“At any given point in time, you will always be faced with two directions. You could either go back to safety, continue doing what you've always been doing, or you could move forward and embrace growth.”Ajay enjoyed a first career in technical roles in the food sector in India and the UK. During her career break to spend more time with her young family, Ajay also set up her own consultancy developing a wealth of fantastic business skills and experience. She also took the opportunity to pursue her long held interest in studying for an MBA.When she was ready to return to work, she hoped to transition away from technical roles and use her MBA and consultancy experience in business management roles. However, she struggled to make the move into a different role and sector and initially received many rejections.Her fortune changed when she came across Leidos, a technology company, who were running a returnship programme for professionals who had taken a career break. They saw the value of all her experience and how this might transfer across and in November 2023, Ajay successfully joined as a Benefits Realisation Manager, a role that brings together her stakeholder management expertise, project management skills and business experience.“I am really proud of the example that I'm setting for my children and like I look up to my father, I hope they look up to me and say, it can be done. You can pursue your dreams and you can reinvent yourself in any stage in life.”For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Career Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH For more details about the experts and organisations inspiring and connecting people to make changes to their careers, take a look at the Careers can change campaign at careerscanchange.co.uk . A big thank you to Phoenix Insights for sponsoring this episode of the podcast and their support for the Careers can change campaign.
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35:08
Flying High with Skylarks with Deirdre Carswell
“I have to say I'm in a role that is probably my favourite role that I've ever had in my working career”After a twenty five year career in the corporate and private medical sector, Deirdre (Dee) Carswell successfully made the move into the charity sector.Her journey to this transition was not always smooth sailing. Although she’d been involved in pro bono work throughout her career, she made the first leap in 2019 when she left the corporate sector to set up as an independent charity consultant. But the pandemic threw Dee off course as she took a career break to care for various family members including her two daughters who have additional needs. After three years, Dee tried to resume her consultancy but with ongoing responsibilities at home, this proved difficult.She fortuitously came across Charity Interns (now called The Well Placed), a moment which she now refers to as her ‘stars align’ moment! The organisation offered six month placements in the charity sector to help attract those from the corporate sector wanting to make the switch. Dee successfully gained a placement at the Alzheimer’s Society which was a fantastic learning experience and networking opportunity and proved a brilliant springboard into her new career. After finishing the placement, Dee secured a role as Head of Fundraising at Skylarks, a London based charity very close to her heart, which supports children with additional needs and their families.“I really felt quite strongly that I wanted to work in the charity sector as I had spent quite a lot of time as a carer. I felt I wanted to bring that experience with me, but I also felt I had so much other experience that was so transferable that I'd really hope to bring all that with me.”For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Career Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH To learn more about the charity internship Dee participated in, see The Well Placed: https://thewellplaced.org/For more details about the experts and organisations inspiring and connecting people to make changes to their careers, take a look at the Careers can change campaign at careerscanchange.co.uk . A big thank you to Phoenix Insights for sponsoring this episode of the podcast and their support for the Careers can change campaign.
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28:55
From TV Production to Rail Innovation with Charlotte Hills
Charlotte’s first career was in TV production, initially working as a script supervisor and then as a Director working on well-known programmes such as Big Brother and Hell's Kitchen.She took a career break of 6 years to raise her twin daughters and during this time she also relocated to Switzerland with her family. Unable to work there, she was the main carer for her daughters. After returning to the UK, Charlotte began to look for work but returning to her old freelance TV career was not easy or conducive to raising a young family. This led Charlotte to think more creatively about what she would return to and to be open to the different possibilities and career paths ahead that would enable her to make a fresh start.She came across an advert for a Returner Programme at Tideway and applied for the role of ‘Innovation Co-Ordinator’. Charlotte claims now that she had no idea what this role meant but because they weren’t looking for any specific technical experience, but more for transferable skills, she felt bold enough to apply and was successful! In our conversation we chat about transferable skills, and their key role in helping her build a successful new career in engineering. As ‘Head of Innovation’ now at HS2, Charlotte talks to how her ability to build a narrative and bring people on board with her, skills all honed in her TV career, have been key to her success. Hear how Charlotte navigated her career change from TV to high speed rail and found herself a rewarding and fulfilling career which offers financial security and stability. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYzFollow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Career Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH For more details about the experts and organisations inspiring and connecting people to make changes to their careers, take a look at the Careers can change campaign at careerscanchange.co.uk . A big thank you to Phoenix Insights for sponsoring this episode of the podcast and their support for the Careers can change campaign.
