Hey, Mamas: This Program Will Help You Reignite Your Career

“Y&R Group wants your talent back.”

That sentence is in bold on the website for Young & Rubicam Group’s new returnship program. For individuals seeking to rejoin the workforce, there’s not a more exciting sentence to read. Not only is there a company that is actively looking to train full-time parents and caregivers who want to return to work, but those professionals (who may not have been acting in a professional capacity for a long while) are finally being seen as the untapped potential that they are.

Recently, Young & Rubicam Group announced the launch of its career reboot program: PowerOn. This 12-week training program offers hands-on experience, training and resources to help individuals kickstart their career and re-enter the workforce.

Madeline Park, Chief of Talent and Operations at the Young & Rubicam Group, acknowledged that these candidates typically don’t get the recognition they deserve. “It’s time for our industry to embrace this untapped pool of talent,” Park said. “So often the decision to depart from the workforce to focus on family or childcare unfairly impedes opportunities for growth down the line.”

A 2010 study by the Center for Talent Innovation found that 31 percent of highly qualified women voluntarily left their jobs for an average of 2.7 years. When women sought to go back to work, only 73 percent of women succeeded in returning to their careers. Of those who were seeking full-time work, only 40 percent of women acquired it.

Despite how the above workplace trends disproportionately affect women, Y&R Group’s PowerOn program is open to both women and men who have left the workforce to care for children and other family members for a minimum of five years. Applicants must have held a management or senior level position prior to leaving the industry.

“We developed PowerOn to offer a channel for these professionals to come back,” Park said. “We know these candidates offer an incredible skill set, life experience, diverse points of view and much more.”

PowerOn’s program offers an extensive curriculum as well as professional workshops, a speaker series and a wide variety of training sessions. Many of these events will be open to all Young & Rubicam Group employees to promote shared learning and collaboration.

If you’re looking to return to work and this program sounds like exactly what you’re looking for, you can apply here. Applications will be accepted until December 1, 2017.