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Rating ? Qualities ?
Applicable
Well Structured
Concrete Examples

Buy book or audiobook

Back to Business
Finding Your Confidence, Embracing Your Skills,
and Landing Your Dream Job After a Career Pause
Nancy Jensen and Sarah Duenwald • HarperCollins Leadership © 2021 • 272 pages

Career / Job Search

Women in Business / Women’s Careers

Take-Aways
• If you’ve taken a career break, you’re not alone.
• Select the job search strategy that is the best fit for your circumstances and ambitions.
• Craft your narrative by taking control of your personal brand.
• Get comfortable pitching yourself with a positioning statement.
• Recruiters spend 11 seconds looking at your résumé; small details make all the difference.
• Building relationships is the most crucial component of job searching.
• Make first impressions count by preparing and staying friendly, calm and confident during interviews.
• Even in the face of systemic barriers to equitable pay, negotiate your salary and benefits with confidence.

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 Recommendation
For the millions of women who take career breaks, reentering the workforce can induce plenty of
anxiety. Nancy Jensen and Sarah Duenwald share tools and strategies to help you pivot into a new
role, and they remind you that you’re not alone. Their book covers how to stand out to recruiters, how
to negotiate your salary and much more. Whether you’ve been caring for children or elders, isolating during
the pandemic, or relocating to a new town, Jensen and Duenwald stress the importance of making no
apologies as you confidently embrace your authentic vision and dream big.

Summary

If you’ve taken a career break, you’re not alone.

Nearly half of American women take a career break each year. Returning to work after a career gap can be a
frightening and lonely experience, but 77 million women have already gotten through it. Women who leave
the workforce may lack knowledge about current hiring and business trends and new technologies. They
may need to rebuild their professional network.

“When women learn to articulate what they want and utilize their connections
– personal, professional, community – they can get back to the work they want,
shape it in a new way that suits their current and future life demands, and do it in an
unapologetic manner.”

Be proud of your choices. Pivoting requires learning to articulate what you want, leveraging your
existing connections and shaping your career to suit the life you want.

Select the job search strategy that is the best fit for your circumstances and
ambitions.

Reenter the workplace by using one of these four job-search approaches:

1. “Boomerang” – Return to your former employer in a role that’s similar to the one you last held. This
demands less reinvention of your personal brand, but may not work for those who want to pivot in a new
direction.
2. “Lily pad” – Accept a role that’s slightly lower in the organizational hierarchy than the one you held
previously, and use it to snag a better position. Pros of this approach include making new connections
and earning an income while you figure out your next move. The downside is you gain only short-term
stability.
3. “Try and buy” – This entails working on a short-term contract in a new role. Employers might find it
risky to hire someone after a career pause, so may prefer initially to offer contract or freelance work. Pros
include the potential opportunity to learn new skills and widen your professional contacts; cons include a
greater risk of failure and the lack of long-term security.
4. “Pro bono to paid” – Try volunteer work in your industry before applying for paid work. Aside from
not being paid, cons may include being undervalued. Pros include the potential to build your professional

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 network and to make an eventual transition from your volunteer position into a paid position – 20% of
volunteer roles become paid jobs.

Before you choose your strategy for stepping back into the workplace, reflect on your past work experiences,
noting any common trends: What did you like and dislike? Where would you like to be in one and five
years? Write a vision that feels authentic and exciting. Build personal accountability by choosing a time-
management tool, such as a calendar or bullet journal, that works best for you.

Craft your narrative by taking control of your personal brand.

Develop a personal brand that communicates your identity and unique strengths. Fully 85% of people who
work in human resources say applicants’ personal brands influence their hiring decisions.

“You want your brand to be…the absolute brightest and shiniest representation of who
you are.”

Build your personal brand in seven steps:

1. Self-reflect – Identify what you feel happy doing for hours, what you do better than others, your non-
negotiable values, the tasks that deplete you and the personality traits people admire in you. Reach out to
your connections and ask them about your potential value, strengths and skills.
2. How do you show up? – Some 99% of recruiting managers search for job candidates online before
looking at their résumés or LinkedIn profiles. Google yourself and assess your online presence. Establish
a LinkedIn profile and a profile on at least one other social media platform. Consider setting up Google
Alerts to monitor when your name appears in new content online. Assess your privacy settings, so
you control what you choose to show the public.
3. Consider your audience – Who are your target audiences and where do they gather in person and
online? Follow the social media accounts of influential people you’d like to connect with through your
personal brand. Attend events where they are speaking, and read or listen to their content. Connect at
meetup events or reach out on LinkedIn to contact people from whom you’d like to request career advice.
4. Craft your pitch – Express who you are in two to three sentences. Highlight your values, strengths and
skills.
5. Choose how accessible you are – Assess your privacy settings on your social media platforms.
Take control of what you choose to show the public.
6. Be mindful of your in-person presence – Adam D. Galinsky and Hajo Adam coined the phrase
“enclothed cognition” to describe the power of clothing to affect how people feel and function. Different
outfits alter your confidence level and abstract thinking. Select clothes that match your brand and have a
couple of professional ensembles ready, so you feel confident networking.
7. Embrace authenticity – Don’t mimic somebody else’s brand. Make yours an accurate representation
of you and your values.

Get comfortable pitching yourself with a positioning statement.

Create a brief description identifying your target market, your ideal position in that market and how you’d
like an employer to perceive your personal brand. Your positioning statement should be memorable,

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 credible and easy to understand. Identify why you’re the best one to serve a particular target demographic
by drawing attention to your strengths and skills that align with that market.

“People just want a quick handle on what you’ve been doing, what you’re going to
do and, most important, what you might do for them.”

