RULE # 7
The Best Way to Reenter the Job Market Is to Never Leave It

LET’S FACE IT: in the job market, women are different. This is not an admission of failure in the battle for equal pay and a more just society. Yet the truth is that the road to career success for professional women remains more complicated and more difficult than it is for men. This observation has two important consequences. First, changes in the rules for finding white-collar employment play out differently for women. Second, failure to take these differences into consideration can have disastrous consequences.

The difference in job situations for men and women was driven home dramatically by Allison O’Kelly, founder and CEO of Mom Corps, a staffing company designed to help professional women reenter the workforce and establish work-life alignment. “I knew there had to be a better way,” she confessed, “when as a seventeen-year-old my father died suddenly and my mother had to reinvent the career she put off to raise a family.”¹ The idea of finding an employer truly committed to work-life balance was pretty much out of the question. Any mention of the concept during a job interview would likely be accompanied by an invitation to look elsewhere. Despite protestations to the contrary, companies do not generally accept responsibility for the “balance” employees need in their lives, especially between how much time they devote to work and to private matters. Her mother needed a job whose work schedule fit the lifestyle her new circumstances imposed. Ergo, a work-life “alignment” seemed more practical and appropriate than a “balance.” That is, it is not so much that we balance our work and personal time as it is how well those two worlds mesh.

Raising a family as the surviving spouse is difficult under any circumstances. But surviving men usually do not have to resuscitate their careers at the same time. Additionally, men are much less likely than women to have their careers interrupted by conflicting responsibilities and the prolonged absences from the workforce that go along with those pressures. Essentially, life events and cultural expectations impact women’s careers much more than men’s. Therefore, women’s approach to the job market has to be altered accordingly. This chapter takes a look at Rules 1 through 6, with an eye toward those alterations that women need to make, especially when they desire to reenter the job market.

Interrupted Careers

The typical white-collar professional is college educated and career oriented. If he or she is just starting out, the individual has a substantial sense of upward-mobility potential. That is, the current job is viewed as a stepping-stone to other jobs that will eventually carry greater income and prestige. Ambitions would have to be placed on hold if, for whatever reason, the individual needed to leave work for an extended time. But compared to women, men hardly ever consider the possibility that major life decisions, such as having a family, will require that they interrupt their careers. Women routinely understand that a decision to have children carries the corresponding expectations that they may have to put their careers on hold for anywhere from a few months to several years.

Study after study reports that interrupted careers are a cultural expectation for women not generally shared by men. Young, would-be professional women understand that they are more likely to start and restart their careers. And, indeed, many of them do. They enter college and make career decisions with those realities in mind—for example, by choosing careers that have more flexible time commitments, such as college professor versus an attorney in a partnership. Women who ignore these realities risk having to make more difficult choices down the road.

In her senior thesis, Amy Sennett (Princeton class of 2006) concluded that her female classmates seemed as willing as the generations of women before them to “accept the assignment, by biology or society, of child-rearing responsibilities to women.” Those responsibilities become more severe when divorce is involved. Most couples do not enter into matrimony with divorce in mind, even though over 50 percent of all marriages end up in divorce. Bob and Ginny recognized that his career had the greatest income potential and hers was secondary—the one that could temporarily be sacrificed when children came along. But two kids and one divorce later, Ginny went from wanting a career to needing one. She felt fortunate in a way because she could rely on Bob to uphold his end of the divorce settlement to support the family’s current standard of living.

Yet she suspected that Bob would eventually move on and have another family who would compete for limited resources with the one he left behind. Statistically, Ginny could expect a 27 percent decline in her standard of living, while Bob would experience a 10 percent increase. The difference for Ginny would need to be made up by getting started on the career she had begun and earning the income she gave up for marriage and motherhood.

This situation is not altogether avoided even if the marriage survives. Women are still more likely to get squeezed in the working world because they tend to accept responsibility as primary caregivers for both children and aging parents. That’s fine—as long as the spouse remains alive for continued financial support.

After twenty years of marriage, Clarence and Dorothy were confident their union would not be a statistical casualty. Over the years, they were typical of many similarly situated couples in that Dorothy settled in as the primary caregiver for the kids. She tended to stay home when they were sick or other home responsibilities demanded her time. Her boss understood that things were that way, and Clarence never seemed to give the matter a second thought. As the kids grew and Dorothy and Clarence’s parents aged, it seemed natural for Dorothy to lend her caregiving talents to their parents as well. When an absence from work was required, Dorothy was always the natural volunteer.

