Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / How a Career Gap Helped One Parent Return as a Recruiting Coordinator
Transcript
- Lucas: Today we're talking about Elena Torres. She was a marketing manager in Chicago, took a seven-year gap to raise her kids, and then returned to work as a recruiting coordinator at a mid-size software firm in Austin. And the way she did it is actually a really useful playbook. Luna: Seven years is a long gap. Most people I talk to worry that anything over two years is a dealbreaker. What was her strategy? Lucas: She didn't try to go back to marketing. She pivoted to recruiting coordination. And the reason she gives is fascinating. She said that during her gap, she realized what she actually enjoyed was connecting people, not running campaigns. She volunteered with a local nonprofit that runs job fairs for low-income families, and she basically became their unofficial hiring coordinator. Luna: So she was practicing the exact skills she'd need, just without the title. Lucas: Exactly. Over three months, she helped organize two hiring events, screened about sixty candidates informally, and built a contact list of over forty people in HR and recruiting at companies around Austin. She used LinkedIn to find event organizers and just sent polite, short messages offering to help. Most people said yes because she wasn't asking for a job — she was offering free labor. Luna: That's smart. And it gave her real examples to talk about in interviews. What about the actual application process? Did she get any pushback on the gap? Lucas: She applied to about forty roles over eight weeks. Got rejected from most, got three interviews. And in every single interview, she led with her volunteer work before the interviewer could ask about the gap. She'd say, 'I took time to be home with my kids, and during that time I also did X, Y, Z.' She controlled the narrative. Luna: That's such a classic piece of advice, but it's hard to execute well. What specifically did she say? Lucas: She had a three-sentence structure. Sentence one: 'I stepped away from marketing to focus on my family.' Sentence two: 'During that time I volunteered as a hiring coordinator for a nonprofit and realized I love the people side of business.' Sentence three: 'So I completed a two-week online recruiting certificate, and I'm now looking for a role where I can support a team in hiring great people.' No apology, no long explanation, just a redirection. Luna: She did a certification too. Which one? Lucas: It was from LinkedIn Learning — a course called 'Becoming a Recruiting Coordinator'. It cost about thirty dollars and took maybe fifteen hours total. She mentioned it in her resume and in every interview. It's not a degree, but it showed initiative and that she understood the basic terminology — ATS, sourcing, offer letters, background checks. Luna: And the company that hired her — was it a startup? Did they care more about fit than experience? Lucas: It's a company called SiteCraft, about four hundred employees, based in Austin. They had a dedicated recruiting team of five people. The hiring manager told Elena later that what sealed it was how she handled a mock candidate screening. They gave her a resume of a fictional candidate and asked her to explain what questions she'd ask. And instead of just listing technical questions, she said, 'I'd ask about their motivation for leaving their last role, and whether they've ever taken a career break, because I think that's relevant context.' The manager said that showed empathy — something they'd been missing in their team. Luna: Her gap became an asset. That's the dream scenario. But I imagine a lot of listeners are thinking, 'That's great for her, but I don't have a nonprofit connection or a certification budget.' What's the minimum viable version of this? Lucas: I think the minimum is: pick one adjacent skill, find one free or cheap way to practice it, and craft two sentences that connect the gap to that skill. Elena's story works because she didn't try to hide the gap or pretend it didn't happen. She used it as a reason for her pivot. And the certification was just twenty bucks — there are free courses on Coursera and even YouTube playlists that cover the same material. Luna: Also, she targeted a role that's known for being entry-friendly. Recruiting coordinators often come from administrative or customer service backgrounds. It's not like she aimed for senior product manager. Lucas: Right. And she researched which companies in Austin had publicly stated they welcome returners. She found a list of about fifteen companies that had explicit 'returnship' programs or language in their careers page about valuing non-linear paths. She prioritized those. That's homework, but it's doable in an afternoon. Luna: I also love that she didn't move to Austin until she had the offer. She networked remotely. Lucas: Yeah, she used the Austin location as her target but did everything over Zoom and LinkedIn. She even did the final interview virtually. The company flew her out for the offer celebration. So the cost of entry was basically zero. Luna: If we've helped you think through a career move or decision, that's exactly why we make this show. We deliberately don't run ads on these episodes — no sponsors, no commercial breaks. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep it ad-free. Lucas: Yeah, and listeners like you are the reason we keep doing this. We hear from people who used an episode to reframe their gap or try a new approach, and that's what matters. Luna: Alright, back to Elena. She's been in the role for about eight months now, and she told me her team just hired two more coordinators. She was part of the interview panel for one of them. Lucas: That's the full circle moment. She went from being nervous about her gap to being the person evaluating other candidates' gaps. Her advice to them was basically the same: 'Tell me what you learned, not what you missed.' Luna: That's a good line. I think for anyone listening who's staring down a gap and wondering if it's too late — it's not. The playbook is real. Pick a role that values the skills you actually used during your gap, even if you didn't call them work skills. Lucas: Exactly. Elena's gap wasn't a void. It was a different kind of experience. She just had to reframe it for an audience that assumes the worst. And she did. Luna: Next week we'll talk about returning after a gap into a technical role — data analysis specifically. That's a whole different set of challenges. Lucas: Looking forward to it. For now, if you have a comeback story you want to share, we'd love to hear it. Reach out on the Fexingo site. Thanks for listening.