Veteran Mothers: The Comeback Kids

If you search indeed.com, monster.com, LinkedIn, or other job search websites, there are thousands of posts by companies looking for the perfect candidate for the perfect role. Each page has the name of the company, the title of the position the company is looking to fill, a job description, and a list of requirements and “bonus” experience points. It’s a daunting yet humbling experience for both the job searcher and hiring party.

There is one description I have yet to see, and it’s one of the most popular career paths:

Job Description:
You’re a hardworking individual who follows the GSD mantra, aka “Get Stuff Done”. Passion drives you to prioritize tasks well and often. You’re an evangelist for the company at all times and know how to solve problems as they arise. In essence, you roll with the punches. You keep track of your expenditures and are constantly budget-oriented, thinking outside the box to enhance experiences requested by the client.

Experience:
Entry-level

Benefits:
Pride in building a product from scratch

Company:
Family

Title:
Mother

This past Monday, I had the pleasure of hosting a training session for reacHIRE, an organization that re-introduces women into the workforce after they had taken voluntary personal leave. My sessions aims to get women excited about programming by introducing web development concepts, including Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), Database Relationships via SQL, Test-Driven Development (TDD), HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and knowing the difference between Front End, Back End, and Full Stack Development. While preparing my session’s materials and curriculum, I was told these women came from various career backgrounds, either having no technical background or having experience as engineers.

During introductions, I was impressed with what I heard. These women are talented and were incredibly successful in the careers they chose to leave behind, working and directing strategies for and with Fortune 100 companies, hiring and managing staff, and executing decisions that enhanced the company’s product and bottom line. They are the unsung heroes of the world we see today, the women who switched careers to take on an amazing feat— building the foundation for the future workforce.

These women took the biggest risks, leaving what they knew and loved for a new life adventure. Now, ten years later, they’re back yearning to learn what they had missed during leave.

This is the age of “leaning in.” During International Women’s Month, we need to take time to thank all the women in our lives. Women wear so many hats, and yet the appreciation doesn’t always come. How can the wage gap between men and women still exist? How is it that we’re still waging war on genders? Or even age?

Getting back to my training session, these women were amazing. Whether they had trouble grasping creating a program to shuffle cards using OOP concepts or were confused knowing where to start in creating databases and potential join tables for popular websites like amazon.com, these women attacked their challenges head on and rocked it.

What’s that phrase they use regarding hiring?

Skills can be taught but you can’t teach character.

These women know how to solve problems and don’t shy away from problems that seem too over their heads. They came into the session with open minds, knowing whatever they learned would be useful. The perfect hires, these women will do well assimilating back into the workforce.