The toll this took on Dorothy’s career came more clearly into focus when Clarence took ill and passed away at what would have been the height of his income-earning years. Initially, she never minded the extended interruptions from work, but now she could have used the extra money that an enhanced career would have provided.

Some career women choose not to get married and/or have children. To complete the picture, however, we see another group of women who decide they can have it all—marriage, children, and a good career, to boot. The latter are today’s “supermoms” who are major contributors to their two-income families and whose incomes support a middle- or upper-middle-class standard of living. Plus, these superwomen are often role models for young professional women just entering the workforce.

We have discussed how globalization, technology, and deregulation have changed the rules for finding white-collar work. But these changes have exaggerated impacts on professional women and they call for additional career-management tools. There is good news on the horizon, however. The number of highly educated career women with children has dramatically increased in the past couple of decades. As a result, “on-ramping”—a new term invented to describe women who reenter the workforce, joining the highway traffic of fast-track careers—is creating an entirely new arena of work opportunity. (Its opposite, “off-ramping,” describes women who need to exit the career track, perhaps temporarily.) Top business schools such as Wharton, Dartmouth, and Harvard have started programs to accommodate the needs of these high-powered moms. New companies (Mom Corps, Career Partners, Business Talent Group, and others) have come into existence providing companies with high-powered talent on a temporary project basis while meeting the needs mothers have for jobs aligned with their needs.

There are several explanations for this dramatic shift in the employment landscape for women. First, companies and universities need to improve their public relations regarding the special needs of professional women. Second, temporary, or contract, workers are an attractive option for companies because they are less expensive and more flexible (can meet tighter schedules and don’t require benefits) than full-timers. Third, tapping into any pool of highly talented workers makes good business sense.

Recent surveys have shown that of the 93 percent of working moms who report wanting to return to the workforce, almost three-quarters are able to do so. The trend is clearly toward increasing flexibility for career women who need to hop on and off the career path. That is, an interrupted career need no longer be synonymous with a ruined career.

That’s the good news. The sobering reality is that regardless of where a woman is on the educational ladder she still needs to get into position to take advantage of opportunities. While companies and universities have become more flexible, the basics of the game have not changed. To find suitable white-collar work, you must demonstrate an ability to create value that is aligned with what employers are looking for—and create it in greater abundance than your competitors.

The steps toward creating value have been discussed in earlier chapters, but women need to consider additional factors. Let’s look at the steps and see how they apply in the case of an interrupted career.

Value Creation Is the Competitive Edge

Remember Bob, struggling with instability in the workforce? He wondered if employers were beginning to think that the problem was with him and that he simply could not hold a job. He wondered how hiring managers would react to his having had three jobs in five years. Yet Bob found a job in a reasonable amount of time by shifting attention away from issues of workplace stability to highlighting the value he brought to his new position. He accomplished this with a laserlike focus on the value his new employer wanted in a new hire and by linking his past experiences with company requirements.

The image of the on-ramp to the career highway is instructive. Accessing a highway requires a driver to “get up to speed” before merging onto the main road. Going too slow can cause confusion or an accident. But this mistake can be avoided if you remember that the best way to reenter the job market is to never leave it. That is, do not allow your career-related activities to lapse, even though you may no longer be an active member of the workforce. Maintain enough speed during that period so that you can merge gracefully with the traffic (the competition).

This rule applies regardless of where you are in your career. If you need an off-ramp, exit in a way that allows you to stay tethered to the job market. You can start the process by choosing a career that allows maximum personal flexibility, but that’s not strictly necessary. The key is to keep your value-creation skills sharp and your accomplishments current. There are some practical, easy, and powerful ways to do this.

CONSIDER RETURNING TO SCHOOL

Even if you have an MBA or a Ph.D., you can consider returning to school. You are not after the degree. But returning to school allows you to cherry-pick the curriculum to enhance the skills you already have but may need to improve—and perhaps develop new ones. Skills like project management, public speaking, and computer modeling and analysis are usually good places to start. But attend school to do more than just learn. Try to pick a school that has a strong, highly respected career-placement center. Research the companies that recruit on campus and see where the alumni tend to be employed. Be prepared to contact them and find out as much as you can about these companies and about the job market in general.

