TED演讲：离开工作岗位多年，如何重回职业轨道？

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工作让人的生活充实而幸福。可是设想一下，当你已经离开工作岗位多年，过时的技能，不再优势的年龄，你将如何重启自己的职业生涯，与正值青春的鲜肉们竞争呢？你该如何挖掘与发挥自己的优势？听听Carol Cohen的建议吧。

演讲者：Carol Fishman Cohen

演讲题目：How to get back to work after a career break

TED视频TED演讲稿

People returning to work after a career break: I call them relaunchers. These are people who have taken career breaks for elder care, for childcare reasons, pursuing a personal interest or a personal health issue.

有些人经过离职长假之后重新投入到工作中来，我称他们为“再从业者”。这些人选择休离职长假，有些是要照顾老人，有些是要照顾孩子，也有些是追求个人爱好，或是健康因素。

Closely related are career transitioners of all kinds: veterans, military spouses, retirees coming out of retirement or repatriating expats. Returning to work after a career break is hard because of a disconnect between the employers and the relaunchers.

各行各业转业的人都与之紧密相关：退伍军人、军嫂、退休返聘的人或遣返回国者。离职长假后重返工作是非常困难的，因为雇主和再从业者之间有了隔阂。

Employers can view hiring people with a gap on their resume as a high-risk proposition, and individuals on career break can have doubts about their abilities to relaunch their careers, especially if they've been out for a long time. This disconnect is a problem that I'm trying to help solve.

雇主们认为，雇佣这些简历上工作时间不连贯的人是风险极高的决策，而正在离职长假中的人可能对自己再从业的能力产生疑虑，特别是那些离职时间较长者。两者间的缺乏联系是我在尝试解决的问题。

Now, successful relaunchers are everywhere and in every field. This is Sami Kafala. He's a nuclear physicist in the UK who took a five-year career break to be home with his five children. The Singapore press recently wrote about nurses returning to work after long career breaks.

如今，我们在各行各业都能见到成功的再从业者。这位是萨米·科法拉，他是英国的一位核物理学家，因为要在家照顾五个孩子而度过了五年的离职长假。新加坡的媒体最近发表了文章，内容是有关离职长假后再从业的护士。

And speaking of long career breaks, this is Mimi Kahn. She's a social worker in Orange County, California, who returned to work in a social services organization after a 25-year career break. That's the longest career break that I'm aware of. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor took a five-year career break early in her career.

提到长时间的离职假期，这位是米米·卡恩，她是加州奥兰治县的一位社工，她在度过25年的离职长假后回到了一个社会服务组织工作。这是据我所知最长的离职假期。最高法院法官桑德拉·戴·奥康纳，在其职业生涯早期度过了五年离职长假。

And this is Tracy Shapiro, who took a13-year career break. Tracy answered a call for essays by the Today Show from people who were trying to return to work but having a difficult time of it. Tracy wrote in that she was a mom of five who loved her time at home, but she had gone through a divorce and needed to return to work, plus she really wanted to bring work back into her life because she loved working.

这位是特蕾西·莎碧罗，她度过了13年的离职长假。特蕾西答复了从“今日秀”节目观众中征集到的问题，他们想要重返工作，却发现很难做到。特蕾西写道：自己是五个孩子的母亲，也很享受居家的时间，但是她历经了一次离婚，并且急需回到工作状态。

Tracy was doing what so many of us do when we feel like we've put in a good day in the job search. She was looking for a finance or accounting role, and she had just spent the last nine months very diligently researching companies online and applying for jobs with no results.

另外，她很想把工作带回她的生活中，因为她也很享受工作。特蕾西也曾做过我们很多人所做的事，每天不停的搜寻合适的工作。她找过财经、会计领域的职位，她在那之前花掉了九个月时间，很努力地调查网上的公司，然后投放简历，却一无所获。

I met Tracy in June of 2011, when the Today Show asked me if I could work with her to see if I could help her turn things around. The first thing I told Tracy was she had to get out of the house. I told her she had to go public with her job search and tell everyone she knew about her interest in returning to work.

