3,2,1 Irelaunch

Renee Rudczynski is a human resources professional who has worked in HR consulting and led HR teams within a variety of environments, including higher ed, finance, and startups. After a seven-year career break, she recently began an organizational development role. Renee discusses her non-linear job search and how networking helped her land her dream job at a tech startup. She also shares how her experiences at the iRelaunch Return to Work Conference and as a member of the iRelaunch Return to Work Facebook Forum helped with her relaunch and how she is now giving back.

Eraina Ferguson is a Marketing & Communications Manager who spoke on our Successful Relaunchers Panel at our October 2021 iRelaunch Return to Work Conference. She is a special needs advocate, UX (user experience) designer, journalist, and TEDx curator who took a 10-year career break to stay at home with her four children before returning to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eraina discusses her experiences freelancing during her career break and why it was important for her to share her journey about raising a daughter with special needs prior to her relaunch. She also shares her pathway to relaunching in a marketing and communications career, including how she upskilled by participating in a UX design program that ultimately led to her current full time role.

Karolyn Diamond-Jones is a registered nurse working in the area of healthcare compliance who took a 15-year career break to raise her four children. She rejoined the full-time workforce in 2017 as a case manager in the home hospice and palliative care field. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Karolyn pivoted and now works for a healthcare company focused on Medicare denials and appeals. Karolyn candidly discusses how her relaunch resulted out of financial necessity, the steps she took to leverage the helpful advice and resources in her community and on LinkedIn, and why positivity and curiosity are so important to her.

Misbah Sheikh is a Salesforce consultant who spoke on our Successful Relaunchers Panel at our recent virtual iRelaunch Return to Work Conference. She went on career break after the birth of her twins in 2009 – a story in itself. During a career break that was for childcare as well as eldercare, Misbah continued to be an active learner, completing an initial Salesforce certificate program and then moving on to complete a variety of others. Hear about the certificate programs she pursued, how she managed to do the work with all her caregiving responsibilities, and how the certificates ultimately led to her relaunch role. This is a story of perseverance and grit and we have a lot to learn from Misbah.

Mai Ensmann is the Senior Program Planner at Cyber Florida: The Florida Center for Cybersecurity. Previously Mai had worked as a program manager and trainer for international higher education programs and non-profit and humanitarian organizations in the U.S. and across Europe, Africa and Central Asia. Mai took an 11-year career break while raising her children in Belgium, Switzerland and Ghana. She spent many hours folding laundry and listening to the 3, 2, 1 iRelaunch podcast while planning her successful return to work. Hear Mai describe the unique strengths that expats/trailing spouses bring to the workforce and how she relaunched in Belgium. She also discusses her career pivot to cybersecurity, how that evolved, and why relaunchers should consider cybersecurity for their next career. Note to Florida relaunchers: the application deadline for the Spring 2022 cohort of CyberFlorida is 11/21/2021. https://cyberflorida.org/

This is the first episode in our "Relaunchers in Senior Roles" mini-series. Lori Taylor is head of America’s corporate lending and derivatives in Credit Risk at Goldman Sachs. She relaunched her Wall Street career by participating in Goldman’s Returnship program in 2015, which she joined shortly after attending our iRelaunch Return to Work Conference in the Fall of 2014. Lori advanced from her Goldman Returnship to a Managing Director role in less than five years. Hear about Lori’s experience at the Return to Work conference, the subsequent events that led to her getting hired for the Returnship program, her time during the program, and her career progression since then. Lori also discusses the valuable support she received throughout from her Goldman colleagues, family and friends -- including her best friend's perspective-setting advice that helped her make her return to work decision. https://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/professionals/returnship/

Bryn Panee Burkhart is Principal and Founder of Next Evolution Leadership Coaching and Career Management, and currently serves as an Institute Fellow at Simmons University’s Institute for Inclusive Leadership. She previously oversaw Alumni Career Services at the MIT Sloan School of Management and was a speaker at our November 2020 Return to Work Conference. Bryn discusses compensation: how employers determine compensation structures, how relaunchers should prepare for compensation conversations, and exactly what to say during compensation discussions when relaunching via a return to work (RTW) program or hired directly. This discussion is full of practical, detailed advice and scripts that relaunchers can use with potential employers. Note at 27:14 Bryn gives specific language to use when negotiating compensation when "converting" to a permanent hire after a returnship or when discussing an offer that is not part of a return to work program. https://www.nextevolutioncoach.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/compan

