Meet Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin, Authors of Back on the Career Track

Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin are the authors of  Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-At-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work, a book offering strategy and advice to women resuming careers after extended time at home with children. With nine kids between them, Carol and Vivian have both taken time away from their demanding careers and have successfully returned to the workforce. Their book is filled with specific tips and suggestions for moms who are thinking about returning to work after taking time off and it is based on their personal experiences as well as interviews with more than 100 women who have successfully made the transition.

What inspired you to write the book?

Back in 2000 and 2001 when we resumed our careers, we felt alone and without a game plan.   (We didn’t meet until 2003.)   At that time, no one was talking about going back to work – not in our neighborhoods, not on the Internet, and not in the mainstream media. In fact the conversation about opting out was just gaining traction, and no one was talking about opting-in

So our major motivation in writing Back on the Career Track was our feeling that no other mom should have to go through what we went through when trying to relaunch her career. We have culled the wisdom gained from our own experiences and those of over 100 women who have made the transition from home to work into our 7 Steps to Relaunch Success, the strategic plan for resuming a career after a hiatus featured in our book.

How open are employers to on-rampers?  Do you see more employers open to part-time and flexibility?

In my experience as a recruiter (Vivian), I see a real war for talent.  There is a high demand for quality applicants and that demand is a key factor in employer's’ willingness to hire nontraditional workers.  Employers are looking at all available talents pools and on-rampers are a key part of that strategy.

We had the opportunity to Interview Leslie Bennett, Author of The Feminine Mistake.  She talks about how difficult it is to return to work after a long career break and that she sees age discrimination, when 40+ on-rampers try to return to work.  What's your experience?

We profile many women in our book that have taken long career breaks.  In one case, a mom successfully came back as a medical social worker after 17 years out of the workforce.  We would not discourage anyone from trying to re-enter.  There are ways to relaunch your career and how you manage your expectations and present yourself play a key role.  Again employer demand = opportunity for older, nontraditional workers.

There's a lot of doom and gloom written about women trying to re-enter the workforce and the price they pay to do so.  Sylvia Ann Hewlett says on average women loose 37% of their earning power after a 3 year career break.  Do you see this?

Women make choices when they return to the workforce.  We talk about the 3 C's of relaunching in our book: Control, Content and Compensation.  Many women are willing to trade Compensation for Control and/or Content.  This means, so while the statistic may be true many women are willing to take a lower wage salary for a more flexible, meaningful job.  Also, the Hewlett survey asked about women’s first foray back into the workforce.  Women we spoke to who returned to full time work in similar fields to those they left were able to work back up to pre-career break compensation levels after a year or two.

Some have argued that relaunching is an elitist concept, as most working women don't have an opportunity for a career break.  How would you respond? 

Our book provides tools for all career women.  In actuality, many SAHM's are women without a college education and our 7-step process can be applied to help these women as well.  We spoke to women with a range of financial need. In fact, for some of them, an unforeseen event caused them to have immediate financial need. But we don’t think these women should be any less strategic about their relaunch than women who have less pressing financial need.

You talk about a Relaunch Movement.  Why is this happening now and what do you see for the future?

Although there have always been some working women in this country, women rarely entered traditionally “male” fields until the ‘70s.  And  the percentage of female law, medical, dental and business school graduates was generally below 30% until the mid ‘80s.  So it’s only over the last few years that the sizeable crop of  women who started their careers in the 80's and 90's and then took a career break are now trying to get back in.  Many of these women always knew they would come back.  Now they're looking for resources to return.  At the same time, employer demand is creating more opportunity for these relaunchers.  In the future we think that women will continue to take career breaks, but they those breaks may become shorter as employers embrace workforce flexibility.