Leadership

Tips for Moms Returning to Work from HBS

By Jessica Stillman

Updated on: February 26, 2009 / 9:35 AM EST / MoneyWatch

Podcast

The Find: Tips from the leader of a Harvard Business School program designed to help parents get back to work on how moms (or dads) can get their careers back in gear after a break.
The Source: An FT Management podcast in which Adam Jones interviews professor Tim Butler, leader of Harvard's A New Path: Setting New Professional Directions program for parents hoping to return to the workforce after a significant absence.

The Takeaway: Parents looking to get back into paid employment can shell out around $5,000 for Harvard's one-week New Path program, or if they're a little short on cash, they can get some of the same tips by listening to this twelve minute podcast courtesy of the ever-insightful FT Management blog. In it, the leader of the program offers his views on what parents can do to smooth the transition back into office life.

The first step is confidence. A lack of skills is less of an issue for returning parents than a lack of confidence. When a woman (the program is designed for mothers) comes to the New Path program she is given a 360 degree review, and Butler reports that almost always participants rate their skills and abilities much lower than do their friends and colleagues. And, as Butler points out, it makes sense that moms have plenty of management abilities, as parenting is "project management with a capital P and a capital M".

If you've got confidence, what's next? Express it, says Butler. Go into interviews exuding how much you want the gig and avoid defensiveness. He also recommends avoiding the term 'part-time' because the term, fairly of not, is often associated with partial commitment. Instead, use the vocabulary of 'flexible working'. For many more of Butler's tips â€" including his exhortation for busy moms to keep networking despite the difficultiesâ€" check out the complete podcast.

The Find: Many of our readers have been through the transition of going back to work after a baby, any tips to share?

(Image of baby in an office by jessicafm, CC 2.0)