我在2011年六月见到了特蕾西，那时“今日秀”节目问我可否与她合作，看我能不能帮她走出困境。我告诉特蕾西的第一件事，就是她必须走出家门。我告诉她，她必须公开自己求职的想法，然后告诉她认识的所有人，自己再从业的强烈意愿。

I also told her, "You are going to have a lot of conversations that don't go anywhere. Expect that, and don't bed iscouraged by it. There will be a handful that ultimately lead to a job opportunity."

我还告诉她，“有很多你参与的对话是对你完全没有帮助的。你要做好心理准备，别因为那些而灰心丧气。找到工作机会之前，确实要经历很多琐事。”

I'll tell you what happened with Tracy in a little bit, but I want to share with you a discovery that I made when I was returning to work after my own career break of 11 years out of the full-time workforce. And that is, that people's view of you is frozen in time.

我稍后再告诉你们特蕾西是如何处理的，我想先跟大家分享我的一个发现，那时我刚刚回到工作中，结束了自己离开全职工作大军11年的长假。这个发现就是，人们对你的印象凝固在过去。

What I mean by this is, when you start to get in touch with people and you get back in touch with those people from the past, the people with whom you worked or went to school, they are going to remember you as you were before your career break. And that's even if your sense of self has diminished over time, as happens with so many of us the farther removed we are from our professional identities.

我的意思是，当你再次开始与人打交道，与曾经合作过的人重新接触，例如跟你一起上学工作过的人，他们对你的印象是离职长假之前的你。我们的自我意识随着时间推移逐渐淡化，我们很多人都会这样，我们距离我们的职业身份也就越来越远。

So for example, you might think of your selfas someone who looks like this. This is me, crazy after a day of driving around in my minivan. Or here I am in the kitchen. But those people from the past, they don't know about any of this. They only remember you as you were, and it's a great confidence boost to be back in touch with these people and hear their enthusiasm about your interest in returning to work.

举个例子，你可能把你自己看成这样。这就是我，开了一天小面包车，整个人感觉很疯狂。这是我在厨房里的样子。但是从前的那些人，他们对这些一无所知。他们只记得你曾经的样子，当你重新与这些人沟通时，真是大大的增强了自信心，而且他们对你有再从业的兴趣感到非常的开心。

There's one more thing I remember vividly from my own career break. And that was that I hardly kept up with the business news. My background is in finance, and I hardly kept up with any news when I was home caring for my four young children. 

我还清晰地记得发生在我离职长假中的一件事。那时我几乎完全不关注经济新闻。我曾是财经行业出身，然而我在家照顾四个孩子时，我几乎不关注任何的新闻。

So I was afraid I'd go into an interview and start talking about a company that didn't exist anymore. So I had to resubscri be to the Wall Street Journal and read it for a good six months cover to cover before I felt like I had a handle on what was going on in the business world again.

所以我很害怕，自己去参加面试的时候，会讲到一个不复存在的公司。所以我重新订阅了华尔街日报，然后连续看了六个月，之后我才觉得自己对经济又有了点解了。

I believe relaunchers are a gem of the workforce, and here's why. Think about our life stage: for those of us who took career breaks for childcare reasons, we have fewer or no maternity leaves. We did that already. We have fewer spousal or partner job relocations. We're in a more settled time of life.

我相信再从业者是劳动大军中的精英，原因如下。想想我们人生的阶段：对于那些因为要照顾孩子而休离职假期的人，大都没有产假，或是产假很短。我们早就做过这些了。我们离婚率较低，也很少因伴侣而调整工作。我们的生活更稳定。

We have great work experience. We have a more mature perspective. We're not trying to find ourselves at an employer's expense. Plus we have an energy, an enthusiasm about returning to work precisely because we've been away from it for a while.

我们有很棒的工作经历，更成熟的眼光，我们不会成为雇主的牺牲品。此外，我们有一种能量——重返岗位的热情，这正是因为我们离职一段时间了。

On the flip side, I speak with employers, and here are two concerns that employers have about hiring relaunchers.

另外，我也跟雇主讨论，以下是雇主们关于雇佣再从业者的两个担忧。

The first one is, employers are worried that relaunchers are technologically obsolete. Now, I can tell you, having been technologically obsolete myself at one point, that it's a temporary condition. I had done my financial analysis so long ago that I used Lotus 1-2-3. I don't know if anyone can even remember back that far, but I had to relearn it on Excel.