Be purposeful when you return to school. Think in terms of doing more than just taking classes. Now is a good time to get to know the professors whose research interests align with yours. Try to take an independent-study course and become involved in the professor’s research. Though it may be difficult to get a chance at coauthorship, at least you will be able to list the research on your résumé.

Professors also make for good references and networking contacts. Find out whom they know and whether you can connect with them, very much the way you would when networking. Assess the state of the job market from their perspective, and solicit advice about the best way to reenter it.

CONSIDER VOLUNTEER WORK

A wide variety of not-for-profit organizations can use the skills of the highly educated. Choose an organization that has a particular need in your area of expertise and volunteer your time. Hospitals, religious organizations, community outreach programs, and many others need skillful volunteers.

Judy Carpenter graduated with honors in accounting from her state university and started work as an auditor for a large firm. Before she had a chance to move up in the organization, her career took an off-ramp for the birth of her first child. Rather than return to work immediately, Judy became a stay-at-home mom for three years. Though away from the workforce, she was not inactive. She assumed the duties of chief financial officer (a nonpaying position) for a medium-size charity. She used the experience to broaden her accounting background to include a fuller range of financial management. What she did not know (cash management, tax filings, financial controls, etc.) she picked up through classes at the local community college paid for by her charity. She also solicited the volunteer assistance of several professors who served as on-the-job mentors. Judy’s return to work was a relatively easy process that resulted in a promotion from the position she had previously.

TRY TEMPORARY WORK

A temporary assignment should align with other priorities in your life. One of the simplest ways to accomplish this is to contact organizations that specialize in professional women returning to the workforce. These might include Mom Corps, Career Partners, Business Talent Group, and others. These organizations understand the problems involved in restarting a career, and they search for assignments that take work-life alignment into consideration. They also represent “safe” places where women can discuss and learn to manage the anxieties of going back to work.

Your Résumé Is Not About You

Rule #2, “Your Résumé: It’s About the Value You Create,” is an extensive discussion of how to develop a résumé focused on the value that organizations want when they hire people. You can begin to understand what others want by carefully examining the position descriptions of jobs of interest and for which you would be a viable candidate.

Getting off the fast track is a lot easier than getting back on. Both processes can be highly stressful. You can make reentrance a lot easier if you plan for it as far ahead of time as possible and if you are purposeful in how you do it. The first step is to recognize that the best time to look for work is well before you need to go to work. You should use the “Five Steps to Your Value-Infused Résumé” as a guide during your employment hiatus. Stay in touch with the job market by keeping current on the skills companies are seeking. How do you do that? The same way you prepare your résumé. Understand the value that individual companies are looking to have created when they fill positions. Use the “Key Word” exercise discussed earlier.

1. Identify the key words in the position descriptions of jobs of interest. Also, stay abreast of developments in your field by reading professional journals and articles that describe ongoing issues in the industry or profession. Pay special attention to the words used to describe the issues and the innovative solutions developed to deal with them. This language will be particularly helpful upon reentry.

2. Continue to examine your own experiences in terms of their relevance to new issues that evolve during your absence. Anytime your past experiences seem dated, develop more relevant ones as you return to school, volunteer, or work part-time. This way you can keep up with what is happening in the market and simultaneously keep your skills current. Choose jobs or opportunities that require skills you already have and will be considered a plus by potential employers.

3. Be sure your new skills are attached to substantial accomplishments—co-publishing with a professor, presentations at conferences, volunteer work that results in major organizational gains, and so on. Such achievements demonstrate your ongoing ability to create value.

4. When you are ready to respond to a specific job opportunity, translate the value you have created throughout your career (especially including the hiatus) to the requirements of the position(s) in which you are now interested.

5. We mentioned two types of résumés—chronological and functional—and expressed a strong preference for the former. If you have been out of the job market more than three years, however, a functional résumé may be more appropriate. At a minimum, develop a strongly worded functional career-summary statement to be used as a handbill that highlights your various areas of expertise and accomplishments.

All these strategies may sound like more activity during a break from work than you anticipated. However, you shouldn’t have to employ them full-time. From the perspective of career continuity, just make sure no year goes by without value-creation/skill-enhancement activity of some kind. Those who take the time to remain active and career focused will have less trouble restarting their careers compared to those who have big gaps in their résumés.

