3,2,1 iRelaunch

This is Part Two of two episodes and a part of our mini-series on relaunching in religion.

Rabbi Suzanne Offit was ordained at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, which she entered enthusiastically as one of its founding students in 2004. She started her deep Jewish learning in earnest at 40; and she experienced tremendous guilt when glorious hours of Jewish learning took her away from her children. She is a Board-Certified Chaplain and served as the Palliative Care chaplain in post-acute services at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston for 14 years. Her focus is geriatrics and end-of-life work with patients and families. Rabbi Offit is dedicated to understanding through her many experiences and research how best to serve vulnerable populations in our society and how substance use disorder, moral injury, chronic illness and racism affect families. She holds leadership positions on the boards of a number of non-profits. In addition to caring for patients and families, Rabbi Offit cares for 12 beehives, 4 chickens, 3 adult sons and 1 husband.

This is Part One of two episodes and a part of our mini-series on relaunching in religion.

Rabbi Suzanne Offit was ordained at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, which she entered enthusiastically as one of its founding students in 2004. She started her deep Jewish learning in earnest at 40; and she experienced tremendous guilt when glorious hours of Jewish learning took her away from her children. She is a Board-Certified Chaplain and served as the Palliative Care chaplain in post-acute services at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston for 14 years. Her focus is geriatrics and end-of-life work with patients and families. Rabbi Offit is dedicated to understanding through her many experiences and research how best to serve vulnerable populations in our society and how substance use disorder, moral injury, chronic illness and racism affect families. She holds leadership positions on the boards of a number of non-profits. In addition to caring for patients and families, Rabbi Offit cares for 12 beehives, 4 chickens, 3 adult sons and 1 husband.

Arlene Willis relaunched into a demanding role in the transportation industry after a 13-year career break. She has been at the Florida Department of Transportation for over two years now, her first full time role after her career break, following a shorter period in a part time role while taking courses in aviation. Pre-career break, Arlene built her career in transportation systems, policy, technology integration, enterprise software development and planning for 9 years. Arlene has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and a master’s degree in transportation and highway engineering. She gets into detail about the resilience she needed during her relaunch and discusses upskilling in terms of having to “unlearn old ways and relearn new ways.” A great conversation with an inspiring relauncher.

After a divorce and becoming a single parent, Samantha Kranyak was looking to relaunch close to home in order to gain financial independence and provide stability and consistency for her family. Sam shares how she first went into real estate, then added an adjunct teaching role at a nearby university and was later offered the opportunity to join the university as a non-tenure track professor, which is full time. We originally connected with Sam when she wrote to us to let us know our iRelaunch Return to Work Conference and Back on the Career Track Book “were instrumental in helping me rediscover myself as a newly divorced woman who had given up a wonderful financial business to stay home. I walked away with a polished resume, a story to share with potential employers regarding my work gap, and more confidence after being MIA from the workplace for a few years.” It is gratifying to know our Conference and resources were valuable to Sam at a critical time, and we want to extend our thanks to Sam for getting in touch and sharing her story.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is a certified parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP), an award winning journalist and the author of the popular parenting book, The Good News About Bad Behavior, which brings the tools of narrative journalism to the question of why kids don't do what you want. Katherine is the perfect person to speak with us about parenting and relaunching. Many relaunchers are returning to work after childcare career breaks and need to transition their kids of all ages to new routines at home when they relaunch their careers. Katherine gives advice on how to involve kids in the job search, when to introduce new childcare arrangements, how to manage new routines in the household, and how transparent to be on the ups and downs of the relaunch process, both before and after starting the job. This podcast will be especially useful to parents who took Pandemic-related career breaks and are planning their career reentry.

To learn more: https://www.katherinerlewis.com/

Shannon Tymosko and Darci Spiteri are both electrical apprentices with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, or IBEW, local 105, in Canada. They are friends and colleagues. Shannon made a career transition from short term lending to become an electrical apprentice and she is also an Ambassador for KickAss Careers, a Canadian organization promoting the trades to young people as a career choice. Darci is a relauncher who originally was a project manager in marketing. After a three-year career break, she received a Second Career Grant from the Canadian government, which funded her electrical apprentice training. Darci and Shannon talk about their path to becoming electricians and get into detail about what they do and how they are progressing.

Check out their recently-released video for International Women's Day:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shannon-tymosko-b160b4a7_choosetochallenge-sistersdoingitforthemselves-activity-6774643966982807552-7Hbu

Gabriella Bean and Sue Spillane relaunched their engineering careers in Fall 2017 as part of the inaugural cohort of iReturn, Northrop Grumman’s return-to-work program, after career breaks of 22 years and 19 years respectively. Northrop Grumman launched iReturn as a member of the STEM Reentry Task Force, the groundbreaking multi-company return to work collaborative run by the Society of Women Engineers and iRelaunch. The iReturn program has now expanded to five cities. Gabriella is principal engineer, operations program manager and Sue is a manufacturing engineering manager at Northrop Grumman. We catch up with them about their return to work, whether they feel like they never left and their reflections on when they first relaunched through iReturn.

For more on Northrop Grumman's iReturn Program:

https://www.northropgrumman.com/careers/ireturn-the-northrop-grumman-returnship-program/

David Boehmer is the founder of career management advisory firm Banff Advisors. Prior to launching Banff Advisors, David headed up the Global Financial Services Practice for Heidrick & Struggles. David returned to the U.S. in 2017 after three years in the London office where he also led the Financial Services Practice in Europe and Africa, as well as senior client engagements across the sector. With his deep background in executive search, David gives us the "insiders" view, including what actually happens in executive searches and how best to position yourself to be considered.

To learn more:

https://banffadvisors.com/

https://www.talent-beta.com/

Lindsey Pollak is the New York Times bestselling author of "Becoming the Boss: New Rules for the Next Generation of Leaders." Her 2019 book, "The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace" was named a Book of the Month by both the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Lindsey’s new book "Recalculating: Navigate Your Career Through the Changing World of Work," is a response to the Covid crisis and will be published by HarperCollins on March 23, 2021. We discuss “Recalculating,” and focus on Lindsey’s recommendations for how to navigate at work in a virtual environment. There’s even a teaching moment when Carol’s dog Wally starts barking! Lindsey was named to the 2020 Thinkers50 Radar List of global management thinkers.

Pre-order "Recalculating" now: https://lindseypollak.com/books/recalculating/

To learn more: https://lindseypollak.com/

Selena Rezvani is a popular Leadership Speaker and Inclusion Consultant as well as a LinkedIn Learning Instructor. In fact, her most popular LinkedIn Learning course is on Executive Presence, the topic of our podcast. Selena writes a column for Philadelphia Magazine on how to make work "work" and hosts a weekly show on LinkedIn Live, an invite-only platform, about ways to elevate women at work. About a year ago, Selena was our guest on 3,2,1 iRelaunch to discuss how to brag about yourself without sounding obnoxious, and reach out to people to help you in your job search without coming across as opportunistic. At the time, she told us that being able to do those things is all about demonstrating executive presence! Selena gives us her best advice on mastering this important skill for relaunchers, both when job searching, and once hired.

To learn more: https://www.selenarezvani.com/