Dorie Clark

Mark Thompson

Between January and August 2025, a national survey by Catalyst found close to half a million women in the United States exited the workforce—but most did not leave by choice. Around 42% of the 455,000 exits were due to layoffs, but 58% of women were forced out due to a lack of support with care-giving responsibilities, workplace flexibility, and insufficient wages to meet the high cost of childcare.

When women leave the workforce mid-career, not only do their lifetime earnings and retirement savings drop, but the career capital they spent years building, in the form of networks, reputation and mentors, often dissolves, making it harder for them to return.

Dorie Clark, a top business thinker and author of The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, says that when women leave the workforce, most intend to return, but they are shut out for much longer than they expect.

“They discover that once you are out of the workforce, re-entering is much harder than anticipated. It's like there's a higher bar the second time around. This has been a longstanding problem,” Clark says.

The re-entry penalty is real. According to a 2021 study by Harvard Business School, 49% of companies eliminate candidates whose resumes include an employment gap of six months or longer. Here, Clark shares three ways women can protect their careers in the long run when systemic pressures force them to take a break.

Create A Career Story

Parents who take time out to care for their children are likely to encounter structural exclusion when trying to return to the workforce. For example, a 2018 study published in the American Sociological Review finds that parents who take a career break to care for dependents are likely to be rated lower on job commitment and reliability and receive significantly fewer callbacks for interviews than applicants who are unemployed due to job loss or continuously employed individuals.

The reason for a gap on your resume matters more than the gap itself. A woman who is laid off is more likely to receive a call back than a woman who left the workforce to care for her children, even if their resumes are identical.

“Partially, this is a public relations problem. Employers, especially people who may not have taken time off themselves for care-giving responsibilities, don’t necessarily recognize that your skills are not atrophying. You are still capable and confident,” says Clark.

To address the gap, add a role, scope, and timeline to account for the break. Labeling the gap rather than concealing it is the first step to changing the narrative.

“You need to over-index on the narrative about your break and be able to explain what you have been doing that is transferable and relevant in a professional context over the past number of years,” she says.

To build a compelling career story, develop a short, two-minute overview of your time off that explains the gap and why you took it, what you did during your time off that is professionally relevant, and how it relates to, supports, and contributes to your suitability for the role you have applied for. The goal is to help hiring managers understand the gap and how it ultimately contributed to your development.

Develop A Portfolio Of Skills

When you take a career break, your skill accumulation is disrupted because you don’t have informal opportunities to learn by observing others, receiving feedback, or trying new ways of working.

Additionally, as AI takes on more and more tasks that humans typically undertake, Clark says it’s critical to develop a portfolio of skills, whether you are in a job or taking a career break. A portfolio of skills includes developing adjacent skills to those you already have; for example, if you are a software engineer, you might develop adjacent skills in stakeholder communication or user research. The aim is to have a wide range of skills you can use in different contexts.

When you are on a break, investing in your learning does not have to be a heavy lift. “Even taking just 20 minutes a day to train yourself on AI capabilities and become comfortable, fluent, and conversant in the deployment of AI puts you at an advantage,” says Clark.

Invest In Your Network Before You Need It

Before you take a career break, make a list of people in your network, which includes anyone who provides you with work-related information, advice, or support. Making time to connect with people in your network and maintain these relationships is critical to accessing future job opportunities when you choose to re-enter the job market.

To build a network, it is important to invest in relationships by offering information, advice, and support. For example, making time to share articles or research relevant to a person's work, or connecting people within your network, are all meaningful ways to connect. Clark says it is important to invest in relationships before you need them, and not to ask for anything until you have built a relationship.