.”

So, what can you do? Figure out who is who in your network using Ibarra’s sliding scale of mentor, strategizer, connector, opportunity giver and advocate. Once you know where you stand, you can start to know what your ask is!

Know the talent processes

Secondly, I am often surprised when as a coach, someone tells me they want to be promoted but yet have not investigated the formal talent processes at their firm. It is important to know what you have to do to be in the running as sometimes there is formal nomination and that can form the very basis for the plan that will take you to the next level. You can tell HR or your boss that you are interested in a long-term future there at your firm and therefore would like to know what you need to do to be considered for promotion. You can even request a specific timeline as the worst that can happen is that you tell you nothing, which is information in itself. Observe what behaviors and who gets rewarded at work as these are cultural norms that play a part in subjective talent processes in firms that are looser on their formal processes.

You can then focus your networking, and your work projects. When you are doing stretch assignments that matter, find ways to make sure others know as that is better than working yourself to the bone and expecting the reward on sheer volume of work alone.  Start having the right conversations with the right people, and if this sounds political then know that is how life implicitly works as men have meetings outside meetings all the time in the bathroom, bar, ballgame and the hallway. I sit in cafes a lot with my laptop and I hear men gossip about work even more than women do and they never say that other men are not competent, yet I hear women colleagues being undermined over coffee by women and men, sadly most days. The double bind of how you are darned if you do and darned if you don’t!

Other things to do in 2020 to get promoted

Thirdly in 2020, read the book by long-time collaborator and friend of theglasshammer Sara Canaday called “You, according to Them” that will help you understand that how you are perceived is just as important as who you actually are.

Lastly, to get promoted one of the best strategies is to get a coach. The FT just reported it’s the biggest thing so far in 2020 for career success and empirical evidence suggests randomized control tests showed that 85 per cent of coachees were better off than those in the control group,  not just in their own view, but also in the opinion of their line managers.

Hermina Ibarra’s latest work espouses coaching style for managers as the future. I believe her.

We walk the talk so call us for a complimentary chat about whether a coach can help you get what you want in 2020. Email nicki@theglasshammer.com as we have real life success stories for the past seven years of coaching VP, SVP, Managing Director and C-level women in the financial, professional and technology industries. Put coaching in the email subject line.

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