其一，雇主担心这些再从业者技术方面比较落后。我可以告诉各位，虽然有段时间我自己技术确实落后，但那只是暂时的。很早以前我用“莲花123”软件来做财经分析，我不知道有没有人还记得那么早以前的事了，这些技能我得在Excel上重新拾起。

It actually wasn't that hard. A lot of the commands are the same. I found PowerPoint much more challenging, but now I use PowerPoint all the time. I tell relaunchers that employers expect them to come to the table with a working knowledge of basic office management software. And if they're not up to speed, then it's their responsibility to get there. And they do.

其实这并非难事，很多的操作指令是一样的。我发现PowerPoint更具挑战性，但现在我对PowerPoint驾轻就熟。我告诉再从业者们，雇主希望找工作的人对基本的办公管理软件有实践经验。如果他们操作速度不够快，那他们就必须变得更高效。而他们确实做得到。

The second area of concern that employers have about relaunchers is they're worried that relaunchers don't know what they want to do. I tell relaunchers that they need to do the hard work to figure out whether their interests and skills have changed or have not changed while they have been on career break. That's not the employer's job. It's the relauncher's responsibility to demonstrate to the employer where they can add the most value.

雇主对再从业者的第二种忧虑，就是他们担心再从业者不清楚他们想要做什么。我告诉再从业者，他们必须仔细研究，了解自己的爱好或者技能在离职长假的过程中是否发生了变化。这不是雇主的职责。这个是再从业者的责任，把自己展现给雇主，来充分展示自己可创造的价值。

Back in 2010 I started noticing something. I had been tracking return to work programs since 2008, and in 2010, I started noticing the use of a short-term paid work opportunity, whether it was called an internship or not, but an internship-like experience, as a way for professionals to return to work.

2010年，我开始注意到一件事。我从2008年开始追踪人们重返岗位的情况，然而在2010年，我开始注意到，一种短期、带薪的工作机会开始出现，不论它是不是名叫“实习”，但总之是一个很像实习的经历，这为重回岗位的专业人士开辟了一条道路。

I saw Goldman Sachs and Sara Lee start corporate reentry internship programs. I saw a returning engineer, anon traditional reentry candidate, apply for an entry-level internship program in the military, and then get a permanent job afterward. I saw two univers itiesintegrate internships into mid-career executive education programs.

我看到高盛和莎莉集团都开始了此类二次从业的实习项目。我看到一个再从业的工程师，算是不太传统的再从业人士，申请了一个军方的初级实习项目，后来他获得了一个永久的工作。我看到两所大学将实习项目整合到职业中期管理学教育项目中。

So I wrote a report about what I was seeing, and it became this article for Harvard Business Review called "The40-Year-Old Intern." I have to thank the editors there for that title, and also for this artwork where you can see the 40-year-old intern in the midst of all the college interns. And then, courtesy of Fox Business News, they called the concept "The 50-Year-Old Intern."

于是，就我所观察到的现象，我写了一篇报告，后来它发表在了《哈佛商业评论》中，名字叫《40岁的实习生》。我必须得感谢编者拟的标题，还有这个很棒的配图，你们可以看到那个40岁的实习生出现在一群大学实习生中。后来，还得感谢福克斯商业新闻，他们把这个概念称为“50岁的实习生”。

So five of the biggest financial services companies have reentry internship programs for returning finance professionals. And at this point, hundreds of people have participated. These internships are paid, and the people who move on to permanent roles are commanding competitive salaries. And now, seven of the biggest engineering companies are piloting reentry internship programs for returning engineers as part of an initiative with the Society of Women Engineers.

五家最大的金融服务公司都设立了再从业实习项目，专为重回岗位的金融精英。截至目前，数百人参与了这些项目。这些实习项目是带薪的，而且那些晋升到永久岗位的人，都有极具竞争力的薪资。现在，七家最大的工程公司，也在推行再从业实习项目，来帮助重返岗位的工程师，这也是女性工程师协会新方案的一部分。

Now, why are companies embracing the reentry internship? Because the internship allows the employer to base their hiring decision on an actual work sample instead of a series of interviews, and the employer does not have to make that permanent hiring decision until the internship period is over. This testing out period removes the perceived risk that some managers attach to hiring relaunchers, and they are attracting excellent candidates who are turning into great hires.