There Is No Such Thing as the Hidden Job Market

Once you make the decision to go back to work, you may want to know how to reconnect to the “hidden job market.” Those strong networking ties you once had probably have not been maintained, and you’re not sure you have either the energy or the time to reconnect. The good news is that there isn’t any hidden market. Via social networking on the Internet, you can connect with an infinite number of people by establishing weak ties that take less time and are more effective.

There is no general agreement as to the best place or best method that employers use to look for talent. Media advertising is expensive and uncertain; they now broadcast openings in a variety of ways, including the Internet. Numerous groups and blogs allow like-minded people to connect and exchange ideas on the job market. In particular, the matter of on- and off-ramping is currently a hot topic that has attracted professional women at all levels. Establish an Internet presence and develop your personal brand well in advance of returning to work. The effort will be well worth it. Also, now is a good time to experiment with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

You can also use the Internet to give a little and get some back. A new group of professional women enters the workforce each year, and many women have the same anxieties and questions you did when you interrupted your career and now as you enter the on-ramp. Very likely, other women could benefit from what you have learned about career management. Perhaps now is a good time to start a blog, or at least join some of the thousands of conversations facilitated by the Internet. Participation is a good way to build your personal brand and Internet presence. Companies interested in your candidacy will be pleased to see other dimensions to your value-creation skills.

The Answers to All Interview Questions Are the Same

You now understand value creation, your résumé is ready for prime time, and you have worked your network for several job leads. You are ready to interview. For a variety of reasons, interviews produce more anxiety than any other stage in the job-search process. This is when you come face-to-face with people who will stand in judgment of your accomplishments and compare them to others’. Understand that it is perfectly normal to be nervous. That’s all the more reason to be well prepared. Here is the million-dollar question and corresponding answer:

Q: Why were you out of the workforce so long?

A: I am not sure I really ever left. If you look at my credentials closely you will see that I did many things to keep my skills current in anticipation of returning….

Women do not have to apologize for using a career off-ramp and staying there for however long they need. People expect to hear that you have paused to raise your children or care for aging parents. You just need to demonstrate your willingness and ability to create the kind of value employers want when they fill positions.

Reference checks require additional attention. Generally speaking, the longer the period of unemployment, the greater the need to have references that are current. Think of it this way: A reference from a direct supervisor you had fifteen years ago will not have the same impact as more recent experiences. Current references can come from college professors, volunteer organizations, or temporary jobs. Reestablishing a track record is hard work and takes time. That’s why you want to plan your reentry as early as possible and start building important relationships well before you want a job. Having to return to work immediately without anything to fill the gap only makes reentry more difficult. Revisit the discussion of references (Rule #4) and follow the suggestions as closely as possible. They are now more important than ever.

PREPARE FOR THE INTERVIEW

This process is especially important. You have been away from work and need to sell yourself more than ever before. Consider this famous joke: A tourist asks someone on the street, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The person responds, “Practice, practice, practice.”

That punch line is the correct answer to the question of how to prepare for an interview, especially when you have been absent from the workplace. Don’t memorize the answers to a bunch of theoretical questions that may never be asked. Plus, some of your answers will have to be developed on the spur of the moment. If you are well prepared, you’ll able to give extemporaneous answers to unanticipated questions.

You’ll recognize the opportunity to talk about things of interest to the employer and relate them to your experiences when the opportunity presents itself. Identify the key words in the position description of the job for which you are applying. Visit the company’s website and pay close attention to industry publications. Once you know what is of interest to a potential employer, and have identified related experiences from your work history, begin to formulate questions an interviewer might ask. Then practice, practice, and practice. And remember, the answers to all interview questions should be treated as opportunities to talk about topics of interest to the employer.

STANDARD TOUGH QUESTIONS

Aside from the question of what you’ve been doing during the hiatus, which have been covered, the toughest question you probably will face is that of salary. Have a salary amount in mind but do not reveal it. Conduct a computer search on what people in your field with your experience are paid. Companies generally like to leave room for merit increases and midyear adjustments, if warranted. That is more difficult when they start someone at the top rather than the bottom of a salary range. Also, keep in mind that companies are loath to overpay. If a search consultant is involved, you can use the individual to probe salary issues, but don’t count on him or her to gauge how competitive a salary offer is compared with that of other firms; search agents work for the company and have the company’s best interests in mind during this stage of the job-search process.

