Relaunching Your Career after a Career Break (The 3 C’s)
A Career Break is a dedicated time away from your job. It may be something that is planned for or something that is unforeseen. Traditionally, women have taken career breaks to raise children but more and more men are taking on a stay-at-home role in the family and can also benefit from career relaunch discussions.
I recently attended the conference iRelaunch hosted by Arrow Electronics, where CEO of iRelaunch, Carol Fishman Cohen gave some great insight and advice to jump start your career re-entry and since many of you may not have been able to attend I wanted to share with you some steps in Relaunching your Career after a Career Break I took away from the experience.
Carol brought up a great point during the conference she calls the 3 C’s. As relaunchers it’s easy to get caught up in the notion that you’d be lucky if anyone hires you because it is tough to find any kind of employment the past few years. Don’t make this mistake. Although confidence is not one of the 3 C’s it will be the first thing we talk about. You are taking on what seems like an insurmountable task. Returning to work means you’ll be competing with younger candidates (that won’t have to explain a large chunk of time away from the workplace). This can do a number on your confidence. It’s common to play down your previous experiences, and failing to take account of the experience you’ve gained since leaving paid work. So we’re not going to talk in terms of experience, we’re going to refer to them as 'employable attributes'. When you start thinking about those skills you have that would make any employer lucky to have you on their team, you’ll quickly start feeling yourself become proud of the professional you have become, and some of those skills will be a direct result of you taking a career break.
The other ideas you should be very excited about come directly from Carol’s 3 C’s. Control, Content, and Compensation.
Carol simply explained what these were but I want to take it a step further. As a 20 something recent college grad I took a job I could have gotten right out of high school because no degree was required. I felt low but I needed to work so I took the job. I then found myself in a rat race of always trying to make more money with a company that understood, as a single mother, I needed flexibility and I often landed in positions I dreaded going to every morning. This could have all been avoided had I done a better analysis of what my wants and needs were before starting my job search. The same goes for relaunchers. The 3 C’s will help you avoid learning this lesson the hard way or making this mistake again. So what are they?
The 3 C’s
C-Control: Control is your ability to say, in a perfect world, what would my working life look like. What type of schedule do I want? Do I want to go to an office or work from home? Do I want to spend hours on the phone or would I prefer to work outdoors? Do I want a business environment or casual dress code?
Control is your ability to decide what you want and look for jobs that provide those elements that are most important to you.
C-Content: What will I be doing for work? Maybe you have some health issues that prevent you from going back into the same line of work you previously held. Keep those things in mind as you think about what type of work you want to be doing.
Don’t forget: The who you do this work for? I had plenty of positions where I liked the type of work I was doing but when it came to who I was working for that’s where my problems lied. Don’t get caught up in one bad experience defining who you want to work for in the future-like I did at one point. That’s an ugly trap, but if you know you do better in the private sector than in public, you’ll have more focused efforts in your search. Narrowing your options can make it easier to find a good fit.
And finally, who you work with. You’ll spend more time with your co-workers than you will your own family. Who you want to spend that time with is worth some thought. You won’t have complete control over the people you work with but it is still worth thinking about. Who knows, you might get really lucky and get an ideal group of co-workers, but you won’t even recognize them if you don’t give it some thought.
C-Compensation: This is not only about dollars and cents. Compensation is about what you are worth based on the work you will be doing. Sometimes compensation comes in the form of benefits. Health insurance can be a big reason some relaunchers come out of retirement and return to work. So don’t think of compensation only in terms of money. It can be much more than just the amount of money you get paid. Sometimes jobs come with a peace-of-mind you never knew possible in your previous working life, which can then be worth taking a lower compensation to start off. But it is a balancing act, because just like me in my early 20’s, the compensation you start with will set the stage for what your earning potential will be for years to come. Don’t start so low that it becomes impossible to get to where you know you need or deserve to be.
Maybe we should call this the 5 C’s because my last point is compromise. You have a lot to be proud of and you deserve to be paid what you are worth, but there will be compromises you will have to make when it comes to this list. Carol suggest when it comes to compromise you should not have to compromise more than 1 C for your ideal fit job but I think you should compare each job with the components of your list. Rate the items on your list, 1 being least important and 10 being very important and rate each job on a point scale based on what components it offers and how important you have decided that component is according to your point scale.
For other relaunch advice and resources we encourage you to visit MSU Denver Alumni Career Services. Many of our career resources are free or deeply discounted for MSU Denver alumni. Services are also available to community members in the alumni and career services offices. To book an appointment call us at: 303-556-8320 or send us an email at [email protected]
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Thanks for reading. You can connect on Twitter at: @ColoradoKandi. Please follow me as I plan to provide more useful career advice throughout the year.
To learn more about me and my role at MSU Denver: https://www.msudenver.edu/searchchannel/jsp/directoryprofile/profile.jsp?uName=brownkan