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New programs aim to help mothers who are looking to reenter workplace

By Maggie Jackson, Globe Correspondent, 10/9/2005

JANET KNOTT/GLOBE STAFF Claudine Corey and daughter Eve at their Westport home.

First in a two-part series on mothers looking for work after taking time off.

When graphic designer Claudine Corey changed jobs and scaled back her hours after having her first child, her boss kept hinting even in performance reviews that perhaps she'd like to be a full-time mom. This fall, after staying home a year to raise her two daughters in Westport, Corey is interviewing with a company that openly welcomes part-time moms.

Job hunting is tough when you're a mother. Motherhood is a stigma in the labor market and taking time off for parenting is often a door-closer. But take heart. A raft of opportunities have been created in the last year for returning moms, including a career workshop and job fair series backed by big-name companies, a New England group specializing in matching moms with flexible work, and even a daytime MBA program designed for mothers with school-age kids.

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''Mothers have leverage, and they don't realize it,'' says Rhona Kisch, a lawyer who has organized, ''What to Do When Mother is On Your Resume,'' a series of fall career conferences and a job fair in the New York area.

Supporters include Deloitte, Merrill Lynch, Cisco Systems, and Simmons School of Management, where an MBA program for mothers was launched last month.

While the number of moms who work and have children under the age of six has dropped from 65 percent in 2000 to 62 percent last year, this trend doesn't herald an ''opt-out revolution,'' as some pundits trumpeted. Most mothers who take time off for family reasons later want to return to work, research shows.

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The trouble is that women who have been home face an uphill battle. Their Rolodex is rusty, so networking is tough. They feel out of touch. And they face real discrimination, says Shelley Correll, a Cornell University associate professor who coauthored a recent study showing that job-hunting mothers are often penalized, even when they have no gaps on their résumé.

Her research found that working mothers are deemed less competent, committed, and deserving of promotion than childless women who are equally qualified. In her experiments, applicants whose résumés indicate that they are mothers were offered an average $11,000 less in starting pay and hired half as frequently. ''They unconsciously expect mothers are going to be less committed to their jobs,'' says Correll, who was so shocked by the findings that she ordered the data reanalyzed to make sure a mistake hadn't been made.

At the first career conference organized by Kisch in New York last month, an audience of about 150 heard a daylong pep talk from counselors, mothers who'd successfully returned to work, and resume specialists. ''Never apologize for your choices'' and ''follow your dreams,'' the speakers exhorted.

But they also heard serious recruiting pitches from Deloitte and Merrill Lynch, two firms that are beginning to tap the talents of returning mothers. Such companies are looking ahead to coming labor shortages, and recognizing that women make up a growing proportion of their client, competitor and leadership base.

''It is the norm for women to go in and out of the workforce,'' Anne Weisberg, senior adviser for the retention and advancement of women at Deloitte, told the conference. ''Many companies have not figured that out yet.''

Claudine Corey hasn't yet found a job, but she's persisting. She sends out résumés, networks and scours the online job postings of the New England Mothers Organization, a group started in January by fellow Westport mother Jeanne Girard to match mothers with flexible work.

At the moment, Corey is looking at lower-level jobs, such as a stocking position in a department store, but hopes to find a position matching her skills and experience. Says Corey, ''It's not like you lose your talents just because you've done something else for a while.''

NEXT: The do's and don'ts of the posthiatus job search.

Maggie Jackson's Balancing Acts column appears every other week. She can be reached at .

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