Back To Work: How To Transition From Mommy Track To Career Track

According to Census reports, there are more than 5 million stay-at-home moms in the United States. As our economy continues to take a beating, many of these women are being forced to go back to work.

So how do you make the transition from full-time mommy to full-time employee? Barbara Hannah Grufferman, a Huffington Post blogger and author of "The Best of Everything After 50," has some ideas.

Grufferman appeared on CBS' "Early Show" May 10 to talk to Erica Hall about the issue. One of the biggest challenges facing women who want to rejoin the workforce, she said, is the bias embedded in the corporate world. Consider, for example, this statistic: In the last 12 months, 90 percent of the jobs that became available went to men.

"Corporations tend to be more sympathetic to men who are unemployed than women," Grufferman said.

Her suggestions for transitioning women include the creation of a personal board of directors. To illustrate this idea, she described the "Brand Barbara" meeting that she called when she decided to go back to work at 50: "I pulled together three women who are, I think, brilliant, and I said ... let's talk about me," she told Hall. "Here are my skills, here's what I'm thinking about doing, what is my next step?" She suggested a weekly meeting during which each "member" of the board spends 15 minutes talking about her goals.

Grufferman also emphasized the importance of carrying around your own business card -- even if you haven't been working. The networking benefits of this, she said, are enormous. Her parting words: "Don't be afraid. The power of asking for help is essential."

WATCH:

Comments

[Dale Callahan]

10:22 AM on 06/09/2011

There is another side of this. As a man with a wife who stays at home, I see women at home handling more than most people do at the office. Any man that has stayed home with the kids for hours knows that women have unique abilities, and moms even more so. Who else can handle a crisis a minute, deal with multiple priorities while new information is constantly coming in, deciding from the flood of information what needs to be done and what is fluff, keeping and eye to make sure things get done, dealing with childlike thinking, and of course still encouraging their husbands and children alike. And this is before 8AM! What a nightmare! Anyone who can do this can certainly perform! Sure technologies and tools change – but that is not really an issue. As an employer I know what counts is people who can get it done – no matter what it takes.

I see a lot of women cower – almost apologetic of their being out of work and being mommy. Forget it. You have shown you can make the tough decisions and understand true priorities and can handle a ton – much more than a day at work. After all, being at work is a lot like dealing with children. Be proud of it, act professional, carry the card, but never forget you have a ton of real world experience.

[RedFlatShoe]

09:58 PM on 05/12/2011

I highly recommend networking with professional societies and connect with women experiencing the same issues. I'm an active member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), my local section's membership are pretty open discussing these types of issues. It also helps to attend networking meets to get the dish on the latest research/tech news. It is also great to know which companies are parent friendly.

When I started looking for work after a layoff, I had 50+ women engineers/scientists helping me by recommending my resume to their HR. With the help of my fellow engineers, I found a job in 6 weeks instead of 6 months.

I'm lucky my husband also works in the same field and a member of SWE (he recruited me to join). Having a supportive partner helps a lot.

[Barbara Hannah Grufferma]

05:51 AM on 05/13/2011

That's a great tip, and I completely agree. It is networking on a highly elevated level.
Thanks for watching, and for sharing your good idea.
All best,
Barbara

[RedFlatShoe]

01:34 AM on 05/15/2011

Unfortunately, going from mommy track to career track in a technical field is much harder because of 2 reasons:

1) Research and tools changes so rapidly that you have to stay current.
2) It is a male dominated field. The company may be parent friendly but the job is not.

Women HAVE to attend conferences, professional development meetings and/or take training classes to stay up to date. I know many SAHM/engineers volunteer at their local societies (1-3 different groups) just to stay current and they miss the mental exercises.

Sometimes, all that time away from work actually made some parents more up-to-date than working peers because of all the conference/meetings they attended.

[risforrogue]

05:31 PM on 05/12/2011

With a fierce competition from newly graduates, even moms in mid-30s find it more challenging to get hired now.

[Barbara Hannah Grufferma]

05:50 AM on 05/13/2011

Yes, this is true. Direct from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: of all the new jobs created during the last 12 months, 90% went to men. This is an inequity that needs to be addressed.
Thanks so much for watching and commenting,
Barbara

[D. A. Wolf]

05:20 PM on 05/12/2011

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing you on TV, Barbara. I only wish the segment had been longer. Many practical tips to be shared.

[Barbara Hannah Grufferma]

05:48 AM on 05/13/2011

Thank you so much D.A. . . . I had so many more tips (many of which are in the article I wrote for HuffPost which you can find in my archived articles -- "Derailed by the Mommy Track? Ten Tips to Get Back to Work" ). The most important message, which I was able to get out there, was that of all the new jobs during the last 12 months, 90% went to men. This is a very big problem for women of all ages, but especially for those who are older and have been out of the work force.
Thanks for watching!
Barbara

[ToniQ]

05:48 AM on 05/12/2011

The transition from mommy track to career track is to get dads on the same track.

[Barbara Hannah Grufferma]

10:01 AM on 05/12/2011

Dear ToniQ . . . yes, for sure men have to get on board with this, no question. One of the most important tips I give to women, which, unfortunately we couldn't get to during the interview because we ran out of time, is that women, before getting back to work, or every trying to, must make sure their lives, their infrastructure, is in order. Are their kids ready for this change? Their partners? Is there childcare? There are many questions women need to address and answer before going back.
Thanks for watching and commenting . . .
Barbara

[gcarl]

05:39 PM on 05/12/2011

Toni Q, re 'get dads on track'. If males have destroyed the world with their Yang as greed, what will the world look like when the females take over? In the declining matriarchal societies before 2,500 BC, men were ‘kept’. Modern personalities first appeared with the Golden Age of Greece; with their creativity came the ego and ‘ev*l’ as the ascendency of the ‘I’, as humanism--where the mind is the end point and there is no higher unknown, no mystery. The I becomes its own ‘god’, and thus a destructive alcoholic, because there is no ‘higher power’.
Will the Yangs ‘flow’ to China, which will develop its own capitalism (domination by dad), while the USA becomes a matriarchal backwater, a pastoral society of drones tweeting away?
About 3000 years ago in China, a new pottery technique would result in a rich city, for about 80 years; then a new development in textiles would ‘flow’ the center of culture to a newly rich city, there. Will this energy just shift and ‘stay’ in the system, as in the China (then and now) example, or will ‘souls’ = Yangs = fire withdraw to some other place in the solar system?
A few dads might 'get on track', but variations such as racism and suicide bombers seem to be increasing--do we do a Ghandhi/MLK peaceful protest?

[RedFlatShoe]

09:30 PM on 05/12/2011

Get off the drugs gcarl.