How to Land a Job After an Employment Gap - Try a “Returnship”

It's so common to lose your job and see it as an opportunity to career pivot. Or you may have a career gap and may be a bit rusty getting back into the old workforce. If only there was some sort of a program where people entered as a bit of a trainee. If they did well and there was a mutual fit, they could earn a full time role at the end of it. Oh duh, no, that already exists. It's called an internship. It's been over a decade since Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson came out with the tech bro tastic comedy the Internship, which was a humorous take on how wacky and wild would it be if two middle aged men went and got an internship at Google in order to reskill after a layoff? So crazy, right? Your interns shut up. Deal with it. You're so old though. But I don't think it's actually that crazy. There is this strange mentality that we go to school at the beginning beginning of our career and the only way to usually get an internship is that you are enrolled in a program usually that is essentially your one chance, your one get out of fail free card where you have to learn your professional experience and then from every job you land beyond that you need to be fully qualified and fully trained. Already going into it, but having coached thousands of clients, it's super common for someone in their 30s, 40s, 50s to need to reskill. And either it's because they took a break from working or they are career pivoting. We need internships for these folks without them enrolling in another master's program and without any judgments about their age. And I'm glad to say it does exist. It's called a returnship. A returnship is essentially an internship, but for people returning to the workforce. According to the FlexJobs careers expert experts team, people who fit this definition are often people who are either not currently working or working in a limited capacity, which might include stay at home, parents or parents returning to work after extended leave, career changers, people who were laid off or let go from a job, and people who want to ease into retirement and try out new work. What are these returnships which companies offer them? How can you earn a place in one? And honestly, is it even worth it to try? I will dive into all those questions and more in this video and stay to the end because you are going to learn what these returnships are looking for and I will give you one unconventional approach to cut the line and land a return ship quickly. But first, hello. So rude of me. I'm Madeline Mann. I am a human resources leader and job search strategist who turns job seekers and into job shoppers. You may have seen me in Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and more. Subscribe to Beat out your competition for jobs There are so many challenges that career changers and people returning to the workforce face, and the crux is experience. Companies will tell you either you don't have the exact experience they're looking for, or they'll tell you your experience has got a bit stale since you left the workforce a few years ago. So what do these professionals do? Well, they start gathering all the certifications they can. They crank through those LinkedIn learning courses like they're popping Pringles. And look, certifications are good to learn new skills, but companies don't give a flying burrito about a certification if you haven't shown how you've implemented those learnings in some sort of practical way. These people aren't landing jobs because the companies want proof that you can get actual results in real life. And here lies the experience paradox. Need experience to get the experience Another challenge is a loss of professional identity for many career changers. They mourn the career path that they left behind and often cling to that past identity, which ultimately is one of the things that prevents them to be able to land this next job. For those people who have a sizable gap, they feel feel removed from their professional Persona and may feel a bit of imposter syndrome as they vie for these roles for the first time in years. This leads to a lack of confidence, and many of these folks feel rusty to enter the workforce and often second guess themselves. And finally, it's paralyzing for so many people to know that they need to land their next job but realize they don't know what they actually want and they certainly don't know how to get it. A returnship is an opportunity to build those skills and especially that confidence that will serve as a bridge for people who are looking to get back on the horse. There's something comforting about how, through these programs, the company is acknowledging that you'll need to ease into the corporate pool a bit more slowly versus the vigorous shove that many of us get pushed into the deep end when we land a new job. One of the earliest returnship programs began over 20 years ago with Lehman Brothers. Shortly after that that Goldman Sachs put in place their own returnship, which was modeled after their highly competitive internship program and is still one of the most coveted programs today. According to Carol Fishman Cohen from the nonprofit IRE launch. There are two different ways that the companies they work with provide special opportunities to come back to work after a break. 