You want to be ready to make connections in unexpected everyday settings, so make your pitch compelling
and concise. In a few sentences, tell people what kind of role you’re looking for, what your background is and
what your skills are. Find a “through line” or a common theme tying your experiences together. You don’t
need to go into detail about any sensitive reasons you may have for leaving or returning to work; instead,
focus on all you can bring to a new role.

Recruiters spend 11 seconds looking at your résumé; small details make all the
difference.

Connect with recruiters via LinkedIn, since it is the primary platform they use. Fill out your
profile completely and use a professional profile photo and banner image that aligns with your
brand. Get recommendations from your contacts, and update your contact details to make sure recruiters
can reach you easily. When you decide to use a platform, learn its privacy settings. For example, you may
be able to change your profile viewing options, so people won’t know you’ve looked at their profiles. Update
your job-seeking preferences, so recruiters know you’re looking for work.

“Résumés are snapshots in time. They reflect your roles, responsibilities,

accomplishments and a general chronology of your professional time.”

Most recruiters spend only 11 seconds on average looking at your résumé, so take some steps to ensure you
get a call back when you apply for work. Have an email address that doesn’t make you look out of date (it’s
time to ditch AOL or Hotmail and use Gmail or Microsoft). Sift through job boards to get a sense of the
keywords the recruiters you want to attract look for, and include them on your résumé. Add a brief summary
statement, or headline, about who you are and what you offer. Don’t include references on your résumé;
make a separate document. Link to your social media profiles, such as on LinkedIn, rather than including
your physical home address.

Building relationships is the most crucial component of job searching.

Networking is the most critical element of searching for a job, since 85% of people secure positions through
their networks. Cultivate relationships with connected individuals who can introduce you to others. Your
most useful connections will fall into these five categories:

1. Champions are encouraging and optimistic about your job search. They give you confidence.
2. Experts are those you can learn from when you need information for outreach.
3. Membership directors at your professional association or volunteer organization can help you
understand and connect with the group’s membership base.
4. Connectors are extroverts who seem to know everyone and like making introductions.

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 5. “Returners” or “switchers” are those who have pivoted their careers or returned after a pause and can
help you do the same.

Expand your network by attending in-person industry and association events. Start with national
associations, such as the Association for Talent Development, or with groups related to your identity and
industry, such as Women in Technology International. Be honest about your goals, so the people you
encounter can introduce you to those who can help you find the right opportunities.

“Anyone can be an effective networker, as long as you do it with a purpose and are
mindful about your process.”

Make your in-person and online networking productive by telling people you’re thinking about returning
to work. Research your industry to identify the role you’d like. Reach out to people, such as previous co-
workers, to ask them about the current state of your industry. Overcome social anxiety by getting
comfortable talking to new people at events, and keep your requests simple and concise.

Build your online network by following up with the people you meet on social media and being active and
engaged on platforms such as LinkedIn. Try following people whose views interest you, comment on their
posts, and consider creating content such as blogs or articles.

Carefully develop relationships with recruiters, being clear about what you are looking for and what your
credentials offer. Be respectful of people’s time when soliciting their advice or help. If someone agrees to let
you ask them questions about their industry in an informational interview, make sure you have a clear list of
topics you’d like them to discuss.

Make first impressions count by preparing and staying friendly, calm and confident
during interviews.

When interviewers ask you to reflect on your past performance, you can use the four elements of the “STAR
method” to organize your thoughts in a compelling way:

1. Situation – Clearly identify the situation you’re referencing and necessary context.
2. Task – Identify your role, responsibility, expectations and challenges.
3. Action – Share the actions you took to deal with the situation.
4. Results – Share the outcome of your actions, highlighting your impact and accomplishments.

Prepare for your interview by reading the description of the job and preparing to discuss how your
qualifications make you a good fit. Research the company and its culture.

“It is absolutely necessary to prepare for the modern-day interview. Gone are the days
when you could just show up and wing it.”

Choose your interview outfit and try it on in advance. Print out copies of your résumé, and plan your
commute and travel ahead of time to be sure that you’re punctual. Take deep breaths to calm yourself before
your interview. You have under six and a half minutes to make a strong first impression, so be relaxed and
friendly, make eye contact, and engage in natural conversation.

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 Even in the face of systemic barriers to equitable pay, negotiate your salary and
benefits with confidence.

After women take a career pause to raise children, employers stop paying them as well as men who
occupy the same positions. Investigate the market salaries for your role through Salary.com and
Glassdoor.com, and ask for what you think is fair. Consider asking for something realistic, typically 5%
to 15% above an employer’s offer. Reflect on factors beyond money, such as whether you’ll have training
opportunities or time off and whether you like the workplace culture and align with its values. Examine your
potential compensation package, assessing your direct benefits such as bonuses and indirect benefits such as
health insurance.

“It’s a hopeful and exciting time in your life, and maybe a little scary too. That’s OK.”

Be explicit with hiring managers and recruiters about what you want, emphasizing the contributions you’ll
make to an organization that supports your goals. When an employer makes you an offer, express your
gratitude and research the right language for negotiation. Consider barriers such as the “break penalty,”
which means that for each year a woman stays away from the workforce, her likelihood of receiving
equitable pay diminishes by 4%.

You may face barriers when you attempt to return to work, such as biased views employers often hold about
stay-at-home mothers and older applicants. Stay dedicated to your job search, manage your time well and
exert a consistent effort to see results. Remember, you’re not alone.

About the Authors

Sarah Duenwald and Nancy McSharry Jensen cofounded The Swing Shift, an organization dedicated
to keeping women in the workforce.

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