T-Mobile’s Returnship Program Is Helping Women Who’ve Taken Career Breaks Get Back Into Tech Roles

“I took a break relatively early in my career, and each time I navigated to an online application, it began with two choices: either ‘I am a recent graduate’ or ‘I am a seasoned professional.’”

That left Emilie Davidson feeling a little out of place. 

“With no local or recent professional contracts, I applied to dozens of positions each month and heard absolutely nothing back. It was easy to see how women in my situation fell through the cracks of the recruitment system,” Davidson explained. 

Talking through the challenge with Sara Culjan — a friend, fellow mom and business analysis manager at T-Mobile — convinced Davidson to take a new approach to her job search.

“Sara really supported me through my return-to-work journey,” Davidson shared. “She encouraged me to apply for a few jobs at T-Mobile and helped update my resume to fit the T-Mobile culture. She suggested filling the career gap’s space on my resume with ‘stay-at-home parent’ as my current role, including business jargon-y descriptions of the parenting role.”

Davidson’s effort generated some call backs. Although no interviews immediately followed, reworking her resume did offer her something else: “Writing those descriptions actually helped me see how my time as a stay-at-home parent was practical experience, and surprisingly relevant to many paid jobs.”

Then, a few months after their initial conversations around Davidson’s career hunt, Culjan forwarded some information about T-Mobile’s TechX Returnship pilot. The description of the need for the program — “to create more on- and off-ramps in the workforce” — resonated. 

“I felt like I had taken an exit ramp from the workforce and this created clear direction and some space to get back up to interstate speed,” she said.

The initial Returnship Pilot, which ran from November 2019 until May 2020, offered six impressive roles, including engineering, project management and analyst positions within T-Mobile's Technology Service Delivery & Operations (TSD&O) organization. Circumventing the traditional HR recruitment model, the focus of the program rested on factors like critical thinking and problem solving abilities — not existing skills or platform proficiencies.  

Managers and mentors were hand-picked for the pilot program based on their proven leadership and commitment to other technology career programs. After Returners attended a week-long onboarding and training session to equip them with skills they needed to be successful, managers provided their Returners with challenging projects and plenty of opportunities to build their professional network, plug into relevant training, and connect frequently with people in their TSD&O community.

The TechX Returners quickly adapted to their new working environments — both the initial transition back into work, and then working remotely due to COVID — and exceeded all expectations on their assignments and projects. 

One thing was clear: each Returner brought refreshing, exciting and unique perspectives to the business.

“The other five women in my cohort are incredible, and it’s just baffling to see so clearly what would have been a huge missed opportunity if we had given up,” Davidson said. “I also look back at the time I had at home with my daughter and see the incredible missed opportunity it would have been if I had not chosen what felt best for my little family at that stage in our lives for fearing the challenge of a comeback.” 

The TechX Returnship’s program has roots in the intersection of T-Mobile's commitment to professional development and its diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives. And for this particular program, it all started with a text. 

While attending a session about returnships at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, a group of engineers who belonged to T-Mobile’s Women in Technology employee resource group were inspired to text Brian King, SVP & Chief Operations Officer of Technology. As King  recently explained to CIO Magazine, the idea of the TechX Returnship Pilot was born out of this outreach.

“We wanted to learn through the pilot,” King told the magazine. “We wanted to make sure that we have the right managers and mentors and that they were set up to be successful. We now have a formula that works. And we have a formula that we can scale within the rest of technology and make sure that we’ve got the right level of champions within each of the departments.”

When the pilot program concluded this spring, all six Returners successfully landed full-time roles — five within T-Mobile, and one externally.

“T-Mobile has lived up to its reputation for supporting employees and having a wonderful business culture,” Davidson, who landed a job as a program manager in the Technical Training & Development department, said. “I am so grateful that ReacHIRE was able to bridge the gap between an eager and qualified workforce and a fantastic company and would encourage other companies and individuals to participate in the program.”

And thanks to that incredible success, TechX is expanding the Returnship program.Now, T-Mobile is seeking 20 talented Returners for a six-month program that will run from November 2, 2020 to May 14, 2021.

Applications are now open for a wide variety of roles, including project management, product management, software engineering and business analyst positions. Returners will be hired as paid Non-T-Mobile Workers (NTW) and will work full-time hours (40 hours per week). Returners may be eligible to receive an employment offer at T-Mobile at the end of the program.

To be eligible for the program, applicants should:

• Be able to work in a full-time role.

• Have at least two years of professional work experience.

• Have taken a two-year (or more) career break.

• Have authorization to work for any employer in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.