80% of the companies use the returnship model and the other 20% use a direct hire model where the person is hired as an employee on day one and then provided with specialized support to help them get up to speed. Organizations and placement companies such as Path Forward, I Relaunch, the MOM Project, Reboot, and many others coordinate with companies around the world to create these companies custom programs. They are usually two to six months long and may provide a group cohort, a buddy mentorship, a learning library and specific projects that they can then present to leadership. The idea is that there's often a full time role waiting at the end that people can interview for. But all programs are different, they change over time and not all of them are created equally. When you apply for returnship, some companies may place place you in a particular department based off of your previous work experience. But then once you completed the program, you may be offered a more permanent full time role and you may be offered the opportunity to explore some other departments that you're interested in. According to Joshua Schmidt, an Amazon returnship recruiter. He says that for every returnship Amazon offers, there is a free full time position on hold that they can interview for prior to the end of the 16 weeks with a one year commitment. It's a 16 week program, it's paid, it's virtual, and it's a temporary opportunity with full time potential. Within Amazon, there are hundreds of companies that offer return ships such as SAP, Intuit, Microsoft, NBC Universal, just to name a few. But I don't know your location, I don't know your industry. So what's the best bet is to go online and see these lists of companies and figure out if any of them fit what you're looking for in a program. When you do identify a return ship that matches what you're looking for, it's important to know how do you land it. These programs have stiff competition and I'm talking stiffer than a zombie after a 5k run. Many of these programs programs get hundreds, even thousands of applications for just a dozen or so spots. Most of the companies we found require a minimum of 12 months out of the workforce and anywhere from two to five years of professional experience prior to taking the break. Although there were some we found with much looser criteria and that usually followed that the programs were also less structured and offer less pay. Some bad news is that these programs may take a very long time to respond to your application. We saw one applicant who said he applied to returnship in October of 2023 and his application was still under review as of March 2024 six months later. @ that rate, he could get hired by another company in the time he's just waiting to hear back on his returnship. One thing they all had in common though is that they do require preparation. When you are preparing your resume, your career gap very clear on it as well as in your LinkedIn and you're going to want to do your research to learn the new products and services in your industry to show that you are serious about returning to work in your field. And do not be mistaken, you must interview for a return ship and you need to prepare the same way you would if you were interviewing directly for a normal full time role. You're on the right channel for that. I have dozens, dozens of fantastic interview prep videos that you can use. I also have a free resume revamp workshop to make sure your resume is up to snuff as well as a free LinkedIn profile checklist to make sure you are grabbing their attention and getting that interview. I will link all of those in the comments and in the description so is returnship right for you? Well, I've certainly had clients who have done return ships, but it is challenging to find that exact right returnship in your industry in your function with the right timing. And so we also coach on an alternate approach and this is to create your own returnship of sorts. When approached properly, you would be surprised at how many companies would be open to having us some sort of a return ship for you. And let's see, so magical about this is when you follow the right steps to make this happen, you are then cutting the line. You're not competing with anyone else and also the timelines shrink and you're able to land a job a lot faster. This is one of the many job shopping strategies we teach that are unconventional and help you to land jobs faster. So if you want some more of those types of shortcuts, I will link a free job shopping class down below. Allison o' Kelly from Mom Corp. Advises to go into returnship with eyes wide open. She says be clear that you understand your role and the time frame of your returnship and how you will be contributing to the organization. I advise knowing how you're going to be compensated if there is a potential for long term employment at the end of the program. Take time to research the company and see see the kind of support they offer to their program, conduct informational interviews with members of previous cohorts. Check out LinkedIn to find people who have taken part of returnships and observe if they're still at that company. In the end, my friend, what I don't want you to do is aim too low in your next career move. So often career changers and folks returning to the workforce undervalue themselves and target opportunities that are far below what they are actually capable of because there is this misconception that they think they need to start over from the bottom or they simply self reject. They don't go for these higher level roles and I don't want you to be the one who limits your own potential and self selects out. If you got any tasty morsel from this video, I ask that you humbly please hit a like on this video and subscribe for more YouTube videos in the future. You've got this Wi Fi hi 5.