Going back to work after taking a career break is different than a typical job search because you have a gap in your work history. I know, this shouldn’t be a disqualifier for getting a job. And it isn’t. Let me say that again, it’s important. Taking time off from work does not mean you can’t go back. But it does require you as a job seeker to have a thoughtful way to talk about what you’ve been doing while you were out of the paid workforce. 

I’m going to throw a few stats at you, just for fun.

Did you know that Women Account for 46.9% of the Total Labor Force in the US? according to Catalyst.

We need to welcome women back to the workforce after taking career breaks. For starters, what’s more important than raising a family or caring for family members who are ill? I can’t think of anything more important. Also, it makes sense for the economy. Catalyst reports that if women’s participation in the global economy were equal to men, the global annual GDP would be $28 Trillion, yes trillion, dollars higher in 2025. 

I want to talk about how to decide what job to take as you return to work. Women ask me a lot if they should just take any job or wait for the right one. So I hear this a lot and it’s a question that I asked myself often as I looked for a job after being out of the full-time workforce for many years.  Here’s the easy answer: It depends. 

Really though, the answer to this question depends entirely on what is motivating you to go back to work, so step 1 in deciding what job to take is to examine your motivation. Motivation is important here.  If you need to start earning income for you or your families’ survival now, then you should take the best job you can find quickly. By “best” I mean highest paying. Life is expensive, kids are expensive and it takes money to survive.  Pure and simple. 

Divorce often forces women back into the workforce, or your spouse might have been laid off. Whatever the situation, if quickly earning income has become your primary motivation, then find a job and bloom where you’ve been planted. You don’t have to stay there forever but my personal rule of thumb is that you do have to do your best while you’re there.  If you sense that you’re just passing through, work diligently so that when you leave you’ll have a great recommendation and can feel good about the work you did.

While the need for money motivates many women to return to work quickly, others find that their timing isn’t quite so urgent. To you folks, I say - lucky you! You have the luxury of waiting for a job that will check more of the boxes for you. You can do the 3 steps of Reflect, Research and Activate that I think are so important to a successful job search.  The Reflection step is of critical importance in a job search because this is the step where you think deeply about your skills, your past experiences, and your current interests and add them all up to set a course for your future.  

I want a career break to become a very normal part of a person’s career (both women and men) and for employers to view these not as breaks from real work, but as opportunities to develop more deeply as people, as parents, or as caregivers of aging parents. Your ability to reflect on what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown during your career break is a key part of finding direction for your job search.   

If you are motivated to return to work by a desire to re-engage your professional self, to grow as a person in a professional capacity, to put your valuable skills to work and to earn a good income while doing so, then you have the luxury to look until you (a) find the right job or (b) find a job that offers a trade-off that you are comfortable taking. Every decision we make is a trade-off between things that are important to us.  

Step 2 in deciding what job to take is being really clear about the trade-off involved. As much as I’d like to think there is a perfect job out there, well, let’s be real! I really think everything is a trade-off. So consider all the implications of the jobs you are considering. 

Compensation, commute, opportunities for advancement, leadership, benefits, how’s the team… If you’re weighing multiple opportunities - lucky you! - then map these things out to see how they compare. 

 The third step in deciding what job you should take is to consider the possibilities of the job in front of you. 

Especially if you’re returning to work after a career break, If your job search is starting to feel like it’s taking a long time, and you’re considering taking the next job that comes along, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Will this job keep me moving forward? (In other words, will I learn here? meet people that will grow my professional network? feel good about the work I’m doing?)
• Can I think of this job as a stepping stone to get me closer to where I’d like to be professionally?

 If you can answer “yes” to any of those questions, then you may have found the right job for you. Honestly, sometimes after a long absence from the workforce, we just need a “starter job” or a job that gets us back into the working world and gets current experience on your resume. You can build it from there. Just get the starting point.

Here’s a related but important question I get a lot from women returning to work:  “Do I have to take a job making less money or with a lower title than I held before I took a career break?”  My guidance is that I want you to aim high, but you must understand that the burden of proving your value to an employer rests with you and only you.  How can you prove that you’re worthy of your previous salary and title?

• By demonstrating that you’ve spent your career break learning and keeping your skills fresh
• By taking courses to refresh your job skills
• By becoming active in a professional association relevant to your field
• By maintaining a network of influential people in your field

 Then develop your personal brand image to illustrate your value.  

And let me add, that I think you totally deserve to not take a salary cut just because you’ve made the decision to focus on other things in life besides your career for a period of time. And you have to believe that you’re worth it too. And you also have to brush up on your negotiation skills if you’re going to go for it with respect to salary. If you don’t ask for more at the time of your offer, you’ve given up a great opportunity. You can’t go back and ask after you accept the job. You have the leverage when they make the offer. That’s the time to show your future employer that you’re well worth a bump in compensation because you know how to negotiate. Sometimes people worry that the job offer will be rescinded if they try to negotiate it. And I think that’s crazy and almost never happens. Now, there’s a right way and a wrong way to approach a negotiation, so enter into this conversation looking for a win-win outcome and you will not lose your offer.

One final thought: When I was job searching, I realized early on that my next job was going to come from someone who knew me personally and not from a resume that I blindly sent out over the Internet.  And this belief changed my job search activities from sitting behind my computer sending out resumes to instead viewing every opportunity to talk s...