The Times sees signs that the business world is more accepting of a couple of blank years on the resume when parents take time off to raise the kids. But there are more signs that things haven’t changed one bit. Take time off, and you’re screwed.
Mothers of baby boomers who went back to work were largely limited to secretarial, teaching or nursing jobs. Their children, in turn, took hardly any time off, juggling home and work. Now, employees want it all, taking time off but retaining the ability to return to the professional positions they left.
While Fortune 500 companies remain skeptical, the most receptive employers are smaller companies, nonprofit institutions and community groups, said Laura Hill, president of Careers in Motion, a career-coaching firm in Manhattan.
“Big companies have specific jobs that require specific experience, and they want recent experience,” Ms. Hill said. “Medium and small employers, with smaller budgets, cannot afford to be as choosy.”
Career flexibility and multiyear sabbaticals came to the fore with Gen-X’ers in about 2001, said Carol Evans, chief executive and founder of Working Mother Media. She said parents who might want to return to the land of suits and collegial camaraderie should volunteer or consult, because even people who have been out of the work force for six months have found it difficult to step back in.
Six months?!!! Six months and you’re dog meat on the career front. Excuse me while I go to the bathroom to vomit.
Apt. 11d 
It’s not nearly as bad as it sounds–it really depends on the career. In cutting-edge software development, your skills may be obsolete in 6 months; most fields aren’t like that. And obsolete-but-related skills are only a problem if there’s an overabundance of people relative to jobs in the field (as there is in software).
One of my economics professors (female, woman in the workforce was her specialty) noted that the most important thing in choosing a career, if you want to be out of the workforce for a period of time, is how fast the needed skills and knowledge change. Programming is at one end of that spectrum; teaching is at the opposite end.
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Sam. Academia is the worst. A or two year gap on the resume is a career killer. Ask any P.A.M. (post academic mom). It’s not that the knowledge changes; it’s that the competition is so fierce.
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Laura, I continue to be fascinated by the comments I hear from women in academia. It seems so hostile to family life! (And pays badly to boot, much of the time, and often requires you to move to the middle of nowhere to achieve a tenure-track position.) I work in the much-maligned computer industry, and I have never had to endure the kinds of things I’ve heard academic moms discuss.
I am curious: why do you stick with it?
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Why do we stick with academia? We really love what we do? The head rush after a killer lecture? We’re too stupid to do anything else? I don’t know.
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I have a friend who is a recruiter in the health care industry–not for nurses and doctors, but for administrators. She says if there is a gap on someone’s resume (without explanation right there, and she doesn’t read cover letters), she tosses it, feeling that they are hiding employment they don’t want to reveal. Is she doing a disservice to her employer (and applicants) by summarily eliminating good candidates, or prudently using her time?
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