Lucy Chang Evans is a civil engineer who also worked as a U.S. Secret Service agent before going on career break to build a family. Ten years later, she found herself in the middle of a divorce with three young kids. She first relaunched by returning to her original career as a civil engineer. After nearly six years in that role, Lucy went on career break again last year to focus on the online MBA she was pursuing and to help her children navigate e-learning during the pandemic. Lucy describes the vulnerability she felt at the beginning of her relaunch and the steps she took to “put one foot in front of the other” to turn things around. She also discusses the valuable relationships she developed as a result of her unsuccessful bid to win a city council seat, her advice for people relaunching as a single parent, and why positivity is so important. Time magazine article by Joanne Lipman in which Lucy is mentioned: https://time.com/6051955/work-after-covid-19/

Maria D’Agostino Crawford is the Associate Director of Alumni Relations at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts who took an eight-year career break to care for her two daughters. Maria’s relaunch happened in a series of steps that first involved part time work and then a full time relaunch back at her pre-career break employer in a lower position than when she left. Since then, she has worked her way up to the Associate Director role. Maria discusses her part time to full time approach to relaunching and her career progression to where she is today. She also explains the benefits of intentionally taking a lower-level position when transitioning to a full-time role.

Faye Penn is the Executive Director of women.nyc, which is dedicated to helping New York City women succeed in their careers and businesses through innovative programs and partnerships. She is also an Executive Vice President of Initiatives at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where she oversees the project startup team. Among her previous roles, Faye was an editor for titles including New York Magazine, The New York Post, The New York Observer and InStyle and an executive at Lifetime Television. Faye discusses her successful career transition from media to her work in economic development, including how she literally mapped out her skills and experience to form a cohesive and persuasive narrative describing how they transferred from one industry to another during the interview process. She also shares why it’s important to treat a career pivot as a job and the critical questions you need to consider when pivoting. https://women.nyc/

Nicole Diamond is a rare disease pharmaceutical industry specialist focused on the business side of pharma. She left her successful career at Shire Pharmaceuticals and took a four year career break to care for her children. When former colleagues moved to other companies, they asked Nicole if she would be interested in consulting for them; she has now been consulting for seven years. Nicole discusses how she managed the evolution of her consulting business while maintaining the schedule control she wanted. She also shares her insights on the benefits and challenges of her consulting arrangement. This episode is full of helpful advice for anyone who may be thinking about starting their own consulting business.

Cynthia Corby was a financial analyst on Wall Street before taking a 17 year career break. She decided to pursue a masters degree in business analytics as a way to relaunch her career. We met Cynthia when she reached out to us to see if she could focus her final project for her degree on data analysis that would be helpful to us. A dedicated relauncher and looking for a way to pay it forward, she produced a remarkable analysis to update our estimate of the number of relaunchers in the U.S. We discuss Cynthia’s career path, her decision to relaunch by enrolling in a graduate school program and what it was like to be in the program. We also talk about the methodologies and results of the data analysis she did for us. Shoutouts to our own Shannon Amspacher, Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, at timestamp 17:40 and Katharine Bradbury, Senior Economist and Policy Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, at timestamp 19:40.

Today’s episode of “3, 2, 1, iRelaunch” is a re-run of an interview Carol did in 2017 with Cheryl McGee Wallace, who later became Special Advisor and Guest Podcast Host for iRelaunch. Cheryl shares some of the pivotal moments from her relaunch journey, including the approach that she took with regards to informational interviewing and networking, and the three questions that she always asked. She also discusses the steps that she took to prepare for the iRelaunch Return to Work conference, how she strategically approached her discussions with the recruiters, and what happened after the conference. This interview is filled with actionable steps and advice for relaunchers, particularly for those who are planning to attend one of our upcoming virtual conferences.

