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 UX Researcher
Transcript
- Luna: So, Lucas, I was talking to a friend who's been a stay-at-home parent for the last six years, and she's thinking about going back to work. But she's worried her gap means she can't break into something like tech. Lucas: Yeah, I hear that a lot. And it's one of those assumptions that sounds logical on the surface but falls apart when you look at how people actually get hired. There was a great case just last month—Maria Chen, a mom in Austin, Texas. She spent five years at home with her two kids, and in early 2025 she started a part-time UX research certificate through Google's Career Certificates program. By June 2026, she'd landed a junior UX researcher role at a mid-sized health tech company called Meditate Health. Luna: Wait, UX research? That's a field where most job listings ask for a degree in psychology or human-computer interaction. How did she bridge that gap? Lucas: If today was actually useful to you—like, if you're wondering whether your own gap could lead to a role you'd never considered—the way we keep this show ad-free is listener support. You can buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a small way to say this content matters to you, and it helps us keep doing episodes like this one. Luna: Yeah, that matters. We don't do sponsors, we don't sell your data. It's just listeners who find value and chip in. And it really works. Lucas: So back to Maria. She didn't have a psych degree. She had a bachelor's in English from 2014, worked a few years in content marketing, then took a break. But what she did during her gap was actually more relevant than a degree. Luna: Okay, I'm curious. What did she do? Lucas: She volunteered as a user testing coordinator for a local nonprofit that runs a community meal program. They needed someone to organize feedback from clients—basically, interviewing people about what worked and what didn't with their ordering system. She set up structured interviews, synthesized the responses, and presented findings to the board. That's UX research in miniature. Luna: So she was already doing the job she wanted—just in a different context. Did she frame it that way on her resume? Lucas: Exactly. She didn't write 'Volunteer Coordinator.' She wrote 'User Research Volunteer — Nonprofit Meal Program.' Under that, she listed things like 'Conducted 45 structured interviews with program participants to identify pain points in the digital ordering interface' and 'Delivered a 15-page findings report that led to a 30 percent reduction in order errors.' Luna: That's smart. She translated her activities into the language of the field. Most people would just say they volunteered at a food bank. Lucas: Right. And she also did something interesting with her gap itself. In her cover letter and interviews, she described those five years at home as a period of deep user empathy development. She said, quote, 'Being a stay-at-home parent is essentially a masterclass in understanding the needs, frustrations, and unspoken desires of a demanding user — your child.' She used that as a framing device. Luna: I love that. It's not apologizing for the gap—it's repositioning it as training. Did employers actually buy that? Lucas: One hiring manager told her it was the most memorable answer she'd heard all year. The key is you have to back it up with the volunteer work and the certificate. You can't just say 'I have empathy' and leave it there. She had concrete examples of how she'd applied that empathy. Luna: What about the certificate? Google's UX certificate is pretty well-known now. Did that open doors for her? Lucas: It helped her get past the initial resume screening. But what actually landed the interviews was her portfolio. She built a portfolio site using a free template, and she included three case studies. One was the nonprofit project. Another was a concept project she did as part of the certificate—a prototype for a medication reminder app. And the third was what she called 'domestic user research.' Luna: Domestic user research? What does that mean? Lucas: She documented a real problem from her home life: her kids kept losing their water bottles. So she conducted a mini study—interviewed them about their habits, observed their behavior, then designed a labeling system that reduced losses by about 80 percent. She wrote it up as a case study with photos, research questions, and findings. Luna: That's brilliant. It's low-stakes, but it shows the entire research cycle. And it's honest about where she's coming from. Lucas: Exactly. Employers in UX care about process, not pedigree. They want to see that you can ask good questions, synthesize messy data, and communicate insights. Maria's portfolio showed all three. Luna: So what was the actual job she got? Junior UX researcher at Meditate Health. What's her day-to-day like? Lucas: She's doing exactly what she did in her volunteer role, just on a bigger scale. She's helping design studies for their meditation app—recruiting participants, conducting interviews, running usability tests, and putting together reports for the product team. She told me the biggest adjustment was learning to work with a cross-functional team. In the past, she was mostly solo. Luna: Did she have to negotiate her salary? I feel like a lot of returning parents worry they'll have to take a huge pay cut. Lucas: She did negotiate. The original offer was $58,000. She asked for $65,000, citing her direct experience from the volunteer work and the certificate. They came back at $62,000, which she accepted. For a first role back after five years, that's solid. Especially in a city like Austin where salaries are a bit lower than the coasts. Luna: So the takeaway isn't just 'do a certificate.' It's about building a narrative that connects your gap to the role you want. Lucas: Absolutely. If you're listening and you're a stay-at-home parent thinking about a return, don't start by listing what you don't have. Start by looking at what you're already doing. Are you organizing playdates? That's project management. Are you mediating sibling arguments? That's conflict resolution. Are you tracking your family's budget? That's data analysis. The trick is to reframe, not hide. Luna: And the volunteer angle is huge. If you're still at home, you can start tomorrow. Call a local nonprofit and ask if they need help with anything related to research, feedback, or user testing. Lucas: One more thing Maria did that I think is worth mentioning: she set up informational interviews with five UX researchers before she applied anywhere. She found them on LinkedIn, sent short messages explaining her situation, and asked for 15 minutes. Three of them responded. One of them later became a referral for her. Luna: That's the kind of networking that actually works—specific, respectful, and focused on learning. Lucas: Alright, we'll be back next time with another comeback story. Until then, keep building your narrative.