A returnship is a lot like a college internship, except for caregivers who have been away from the office for many years and are now ready to return to work. Ideally, returnships end in full-time employment after an average 4-month trial period.
I found out about returnships when one of my friends took advantage of a Return to Work program run by Path Forward at VMWare. I immediately did a little research and pitched it to our executive team at Singlewire. It was approved and I’m hoping to put together a position later this year!
I feel strongly that returnships can form an key part of a strategy to increase diversity in tech. They can be an important bridge for helping women (because let’s face it, we still bear the brunt of caregiving work in the United States) jump back into fulfilling careers once they are finished caring for their children or aging parent.
Below is the pitch I submitted. Feel free to steal it, modify it, but most importantly use it to get a program started at your workplace!
The Returnship Pitch
What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?
We have trouble finding and hiring qualified diverse candidates for our software development team. Diversity is important because it leads to a broader pool of ideas and ultimately a better product.
Women in particular are in short supply as the percentage of computer science graduates who are women has hovered below 20% for nearly 20 years.
*Source: NCES IPEDS Completions Data; see our full analysis of the 2018 data here.
Of that 20%, women tend to leave the workforce in higher numbers to care for children and elderly parents at some point in their careers. For them, finding a job after a gap in their resume is just as difficult as it is for us to find and hire great women.
Solution: Returnships
I think we can attract talented, experienced women by tapping into the group returning to work from their caregiving stints. Provide a “Returnship” that gives them a chance to adjust back to working full-time and gives us a chance to try them out, much like an intern in college. Could we use this program to hire men too? Of course! But the reality is that the vast majority of the long-term caregiving falls to women. However, we wouldn’t shut men out of the program.
How Returnships Work
- Source individuals with at least a 2-year gap on their resume for caregiving and at least 5 years of experience prior to that. I talked to Meredith Hartery from Path Forward, a non-profit who specializes in helping companies create Returnships. She says they source people from local mom meet-ups, etc — i.e. non-traditional places.
- Hire them for a 4-month returnship, put them on a team, and give them a mentor just like we do with interns.
- If, at the end of 4 months, they have come up to speed and would be a productive part of the team, we hire them full-time.
Meredith said they see an 80% conversion rate across the board at all of their companies. Which means that companies are finding that these returning women are qualified, despite being out of the workforce for several years. I think this is a key point. Can women come back and be productive again? Absolutely!
Can women come back and be productive again? Absolutely!
This Sounds Like a Lot of Extra Work, Could We Get HR Some Help?
Yes, that’s what Path Forward does. They provide three things:
- Training for us on how we can tweak what we’re doing to help returnees thrive.
- Recruitment marketing — they’ll help find people, we’re in charge of the hiring process.
- Training and workshops for returners.
For small companies like ours, they work in cohorts of three people for a flat fee. There are no other fees when the women are hired, like there are with other recruiting contracts. Those three people could be from anywhere in the company (development, sales, marketing, etc).
A Life-Changing Program
I know for my friend, the returnship program has been absolutely life-changing. For employers, it’s a wonderful way to tap into a very experienced group of individuals. The amount of experience the average female engineer has before she drops out of the workforce to care for children? 10 Years!
I hope to see many more of these programs pop up around the country as we publicize these success stories more often.