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33:12
“Be Brave Quicker!” with Joanna Campbell-Meiklejohn
Joanna Campbell-Meiklejohn has had a varied career, spanning different sectors and countries. She spent the first part of her career working in Corporate and Investment Banking and after her second child, decided to leave banking and return to the UK to spend time with her young family. During this period, she set up and ran a successful property business in the Cotswolds where she lived which gave her a whole host of additional transferable skills and experience.However, during COVID and the slowdown in this sector, she took the opportunity to rethink what she wanted to do professionally and decided to retrain as a financial planner through the St James Place Financial Adviser Academy.In our conversation, Joanna talks about the importance of reflecting on what’s important to you professionally and talking that through with others – to get clearer on what your options are and how you can go about exploring them.We chat through the mental barriers we often create for ourselves and the need to tackle those head-on so that they don’t stop us from taking action, “You’ve done it before, you can do it again. These skills don’t go anywhere. They are embedded… they do come back to you, and you have to trust yourself.Hear how Joanna navigated a career change and successfully began her next career chapter as a qualified financial planner. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYzFollow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Career Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH For more details about the St James Place Financial Advisor Academy: sjp.co.uk/academy
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31:27
‘Confidence and clarity’ with Caroline Deodhar
In this final extended episode of Series 2, Karen and Liz chat to Caroline Deodhar who qualified as a doctor in the UK in 2013. She practiced medicine for a couple of years and began her GP training, just as her husband was offered a job opportunity in Singapore. Pregnant with her 1st child, the family took the decision to relocate to Singapore after the baby was born. They then later moved again to Australia where Caroline had her 2nd child. After a career break of 3 years, Caroline felt ready to return to medical practice. She found the career break helped build her confidence and gave her clarity and focus about her career direction in medicine. She reached out to contacts and was successful in securing a ‘Return to Practice’ Plan that enabled her to resume her career in Australia, “I became so much more confident than I ever was before….I became much more willing to try new things. And I learned a lot about myself and that’s definitely helped with planning my career going forwards”.After two years of not seeing her family over the pandemic, Caroline chose to return back to the UK and has now happily resumed retraining as a GP.At the end of this conversation, Karen and Liz chat over the key themes that emerged for them over this Series. These include gratitude for the career break; valuing the skills, strengths and experiences developed during your career break; taking time to reflect on what you might do next; and creating an action plan to help you get there which may include upskilling, volunteering, and networking. They reference earlier episodes in the Series, so do listen back if you’ve missed them! Thanks so much for joining us on the Career Returners podcast and we wish you the very best of luck with your return to work!Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYzFollow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
Is it possible to return to a fulfilling, challenging, successful career after a long career break? After listening to these stories we want your answer to be a resounding yes!
On our Career Returners podcast, you’ll hear from a diverse range of people who are successfully back at work after taking long career breaks for childcare, eldercare, health or other reasons. They’re sharing the ups-and-downs of their return-to-work journeys – the challenges, the rewards and the learnings. After each story, we’ll chat over some of the key themes that emerged and share some of our top return to work tips.
The Career Returners podcast is brought to you by Career Returners, the return to work specialists. We work with employers and career returners to enable professionals to return to satisfying and fulfilling work after career breaks of 2, 5 or 15+ years. Over the years we’ve coached thousands of career returners, and we’re excited now to share some of their inspirational stories with you.
After listening to this episode, do head along to careerreturners.com where you’ll find lots of advice, over 100 success stories, and a range of return to work opportunities for people on career break wanting to get back to work. While you're there, do sign up to our free Network and also our Facebook group for extra support and connection.
Website: careerreturners.com
Facebook: facebook.com/careerreturnersnetwork/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/careerreturners/
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