Mature competence vs youthful ambition: Career break mother wins Masterchef

In case you missed it, the 2016 Masterchef competition was won, last week, by a 50-year-old stay-at-home mum of four. While Masterchef doesn't enjoy the same profile as The Great British Bake Off, the achievement of its winner and the opportunities the winner enjoys can be just as life changing.

It was clear to me in the final week of the competition that Jane Devonshire would be the winner, not simply because of her skillful and creative cooking but because of her character. Her maturity, self-knowledge, leadership and unflappability gave her the edge over her younger, seemingly more energetic and ambitious, male rivals. While one of the three finalists was running round in ever more desperate circles as he had done throughout the competition and the other succumbed to the pressure, Jane was a picture of serene competence, calming executing all her dishes perfectly. In winning, she exemplified so many of the aspects which we know make returners valuable to employers.

It was only in the final episode of the competition that we heard more of Jane's story. She had started work as soon as she left school and by the time she was married and expecting her first child she had built up her own successful business. However, despite only seeing herself as a career woman up to this point, becoming a mother changed her perspective, as it often does, and she chose to leave her business to focus full-time on her family. Entering Masterchef was the first thing she had done for herself in many years and from a nervous start, she visibly grew in self-belief and assurance as she progressed through the rounds.

In the final episode, Jane also revealed that she had overcome cancer twice in the previous decade. Her win was a triumphant assertion that reinvention and a return to work that you love can be achieved. As I've said previously, entering a televised national competition might be an extreme way to regain your self-belief, but I hope Jane's example might inspire you to think about some small steps you can take to return to your professional path.


Posted by Katerina

Is it possible to return to work at 50+ after a career break?

This is a question I discussed recently with Dr Ros Altmann, the UK Government's Older Workers Business Champion.  It is also a question I hear regularly from our Network, particularly those who have paused their career for health reasons or in order to look after elderly relatives.

While it might be true that some organisations fail to recognise the great value and benefit of hiring older workers, quite often the returners themselves are creating self-imposed barriers that need not exist.  It is necessary to develop the right mindset where your age is to your advantage.

The women I speak to who are hoping to return to employment, regularly tell me that organisations are only looking for younger people or those who have worked their way up a career ladder.  It is easy for them to fear that they are too old and too out of touch, to be considered employable.  They worry that they won’t fit into the office environment and that their prior experience, expertise and qualifications are no longer relevant. 

Instead of looking at what is missing from your CV, it is much more helpful to notice what your years of experience, both in and out of the workforce, have given you.  As Michele (who found full-time work in her 50s, following a divorce) says:

‘I was attractive to my new employer because at my age I was reliable, I brought a wealth of different experiences which meant I could talk to anybody and I was serious about my work.  At the same time, I wasn't going to take his clients and set up on my own.  And, I wasn't going to get pregnant which made a big difference in a small company’

A Harvard Business Review article which highlighted the concept of internships for returners mentions that such internships "… allow [companies] to hire people who have a level of maturity and experience not found in younger recruits and who are at a life stage where parental leaves and spousal relocations are most likely behind them.  In short, these applicants are an excellent investment".  (HBR November 2012 ‘The 40-year-old intern’). 

The 'internship for returners' route is only one of many ways to return to work and I list below the links to other relevant articles we've published. However you plan to return, you can help yourself by remembering all the qualities described above and knowing that you offer future employers commitment and stability.  You know you will stay a long time if you enjoy your work and are valued for what you bring to the organisation.

Dr Altmann has been tasked with making the case for older workers within the business community and challenging outdated perceptions.  She will be reporting to the Government in March with her recommendations on what Government policy needs to be to enable older workers to continue to be productively employed.  We hope that her work will help to dispel the fears of the over 50s that they are no longer employable and lead to more opportunities for older returners.

Related posts:
The value of older women to the workforce
Thinking small: an alternative route back to work
How to create your own 'returnship'
Ideas for routes back to work
Freelancing as a return to work option
Find your way back to work through Strategic Volunteering


Posted by Katerina - Co-founder of Women Returners

The value of older women to the workforce

Many returners believe that being older makes them less appealing to employers.  Geraldine Bedell, former editor of Gransnet, co-founder of The Family Innovation zone and author of Mothers of Innovation outlines government data and other research which firmly rebuts this view and provides encouragement and insight for returners.