When a salary offer is forthcoming, remember that you and the company already agree on the most important things—you want a job and it wants to offer you one. If the salary is absolutely below what you need to survive financially, you may want to turn the job down. Most people, however, don’t find themselves in that situation. Usually, you’ll want more money without being sure if more money is justified. When you have a sense of the market, you have a better idea of whether it is a good offer or not.

Interviewers are advised to steer clear of questions about conflicts between home responsibilities and work because they too easily stray into areas that are inappropriate and even illegal to inquire about. The arrangements you need to make at home during work time are your business. The presumption should be that those have little or nothing to do with the job. However, here’s how to handle the matter, should it arise:

Q. Do you have emergency day-care support so you can be here if needed?

A. I have never had any problems managing my work and personal life.

Keep the answer short so as not to invite further intrusion. Do not offer details about your life unrelated to the job, including the arrangements required for you to meet a demanding work schedule. Think of such questions this way: Would a man be asked the same question? If a man with a family doesn’t have to answer them, why should a woman have to? In addition, any details you provide about how you would manage the situation at home to respond to a work emergency will only invite further questions.

You Get What You Negotiate, Not What You Deserve

Given the special issues women face, Rule #5 has a few additional wrinkles. The list of things you want in your next job, how they are prioritized, and how to use them in negotiations are particularly important. A typical list of priorities for a new job in middle management might be as follows:

Must-Haves

Work-life alignment

No more than 20 percent travel

Three weeks’ vacation

Bonus opportunity (40 percent)

Would Like to Have

No relocation

401 company match (25 percent)

Effective career-development programs

Company car

Want, but Can Do Without

Pay raise over last job

Competitive employee contribution to medical plan

Immediate coverage for preexisting conditions

The list says a lot about existing priorities. Yet it is okay for your list of priorities to be flexible. If someone in the family suddenly developed a serious illness, coverage of preexisting conditions would move to the “must-have” category. The purpose of the list is to determine what is important to you and what trade-offs may be necessary.

The preference for “work-life alignment” is of particular interest here because you need to define the situation more closely. The more general the terms, the greater the room for misunderstanding. You should be clear in your own mind precisely what these terms mean to you in everyday work situations. Expecting flexibility occasionally to deal with emergencies is quite different from expecting it week after week or day after day.

Flexible work hours mean different things in different companies—and even in different departments within the same company. If you need flexibility, ask to see a copy of the company’s policy on flexible work arrangements. If no policy exists, flexibility is usually negotiated on a case-by-case basis. You should regard this as the first sign of an unhealthy situation because every time you have a change in immediate supervisor you may have to renegotiate your flexible work arrangement. Contrast this to companies such as IBM, which have employees around the globe who work from home and are covered by a formal policy.

Generally speaking, in the absence of a policy covering flexible work arrangements, you should be specific about the details of the flexibility you need and have it put in writing. Penning a memorandum to your boss can be justified as “your attempt to make sure you heard the discussion correctly.” Avoid legalese and any appearance that the memo is being written as a CYA document. Reducing an agreement to writing is a good way to make sure both parties heard each other correctly and are operating with the same set of assumptions. It will give you time to correct any misunderstandings before they surface in other ways.

Remember, do not negotiate your working conditions too soon. Current employees are the best barometer of how a company really works vis-à-vis flexible work hours and other aspects of employment particularly important to professional women. Before any negotiations, get the lay of the land by speaking with as many similarly situated women as possible.

The period of time between when an offer is formally made and when you accept is the time to negotiate. You have more bargaining power than at any other time. Closure on the deal is near at hand, save perhaps for a few details that should be easy to negotiate.

Of the seven rules for skillful negotiation, two in particular deserve additional emphasis: underplay your hand, and underpromise and overdeliver. Underplaying your hand is a reminder to avoid haggling over relatively unimportant details. You already have a list of priorities you want in a new job. Many of the items should be flexible and able to move from one category to another as the negotiation goes forward. If an item is nonnegotiable, it may be cause for walking away from the opportunity.

Underpromising and overdelivering requires a shift in mindset that can be extremely difficult, especially after you are most of the way up the on-ramp. Just remember: if you follow this rule, you will be regarded as a high achiever who understands the complexities of challenging assignments and who excels when it comes to delivering on your promises.

NOTE

1. Allison O’Kelly, CEO, Mom Corps, personal interview, July 6, 2010.