Stay-at-home mums - ever felt like you wanted to return to work, but felt unsure how to do it? Well, LinkedIn is here to help.
The world's leading professional network is launching a pilot programme called Returnin, which seeks to help people get back to their careers after being at home to look after others.
To start with, 10 roles are being created for people who took time out from their careers for family reasons at LinkedIn's EMEA HQ in Dublin.
The roles they are hiring for will be in a number of different fields, including sales, talent acquisition, and global customer operations.
In order to make the transition an easy one, those participating in the programme will receive additional training, ongoing mentoring throughout their time with LinkedIn, and an extended on-boarding period.
As well, LinkedIn is providing them with the PerkUp! employee benefit program which includes an allowance that can be spent on babysitters or other useful services in order to help them achieve a healthy work-life balance.
This programme will especially appeal to us mums who have taken time away from our careers, as women are some of the most highly educated people in the Irish workforce.
Over 55 percent women aged between 25 and 35 have a third level qualification, compared to 40 percent of men.
In spite of this, though, about 52,000 women are seeking full-time or part-time work, according to Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures. That number doesn't include those who have possibly given up on looking for work.
We make up a vast majority of carers, with 117,000 of the 195,000 carers in Ireland being women. After devoting so much of our time to others, it's difficult to get back into the workforce.
"We are launching Returnin in Ireland for three reasons: First, we need skilled workers - we see that many of them have fallen out of the labour market due to family commitments and we think that we can help them reconnect with their careers," Sharon McCooey, Head of LinkedIn in Ireland, noted.
"Second, we want to build a team as diverse as the market we serve - and that includes a diversity of ages and family experience, we think Returnin will help us appeal to older workers and parents.
"Third, we see this an obstacle to economic opportunity - and our driving force as a company is to overcome such barriers - we hear from parents and carers that returning to work can be daunting and complicated, with Returnin we can offer more specific help”.
Three roles are currently available in the programme. To find out more, follow the link here.
Do you or did you experience difficulty returning to your career after taking time off for your family? Let us know.
