Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / Returning as a Speech-Language Pathologist After a Career Gap
Transcript
- Lucas: So Dana was a speech-language pathologist for eight years before she had her first kid. She stepped away thinking it'd be two years, maybe three, and then life did its thing. Six years later, she's looking at a license that lapsed, a field that moved on without her, and a stack of continuing education credits she never finished. Luna: That's the part that scares most people, isn't it? Not the gap itself, but the feeling that you've fallen behind. Lucas: Exactly. And Dana's story is a great case because she treated it like a project, not a mountain. The first thing she did was check her state's licensing board requirements. In her state, she needed thirty hours of continuing ed in the last two years, plus a supervised clinical experience before she could even apply for reinstatement. Luna: Thirty hours sounds doable, but how do you get supervised experience when you're not employed yet? That's a chicken and egg problem. Lucas: That's where she got creative. She reached out to her old clinic and asked if she could shadow a senior colleague for a few weeks, unpaid. They said yes, which is less surprising than you'd think, because clinics are always short-staffed and she was a known quantity. She ended up doing two days a week for two months, essentially a mini-internship, and that satisfied the supervision requirement. Luna: So she used her network, but she also offered something in return. That's smart. Lucas: Right. And the shadowing did double duty. It refreshed her clinical skills, but it also showed her how much the field had changed. Telehealth was huge when she returned, which wasn't a thing when she left. She'd never done a remote session before, so she spent evenings watching recorded sessions and practicing on her kids, which they loved, by the way. Luna: Her kids as practice patients? That's adorable and also practical. Lucas: It gave her a low-stakes way to build fluency. But the licensure itself was just part of the battle. She also had to confront the mental block, the feeling that she was starting over. What helped her was reframing her gap as a feature, not a bug. She told me that when she finally got her first job, her ability to connect with parents came from her own experience of feeling lost and overwhelmed. She wasn't just a clinician, she was a mom who'd been in their shoes. Luna: That's a real competitive advantage. Parents trust someone who's been through the same chaos. Lucas: Absolutely. And it showed up in her interviews. She didn't apologize for the gap. She talked about what she'd learned, like managing schedules, advocating for her kids at school, even negotiating with her father's insurance company. Those are transferable skills, and she framed them as such. Luna: So what did the actual job search look like? Did she apply cold, or did she have an inside track? Lucas: A bit of both. She reached out to her former supervisor, who had since moved to a different hospital system. That led to an informational interview, which turned into a part-time position. But she also applied cold to a few places, and one of those, a school district, offered her a contract role. She negotiated for a flexible schedule, which she wouldn't have dared do before. Her confidence came from knowing she had options. Luna: And that confidence, did it hold up once she started working? Lucas: The first month was rough. She said she felt like a student teacher all over again, second-guessing every assessment. But she had a mentor, the senior colleague she shadowed, who checked in twice a week for the first six weeks. That support system made all the difference. Luna: So it wasn't just about getting back in, it was about having a safety net while she got her bearings. Lucas: Exactly. And by the three-month mark, she was handling a full caseload and even supervising a grad student. That's when she knew she was fully back. Luna: You know, this story reminds me of something I read about how career gaps can actually lead to better patient rapport in therapy fields. Because you've lived a life, you bring more empathy. Lucas: That's a real phenomenon. And it's one of the reasons why employers in healthcare are increasingly open to returners. They know that a gap doesn't erase your skills, and sometimes it adds new ones. Luna: Yeah, and Dana's story is proof that with a plan, a little networking, and a lot of patience, you can come back stronger. Lucas: Before we wrap up, I want to mention something off the cuff. You know how we make these episodes every week, no ads, no sponsors. That's only possible because a small group of listeners chips in a few bucks a month through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's not a big thing, but it literally keeps the lights on for this many shows. Luna: And we're grateful for every single one of them. It's what lets us spend the extra hour researching a story like Dana's instead of reading a script. Lucas: So if that's something you've been thinking about, we'd love to have you. No pressure, obviously. Back to the topic though, I think the takeaway here is that a career gap doesn't have to be a reset button. It can be a pause, and you get to choose when to press play. Luna: And if you're listening and thinking about your own return, what's the one thing you'd tell yourself before you start? Lucas: Start with the requirements, not the emotions. The licensing board has a checklist. Once you see it on paper, it's manageable. The fear is the only part that's vague. Luna: That's solid advice. Thanks for sharing Dana's story with us. Lucas: Thanks for listening. We'll talk soon.