Lives are getting longer: we all know that. What is less often acknowledged is that the extra years haven’t all been tacked on at the end. They've gone into the middle. Many of us are contemplating lives that look vastly different from those of our mothers, let alone our grandmothers; anticipating a phase of life after child rearing that is healthy, mentally competent, energetic and prolonged.

Women returners understand this from the inside: we know we have skills, energy, judgement and competence that make us useful to the world of employment. It’s fair to say, though, that employers have taken a long time to realise this. Even as changing demographics open up possibilities for different life stages, we still assume that key career progress has to be made at the very time we are most preoccupied with small children.

Things are changing. Clever businesses have long understood that diversity is the key to successful teams. It may have taken them a while to realise that diversity includes age but they are doing so now, and for good business reasons: it has been estimated that there will be 13.5m job vacancies in the UK in the next 10 years but only 7m young people will be leaving school and college.

Beyond the need to fill desks, many of the myths about older workers are now known to be unfounded. A recent guide from the Department of Work and Pensions* insists that older workers:

• are just as productive as younger workers
• are just as successful in training and learning new skills
• take less short-term time off sick
• offset any loss of speed – with technology, for example – with better judgement
• are just as likely to commit to an employer

It’s understandable that women who have been on a career break assume that technology and ways of doing things have moved on. That may be true – but management of technology and of colleagues is a skill, and the point about skills is that they can be learnt, often remarkably quickly. There is no reason to suppose a woman returner is going to be much slower picking up ways of doing things than someone transferring from another company.  

What older women do bring – as enlightened employers are increasingly acknowledging – is a lifetime of skills, experience and wisdom. Increasingly, brain research is showing that what we have traditionally called wisdom is a demonstrable function of the older brain. As Barbara Strauch observes in her book The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, we have ‘an increased capacity, as we age, to recognise patterns and anticipate situations, to predict a likely future, and to act appropriately.’

The DWP* also reports that organisations with an intergenerational workforce find that there are benefits for both older and younger staff, including opportunities for mentoring and an exchange of skills. The recent appointment of Ros Altmann as the government’s champion for older workers should help; and the demographics are in our favour. But the most important thing is that older women returners bring masses of experience, skill, discernment and sophistication. As Eleanor Roosevelt said: ‘A mature person is one who doesn't

think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things.’ Lots of reasons to be confident, then, because that’s a pretty valuable set of attributes.

* Employing older workers: an employer’s guide to today’s multi-generational workforce

Guest blog by Geraldine Bedell co-founder of The Family Innovation Zone

Am I too old to be employable?

I’ve spoken at a number of conferences directed towards women returners and one of the common questions, especially from those who’ve taken a long career gap, is ‘Am I too old to be employable?’

When I returned to work after my career break, I chose to become self-employed, but it is a common view among women hoping to return to employment that organisations are only looking for younger people or those who have worked their way up a career ladder.  It is easy for us to fear that we are too old and too out of touch, to be considered employable.  We worry that we won’t fit in to the office environment and that our prior experience, expertise and qualifications are no longer relevant. 

Instead of looking at what is missing from our CVs, it is much more helpful to notice what our years of experience, both in and out of the workforce, have given us.  As Michele (who found full-time work in her 50s, following a divorce) says:

‘I was attractive to my new employer because at my age I was reliable, I brought a wealth of different experiences which meant I could talk to anybody and I was serious about my work.  At the same time, I wasn’t going to take his clients and set up on my own.  And, I wasn’t going to get pregnant which made a big difference in a small company’

A recent Harvard Business Review article, which highlighted the concept of internships for returners mention that such internships ‘… allow [companies] to hire people who have a level of maturity and experience not found in younger recruits and who are at a life stage where parental leaves and spousal relocations are most likely behind them.  In short, these applicants are an excellent investment’.  (HBR November 2012 ‘The 40-year-old intern’). 

It is not just in the US that internships exist for returning mid-career women.  In the UK, the financial services industry was one of the first to offer these types of opportunities and since 2010 Red Magazine has arranged month long paid internships at a number of UK companies and with an MP

http://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/internships

The internship route is only one of many ways to return to work and we will discuss other ways in later articles.  However we plan to return, we can help ourselves by remembering all the qualities mentioned and we also know that we offer future employers commitment and stability.  We will stay a long time if we enjoy our work and are valued for what we bring to the organisation.

Posted by Katerina