那么，为什么这些企业大力支持再从业实习呢？因为这种实习可以让雇主基于参与者实际工作成效来做出雇佣决策，而非一系列的面试，而且雇主不必在实习结束之前就做出永久雇佣的决定。这段试验期消除了一定的风险，这关乎某些经理人对雇佣再从业者的担忧，同时，这也吸引了大量再从业人士，他们成为了出色的雇佣对象。

Think about how far we have come. Before this, most employers were not interested in engaging with relaunchers at all. But now, not only are programs being developed specifically with relaunchers in mind, but you can't even apply for these programs unless you have a gap on your résumé.

各位，想一想我们取得的进步，在此之前，大多数雇主根本没兴趣与再从业者打交道。然而现在，有许多项目在开展实施，特别是针对再从业者的项目，如果简历上没有一段空档期，你根本不能申请这些项目。

This is the mark of real change, of true institutional shift, because if we can solve this problem for relaunchers, we can solve it for other career transitioners too.

这标志着一种实质变化，一种真正的制度变革，因为如果我们可以为再从业者解决这个问题，我们亦可为其他的职业转型者解决同样的问题。

In fact, an employer just told me that their veterans return to work program is based on their reentry intern shipprogram. And there's no reason why there can't be a retiree internship program. Different pool, same concept.

事实上，一位雇主刚刚告诉我，他们的“退伍军人再从业项目”，就是基于他们的再从业实习项目。我们也没有理由不去设立 一个“退休人士实习项目”。不同的对象，相同的概念。

So let me tell you what happened with Tracy Shapiro. Remember that she had to tell everyone she knew about her interest in returning to work. Well, one critical conversation with another parent in her community led to a job offer for Tracy, and it was an accounting job in a finance department.

让我告诉你们特蕾西·莎碧罗最后发生了什么。各位回想一下，她必须告诉她认识的每一个人，自己对重返工作岗位很有兴趣。结果，她与自己社区里的长辈进行了一次关键的谈话，这让她找到了一份工作邀请。那是一个金融部门的会计工作。

But it was a temp job. The company told her there was a possibility it could turn into something more, but no guarantees. This was in the fall of 2011. Tracy loved this company, and she loved the people and the office was less than 10 minutes from her house. So even though she had a second job offer at another company for a permanent full-time role, she decided to take her chances with this internship and hope for the best.

但那是临时的。公司告诉她，有可能有岗位晋升的机会，但是不能保证。那是2011年的秋天。特蕾西很爱那个公司，而且她喜欢那里的员工，从办公室去她家只需10分钟。所以即使她后来得到了第二份工作邀请，来自另一家公司，而且有永久、全职的保证，她决定在这份实习项目中冒冒险，尽人事，听天命。

Well, she ended up blowing away all of their expectations, and the company not only made her a permanent offer at the beginning of 2012, but they made it even more interesting and challenging, because they knew what Tracy could handle.

最后，她的业绩远远超出了所有人的期望值，公司不但提供了她永久岗位，那是在2012年初，而且他们还让她的工作更加有趣、有挑战性，因为他们知道特蕾西可以办得到。

Fast forward to 2015, Tracy's been promoted. They've paid for her to get her MBA at night. She's even hired another relauncher to work for her. Tracy's temp job was a tryout, just like an internship, and it ended up being a win for both Tracy and her employer.

时间快进到2015年，特蕾西获得了晋升。公司为她的夜校工商管理课程买单。她甚至雇佣了另一位再从业者为她工作。特蕾西的临时工作像是一个试验，就像实习项目，而最终，特蕾西和她的雇主达到了双赢局面。

Now, my goal is to bring the reentry internship concept to more and more employers. But in the meantime, if you are returning to work after a career break, don't hesitate to suggest an internship or an internship-like arrangement to an employer that does not have a for malreentry internship program. Be their first success story, and you can be theex ample for more relaunchers to come. Thank you.

我的目标是将这种再从业实习的概念推荐给越来越多的雇主。但是与此同时，如果你在离职长假后重返岗位，别犹豫向雇主提议设立实习项目，或者类似实习项目的想法，特别是那些没有正式的再从业实习项目的公司。争当他们的第一个成功故事，而你们都可以成为未来更多再从业者的楷模。谢谢。

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