Alison Cormack serves on the Palo Alto City Council and chairs its Finance Committee. She has relaunched twice - once at Google where she worked for almost five years and then in politics. During a 10-year career break, as a volunteer, she was behind the approval of a $76 million bond measure to rebuild Palo Alto libraries and was the President of the Palo Alto Library Foundation, which raised $4 million in private funding. She took a second career break of 3 years before running for office. Hear how Alison’s work and volunteer experiences in the private and public sectors led to her decision to run for office, helped her run her campaign, and prepared her for her current role. We’ll hear about what she does on the City Council as well as her advice for anyone interested in relaunching in politics. Resources mentioned in the episode: Asking by Jerold Panas (https://www.amazon.com/Asking-59-Minute-Everything-Members-Volunteers/dp/1889102490) Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Da

Jenny Brody is a partner at a law firm she co-founded, Brody Kling PLCC, which specializes in providing high quality, affordable legal representation in family law matters in the DC area. Jenny found her passion for this work while she was out on a 15-year career break. Jenny joined forces with two other attorneys on career break, Karen Marcou and Marla Spindel, to form the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project (DCVLP) which provides free legal help for domestic violence victims and at-risk children. Jenny talks about the origins, unique challenges, and growth of DCVLP, including their use of a job share arrangement that was critical for learning and contingency planning. She also discusses her work at Brody Kling and how it was created to fulfill an unmet need identified while she was at DCVLP. https://www.dcvlp.org/ https://www.brodykling.com/

Kimberly B. Cummings is a leadership development expert, accomplished speaker and podcast host whose mission is to empower women and people of color in the workplace. Her personal and professional development company, Manifest Yourself, LLC, helps professionals looking to lead a dynamic career and life. Kimberly discusses the impetus behind writing her recently-released book, Next Move, Best Move: Transitioning into a Career You’ll Love. She also shares her career planning framework, the importance of strategically thinking about your career in terms of getting from where you are today to where you want to be in ten years, and breaking down the steps to bridge that gap. Kimberly's advice is relevant for anyone looking to make a career transition, whether relaunching or already in a job. https://www.kimberlybcummings.com/

In this milestone 200th episode, Carol speaks with Michael Madowitz, an economist for the Center for American Progress whose work includes a focus on labor markets and household budgeting at different life stages. Note: this episode was recorded in June 2021 and commentary is based on that point in time. Michael discusses the full cost of career breaks taken due to the pandemic (it's way more than forgone salary alone), how this may impact relaunchers going forward, the “silver lining” as to how career breaks may be perceived post-Covid, and the trends he’s seen so far in the economic recovery. Relaunchers and relaunchers-to-be should also listen to Episode 60 to hear Michael discuss the CAP Calculator he created, and which he used in a recent Newsweek article to estimate lost income to a woman who left the workforce during Covid. Helpful note when listening to this episode: Economists' definition of "Unemployed" is "did not work for pay or profit in the last week and actively looked for work in the past f

Miriam Berkowitz started her career as a software developer and returned to work as a data analyst after a 20 year career break. To update her technology skills, she enrolled in a 6-month intensive Data Analytics & Visualization bootcamp. She is thriving in her role and has been an active member of our private Facebook group, the iRelaunch Return to Work Forum, where she has shared her valuable inspiration and advice. In this episode, Miriam shares the specifics of applying to and attending her bootcamp as well as the steps she took to prepare and apply for jobs. She also discusses the importance of perseverance and overcoming imposter syndrome when starting her new job.

Koseli Cummings is a self-taught content strategist and copywriter. She returned to the workforce full-time after seven years of being a stay at home mom by sending “one brave email" to almost every woman she knows. That email turned into a six figure job that altered the course of her career. Now she’s passionate about helping other women get brave and send that one scary email that could change everything. We discuss the details of Koseli’s career path, her career break, her famous email, her blog post about her relaunch, and where she is today. Shoutout to Sheila Marcelo at care.com (https://www.care.com) at 39:07. Link to Koseli’s blog post with the email: https://koselicummings.medium.com/the-email-that-got-me-a-six-figure-job-after-seven-years-as-a-sahm-5e6ab0f557d7

Richard Eisenberg is the Managing Editor of Next Avenue, the PBS site for people 50+, and the editor of its Money and Work & Purpose channels. He aims to help people manage their personal finances, find jobs, switch fields, volunteer and find purpose in their lives. He’s also the author of two books focused on helping people to manage their money. Richard discusses career progression trends for the 50+ worker in the past several years, how Covid has impacted those trends, and his predictions about what working behaviors will look like post-Covid. He also shares his perspectives on how these trends have impacted the timing of retiring -- including why some people are choosing to “unretire” -- and what that decision entails. In this episode, a special shoutout to Charlotte Japp of CIRKEL and a 2020 Next Avenue Influencer in Aging at 31:57. (She is our podcast guest in Episode 171)