How Neha Bagaria Enables Women To Meaningfully Restart Their Careers After A Break

Neha Bagaria through her platform, Jobs for Her, helps women who are often inhibited by internal and external barriers, to advance their professional lives after a career break.

Women all over the world, and in India especially, are viewed as caregivers and homemakers first. A woman is often considered to be the lynchpin around which the household revolves – her choices are therefore, not always, her own – they are often dictated by circumstances – financial or otherwise, intrusive relatives, un-supportive spouses and the like.

A lot of women discontinue their jobs, entirely or partly, when they get married, when their spouses relocate to another state or country or when they have a child. Some do it out of choice, some out of compulsion. Nonetheless, this makes resuming careers a challenge. We live in an economy, where skills become outdated by the minute. Justifying career breaks to prospective employers, thus, becomes a painful challenge.

She quotes her breaking barriers moment as the day when “I decided to stop my 3.5 year career break and get back to work. The day I decided to get back to a career which used to fulfill me before I became a full time mother. The day I decided that I need to stop holding myself and by becoming a better and happier person, I can be a better and happier mom”.

In a world where women are breaking barriers, we still have a long way to go and the need for such enabling platforms is on the rise. Some women are still finding their voices, some women know they want to go back to work – they just don’t know how, while others feel their skill-sets have rusted over the years. No matter what the case might be, it is becoming increasingly imperative to create enabling conditions at work, to advocate for jobs for returning moms, and to give women the space and opportunities to hone and showcase their skillsets.

Neha has used her platform to advocate for such rights with employers, who are now creating gender inclusive policies and are looking at hiring women resuming their careers after a break, often with innovative programmes such as returnee internships, giving women the crucial buffer to transition into their roles with ease.

Keep powering on, Neha. We need more of your tribe.

Watch Neha Bagaria speak here.

Tell us your stories of resuming work after a career break. Has it been tough to break into the professional world again? How did you deal with it? Let us know in the comments below.

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Shruti Parija

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