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For those of you that would like to read my interview with Vivian, here it is.

With me today is Vivian Steir Rabin, co-author of the book, Back on the Career Track.  Vivian is a Harvard MBA who runs her own executive search business and consults on the topic of career reentry.  She is the mother of five and took seven years off from her career to be a stay-at-home mom.  Vivian, what is the current outlook for women going back to work?

On a macro level, this is a relatively good time to try to go back to work.  Now yes, we may be in a slightly down period in terms of the overall economic climate, but the long term picture is that older baby boomers are going to be retiring in droves or at least cutting back and that is going to mean a shortage of skilled labor in many industries.  So, companies have realized or started to realize that there are talented people at home and they are much more open to this group than they were in the past.  They have been identified and talked about as a resource.  So you should get a better reception in the marketplace than you might have seven to ten years ago.

Going back to work is a difficult thing, especially if you have been home for several years, for many reasons. But I think one thing that holds women back is a lack of confidence.  What things do you recommend women do to help build their self-confidence?

You can’t sit there in a room and meditate and come out a confident person, but get up the guts to make those little steps. Start by recontacting the people that you think really will give you a good reception.  Don’t call the cranky person that never thought highly of you in the first place.  Start with your fans and they will help you build your confidence and also hopefully give you referrals so that eventually you get to the point where you are talking to people who have a need for your skills.

So your feeling is women should contact their former employers and colleagues even if they have not maintained contact with them or spoken to them in years.

Our feeling is absolutely, if you had a decent to good relationship, ideally a good relationship with someone you worked with in any way whether it was a team member, a vendor or anybody that you worked with, absolutely feel free to work to reach out to that person.  If you remember them there is a very good chance that they remember you.  And what’s interesting is that they remember you as you were.  People’s image of you is frozen in time.  They will remember your competence on a project or in class or whatever the context of your relationship was.  They are not going to think of you sitting around in sweats, nursing and scrubbing pots.  So even though you might have a diminished image of yourself, they are going to think of you the way they last knew you and you should absolutely reach out to them.

During an interview, how should women address their resume gap?

If you have done volunteer work or have done some free-lance work that is relevant that you think has some skills that will have some value to the job you are competing for, you can say I was editor of the community newspaper or the community volunteer organization newspaper and this is an editing job so the skills are directly transferable.  When they realize that you were home they really don’t bug you about that.  It’s really more demonstrating that you are ready to come back now and that you have the skills.

Vivian, what can women do to ease the transition back to work for their families?

I think as soon as you get the thought of going back you should discuss it with your spouse, if you have one, because it is very important for your spouse to be supportive and if he isn’t initially supportive don’t give up but keep revisiting the conversation and explain why you want to do this whether you feel your finances could use a boost and he hasn’t wanted to acknowledge that or whether you feel like you are bored and would like more to concentrate on.

You want to set an example for your children to show women can accomplish things in addition to being parents.  In terms of your kids, I think that the older they are, the sooner you want to start talking about it because they are able to pick up on things pretty quickly.  Younger kids, we don’t really advise talking a lot about it until it gets closer.  But it is important to emphasize to them that it is not because you don’t like being home with them but it is really because these are things you enjoy.  It’s a really positive message that you can convey about working just that you enjoy work.

Thank you for sharing your insights with momgoesback.  It’s been wonderful talking with you.  This concludes my discussion with Vivian Steir Rabin, co-author of Back on the Career Track.