I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Carol Fishman Cohen, a fellow Harvard Business School graduate and co-author of the popular book Back on the Career Track, which helps women re-enter their professions—or find a new one—after taking time off to be a mom. Women (more so than men) are finding it harder than ever to juggle career, family, and relationships, so I asked Carol to share her thoughts on the state of women in the business world.
Here are some highlights from our interview:
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SLM: A recent New York Times article examined the trend of what they called the "Opt-Out Revolution"—educated and high-powered career women leaving work for their families—saying that many women "opt out" of the workplace even when they have the opportunity to be successful.
Do you feel the language used about this issue seems to convey a sense of negativity, as if the term "opt out" is a euphemism for "quit" and "success" can only be measured in financial or business terms?
Carol: I don't get too hung up on this terminology. Vivian Steir Rabin (HBS '86), my co-author of Back on the Career Track, and I decided that the term "relaunch," which is how we describe the process of resuming a career after a hiatus, sounded much more positive and active, as opposed to on-ramping, or opting-in, which sounded like it was something that happened to you rather than a process you were controlling.
The idea that women "opt out" even when they have the opportunity to be successful ignores that the decision to go on career break after building a career is quite complex and can be triggered by a number of unique circumstances.
SLM: As a fellow HBS graduate, I was surprised by another recent study revealing that a low percentage of women MBAs are still in the workforce 10 to 20 years after receiving their degrees. How did you react to these findings?
Carol: Since I was one of those HBS grads out of the workforce, I was less surprised and more interested in how this population could be served. Vivian felt the same way. When we relaunched our careers in 2000 and 2001, respectively, we felt alone and without a game plan. One of the main reasons we wrote Back on the Career Track was so other women wouldn't have to feel this way. We've also noticed a surge of interest among colleges and universities in creating and updating programs for their alums on career break, including placement. The trend is toward more activity in the relaunch arena, not less. So I’m very excited about that.
SLM: Work/life balance has definitely been a hot topic these days. At past business panels on the subject, you have advised women not to spend too much time away from work if they eventually want to balance career and family. Would you give that same advice today?
Carol: I made that comment at one conference back in 2003 when I was just beginning my research for [Back on the Career Track.] Fundamentally, I still believe that staying connected to your previous professional life or developing a new one is the best way to avoid becoming completely "professionally disconnected"—as so many of us do during our career breaks. But I think you can be creative about how you do that. You can do volunteer work in your field, you can attend the occasional professional conference, you can keep up with some reading in your field, or you can use the time away from work to personally reflect about whether you were on the right career path to begin with. But Vivian and I are also realistic, Vivian has 5 kids and I have 4, and there were long periods during our career breaks when we were completely overwhelmed with our mothering responsibilities and there was no way we could have [kept our toes] in the water professionally. Everyone's situation is different.
SLM: You've been a speaker at many conferences and workshops for women in business. What are the most common questions and concerns you hear from women who want to relaunch their careers?
Carol: Women are concerned about true "readiness." How do they know they are really ready to relaunch their careers? We have the Relaunch Readiness Quiz on our web site, and in our book to help break apart all the issues wrapped up in the "should I return to work" question and enable women to get a readiness score for each category.
Also, women are concerned about confidence building, how to figure out what they really want to do and how to network. We spend a whole chapter on confidence building in Back on the Career Track, providing a "Job Building Blocks" framework for analyzing how your interests and skills have changed or not changed during the time you are on career break and building a new career path for yourself as a result. We also look at networking in terms of "Contact Pools": People from your Past, People from your Present, and People from your Future, and discuss how to focus on utilizing each group.
We also trumpet the success stories, because we believe women are relaunching careers all the time and no one knows about it. When moms at home hear about how other moms relaunched careers, they become inspired to do so themselves. Equally as important, when employers hear how other employers have successfully tapped the pool of talent on career break, they then have a successful employer model to emulate.
SLM: Men don't seem to have the types of conversations like the one we're having right now, about themselves and their careers—why is that? Or, more importantly, what do you think that means?
Carol: I think men in the younger generations X and Y are having more of these conversations than I know men in my generation did. I also think younger Baby Boomer women were among the first to take career breaks and now want to return in greater numbers. So when these women announce their intentions to their husbands the husbands may be very progressive guys but feel maxed out with their own work schedules. It's tougher for them to figure out how they will integrate additional family responsibilities into their schedules. I think the conversations couples have at different life stages are always evolving. And men are becoming more active participants in this conversation than they ever were in the past.
SLM: After all is said and done, how do you feel about the work/life balance that you have achieved? Do you feel satisfied?
Carol: Right now I am very happy with how my work meshes with the rest of my life, but it took a long time for me to get to this point. I think that's pretty typical for those on the relaunch track. [Vivian and I] tell relaunchers to focus on the WHAT—what it is they want to do?—and not the where or the how, because work can take place in a range of logistical configurations that shift over time.
