With two young children to juggle and another on the horizon, it made sense for Kirstan Ferris to step back from the day job and take a career break.

“My intention was always to return to work when my youngest turned three,” she says, “however this ‘short’ career break turned into seven years.”

With a degree in Technology and Business Studies, and 11 years’ experience working in the engineering and manufacturing sectors - including the aerospace and automotive industries in the UK, Germany and America - life as a stay-at-home mum was undoubtedly different.

“I often felt lonely, missing my ‘old career’ and the ‘old Kirstan’,” she recalls.

“In 2019, with my children all now in school, I decided that the time was right for me to return to my ‘professional’ career.”

As many women have found, however, returning to work is often not as straight-forward as it may sound.

And the added complications of a global pandemic have now raised deep concerns that women – already disadvantaged by its impact on their lives – will find picking up their careers even harder than ever.

“Women who have taken career breaks already face multiple challenges at the point of returning to work, from their own loss of professional confidence to recruiter biases against people without recent experience,” says Hazel Little, Client and Programme Director at Women Returners, a social business which aims to support women back into the workplace.

“During the pandemic, these challenges have been magnified for women who have a gap on their CV as they struggle to compete in a climate where each job vacancy receives hundreds of applications.”

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To help, it is preparing a Return to Work Bootcamp offering advice across a range of areas such as rebuilding confidence, identifying key strengths and transferable skills, interview tips and creating a return to work action plan.

In recognition that some taking part will be juggling home schooling and lockdown childcare, the coaching sessions will run as short bursts across two days, followed by a networking Connection Event in March which will bring together prospective employers from financial services, technology and professional services sectors.

The initiative is one of a dozen projects across the country to share £311,000 of Scottish Government funding from its Women Returners Programme. Part of its Fairer Scotland for Women: Gender Gap Action plan which launched in 2019, it is aimed at helping to reduce the gender pay gap by 2021.

Initially developed to help break down return to work barriers, such as the ‘motherhood penalty’ following maternity leave, the programme has taken on new significance due the pandemic’s impact on women workers as they juggle childcare, home schooling and redundancies across traditionally female dominant sectors like retail, hospitality and leisure.

A flurry of studies carried out since the first lockdown last year has suggested the pandemic is aggravating gender inequality. One, by the University of Exeter, found women are almost twice as likely as men to have lost their job during the pandemic.

It said women were also more likely to have seen a reduction to their working hours during lockdown, while taking on more childcare, home-schooling and housework responsibilities than men.

Another by networking site LinkedIn, which looked specifically at people over 30 - most likely to have additional caring responsibilities - showed women have consistently made up less than half of successful applicants for new jobs since the start of the pandemic, despite more women than men spending additional time job-hunting.

Even women who run their own business have been affected: a Royal Bank of Scotland survey in December found female business owners and entrepreneurs were 17% more likely to have struggled combining business and family life since the pandemic began than men, suggesting women may have shouldered more of the responsibility for aspects such as childcare, home schooling and household maintenance.

Ms Little said the Scottish Government funding would help break down return to work barriers by providing the skills, confidence and networks they need to rejoin the workforce.

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“Women who have taken career breaks already face multiple challenges at the point of returning to work, from their own loss of professional confidence to recruiter biases against people without recent experience.

“During the pandemic, these challenges have been magnified for women who have a gap on their CV as they struggle to compete in a climate where each job vacancy receives hundreds of applications.

“Just as mothers currently in employment are struggling to juggle working from home with home schooling and family life through the pandemic, balancing competing commitments is demanding for the many women returners who have school-age children or caring responsibilities and are also trying to get their careers back on track.”

She adds: “It's a full-throttle commitment returning to work after a break involving considerable research; analysing past career experiences to prepare for competency-based interviews; attending online courses to up-skill; creating LinkedIn profiles and reconnecting with their networks; getting up to speed with new developments in their industry; and the intensive application and interview process itself. “These are very challenging times for women returners, who are also working on boosting their self belief about what they have to offer to prospective employers.”

Support from the Women Returners’ workshops helped Kirstan switch from her earlier engineering roles to become a business analyst with Hymans Robertson LLP in June last year.

“I initially found it to be quite a daunting experience in terms of how do I go about starting to find a new career and will my career break be viewed as a lack of commitment or ambition?,” she recalls.

“Although I didn’t have experience in the financial services sector, what I did have was a valuable transferrable skill set and wealth of experience leading change and improvement projects across different industries.”

She adds: “My career break was never an issue to my employer. The issue was my own self-doubt and lack of confidence about re-entering the professional workplace and how to explain my career break.”

Jamie Hepburn MSP, Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills, said: “We know there can be a number of barriers around women returning to work following an extended absence, with many experiencing a ‘motherhood penalty’ following a break for maternity leave or to care for children.

“The Women Returners programme will help many women back into work, and this funding will provide valuable advice, peer support and access to training and work experience which will open up opportunities for women in sectors where they are under-represented.”

Women who meet the criteria can apply now for the Bootcamp at https://womenreturners.com/opportunities/return-to-work-accelerator-bootcamp/. Applications close on 8th February 2021.