Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / The Returnship Trap Middle Managers
Transcript
- Lucas: Let's talk about the specific cruelty of modern returnship programs for people who were already in charge before they stepped away. Luna: That feels counterintuitive, because you'd think someone with ten years of management experience would be a prime candidate for structured re-entry. Lucas: It is intuitive until you look at how these programs are designed. They're built for college grads or early-career folks coming back after a short pause. The curriculum is basic: software refreshers, soft-skill workshops, mentorship pairing. It assumes your biggest hurdle is forgetting where the login button is, not relearning how to manage P&L statements or lead cross-functional teams. Luna: So the infrastructure meant to help you is actually infantilizing the very skill set that made you valuable in the first place. Lucas: Exactly. And the worst part is the compensation structure. Most returnships pay an internship stipend, not a manager salary. So you have a former director, maybe making one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year before her gap, agreeing to make forty thousand for six months just to get her foot in the door. Luna: That’s a massive financial risk for someone who might be supporting a family during that caregiving period. Lucas: Right. Let me give you the case of Sarah. She was an operations director at a mid-sized logistics firm. Took eighteen months off to care for her aging mother. When she came back, she found a 'leadership returnship' at a tech firm. The role title said 'Executive Fellow,' but the day-to-day was shadowing junior project managers and doing data entry. Luna: She was essentially being promoted down to prove she still belonged there. Lucas: Precisely. And when she asked for a direct report, the program coordinator told her she needed to rebuild her 'credibility baseline.' That phrase alone tells you everything wrong with the system. You don't need a baseline; you need a bridge back to your previous level of authority. Luna: But isn't there a valid concern that technology moves fast? Maybe she did need to update some tools. Lucas: Of course she did. But leadership isn't about knowing the latest version of Excel. It's about stakeholder management, conflict resolution, strategic forecasting. Those skills don't expire. They atrophy slightly, sure, but they don't vanish. The problem is employers want to test-drive a senior leader at junior rates. Luna: It’s a classic asymmetry of power. They hold all the cards on valuation. Lucas: And it’s costing companies talent. I’ve seen three separate reports this quarter showing that firms with rigid returnship structures retain only thirty percent of their returnees long-term. Why? Because once those mid-career pros realize they’re stuck in a pipeline designed for entry-level staff, they leave. Luna: So the returnship becomes a revolving door rather than a re-entry point. Lucas: It becomes a cheap labor pool. And that’s the uncomfortable truth we need to unpack today. How do you navigate a market that wants your experience but refuses to pay for it? Luna: By refusing to accept the premise that your value has reset to zero. Lucas: Before we dive into the tactical workarounds, I want to acknowledge something important. If we've helped you think through a career move or decision, the way these stay ad-free is listener support. Buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It keeps us digging into the real structural issues instead of chasing clicks. Luna: Yeah, and if you find that useful, it directly funds more deep dives like this one. Lucas: Thanks for keeping the signal clear. Now, back to Sarah. She realized the returnship wasn't going to restore her director status. So she changed tactics. She stopped applying to internal mobility tracks and started targeting smaller, less bureaucratic firms. Luna: Smaller firms are often more desperate for operational stability than they are obsessed with perfect resume continuity. Lucas: Spot on. At a company of five hundred employees, the ops director role is critical. There’s no HR department to gatekeep her based on a two-year gap. She pitched herself not as a 'returning professional' but as a 'problem solver who happened to be offline.' Luna: That reframing is huge. It shifts the narrative from deficit to asset. Lucas: She led with her track record. She showed metrics from her last role before the gap. She didn't apologize for the time off. She framed it as a period of intense personal development that gave her perspective on resilience and resourcefulness—things every small business needs. Luna: Did she take a pay cut to get in the door? Lucas: She took a ten percent cut, which is significant, but it was a full-time director salary, not an intern stipend. And within eight months, she renegotiated because she had already proven she could run the department. The key was bypassing the traditional corporate ladder entirely. Luna: So the lesson is: avoid the big box retailers and Fortune五百 companies if you’re mid-career returning. Go where the pain is acute. Lucas: Exactly. Big companies have compliance departments that fear liability. Small companies have deadlines that fear failure. Failure is scarier to a CEO than a gap on a resume. Luna: What about the interview itself? How do you address the elephant in the room without sounding defensive? Lucas: You don't address it as a flaw. You address it as context. Sarah used a simple framework: 'Here’s what I achieved before. Here’s why I paused. Here’s how I’m ready now.' No extra words. No emotional pleading. Just facts. Luna: Confidence signals competence. If you hesitate, they assume you’ve lost your edge. Lucas: Right. And technically, you need to be sharp. Sarah spent six weeks taking online certifications in project management software. Not to learn management, but to show she could handle the tools. It’s a low-cost signal of current relevance. Luna: So the certification isn’t for the knowledge; it’s for the credibility. Lucas: 100 percent. In a remote or hybrid world, proving you can use Slack, Asana, or Salesforce is table stakes. But leading a team is where you differentiate yourself. Luna: This feels like a broader issue about how we define 'employability.' Are we valuing continuous presence over actual capability? Lucas: We are. And it’s a lazy metric. Continuous presence doesn’t guarantee good performance. A gap doesn’t guarantee incompetence. Yet HR systems are built to filter for the former because it’s easier to measure. Luna: It’s risk aversion disguised as quality control. Lucas: Precisely. And the cost of that risk aversion is losing experienced leaders to competitors who are willing to bet on potential. Companies that ignore this trend will find themselves understaffed in leadership roles by next year. Luna: Because the best candidates aren’t waiting around for permission slips from HR. Lucas: They’re going elsewhere. Sarah ended up at a firm that valued her output over her timeline. She’s now earning twenty percent more than her pre-gap salary because she negotiated based on her unique blend of experience and fresh perspective. Luna: Which proves that the gap wasn’t a liability; it was just a different path to the same destination. Lucas: Or a detour that added color to the map. The takeaway here is structural: don’t play the game they’ve rigged for entry-level hires. Find the games where your experience is the prize, not the puzzle. Luna: It’s about finding markets that value agility over pedigree. Lucas: Agility. That’s the word. The ability to pivot, to adapt, to lead through uncertainty. Those are timeless skills. Luna: And ones that can’t be outsourced or automated away. Lucas: Exactly. So if you’re out there feeling invisible because of a gap, remember: invisibility is often a function of looking in the wrong windows. Luna: Look for the doors that are open, not the ones that are locked by policy. Lucas: Sarah’s story isn’t unique, but it’s underreported. We need to normalize the idea that a career is a series of chapters, not a straight line. Luna: And that sometimes, stepping off the line gives you a better view of the terrain. Lucas: For listeners thinking about making that jump, or negotiating that re-entry, the question isn’t whether you’re ready. It’s whether you’re willing to walk through a door that doesn’t have a sign saying 'Welcome Back.' Luna: Sometimes you have to kick it open. Lucas: Or simply walk past it until you find the one that’s wide open. Luna: Until then, keep building your bridge, one plank at a time.