Why the stigma surrounding career breaks is harmful to women

In 2016, amidst navigating a challenging pregnancy and a tough start to parenthood, Gabriella Israel Grinberg found out she’d also lost her job in the marketing industry, leaving her formerly two-income household strapped for cash and without reliable health insurance.

Her problems didn’t end there. The premature birth of her first child — and the complications that followed — resulted in Grinberg taking a 22-month absence from the workforce, stretching into 2017. When she finally felt ready to get back to work after overcoming what felt like countless personal challenges, she was suddenly met with new, professional ones.

“I had a lot of imposter syndrome,” Grinberg says. “I felt like 22 months in a marketing career is a lifetime — there are people younger, hungrier than me that would take the jobs I didn’t want, and that would get the jobs that I did want because they didn’t have this type of a gap.”

But career gaps as large as Grinberg’s are far from unique. In fact, nearly two-thirds of employees have taken a break at some point in their professional careers, according to a 2022 survey conducted by job search platform LinkedIn. And women in particular account for nearly 70% of all searches and posts related to career breaks on the platform.

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But despite 50% of hiring managers believing that career breaks are becoming more common, one in five employers would decline an applicant if they had an extended gap on their resume, the survey found.

Grinberg ultimately went on to found her own marketing company, Proofpoint, in partnership with her husband. Today, she serves as co-founder and CEO, but she’ll never forget how judged she felt by the labor market for simply taking some time off from her former position.

“I was very worried that as soon as I started interviewing I would have to tell my employers, ‘hey, I have a child with medical needs,’ and ‘is it okay if I work from home a few days a week?’” she says. “I knew that was going to be a turnoff right away. I knew that employers weren't going to take me seriously with this new identity that I had assumed as a mom to a child with medical needs.”

Of course, family building isn’t the only reason women step back from the workforce, and not every extended career break is a choice.

Olga Batygin, co-founder and CEO of AI platform Lucinetic, experienced three big career breaks: two to welcome children to her family and a third to fight a battle against thyroid cancer. Upon her respective returns to the workforce, she felt that it was easy to talk about breaks she took in the name of motherhood. But bringing up her time spent away for treatment was much harder.

“It made me much more vulnerable,” she says. “I was totally okay talking about the kids and I was one hundred percent not okay talking about the cancer.”

Helping employees and prospective employees manage that discomfort falls on the employer, who can strike a balance in the interview process, according to Batygin. It’s okay to ask questions relating to a person’s absence from the workforce, but not let an applicant’s vulnerability and honesty lead to bias — especially when speaking to female applicants, who already face disproportionate levels of prejudice when being recruited.

“While I really truly believe most people are not trying to be harmful, I do think that there is something to be said about the fact that subconscious bias always creeps in,” Batygin says. “So I think structure [in the interview process] can be helpful.”

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That structure is already taking shape to support more inclusive, less invasive interviews. Laws have been passed to keep employers from asking applicants personal questions such as how much money they made at past jobs as to avoid a pay gap. Those same guardrails can be applied to employers asking about career breaks.

While career breaks don’t define a person’s identity as an employee, time away from the workforce can actually help workers develop new skills that may prove critical to the position they’re applying for. Employers identify thinking creatively (31%), time management (29%) and patience (29%) as the most valuable skills people acquire during career breaks, the LinkedIn study found. And 49% of hiring managers think that the biggest mistake candidates make when it comes to addressing a career break during the hiring process is trying to downplay the gap rather than highlight it as an asset.

“Somebody coming back to work [after a career break] does not mean they’re not as dedicated because they left their position or weren't willing to work hard enough,” Batygin says.

The first step is creating an environment where women feel that bringing up a career break — whatever reason it was taken — can be a safe and productive experience. Moving forward, flexibility shouldn’t have to be asked for by employees, but simply expected.

“Companies need to shift the mind frame [around career breaks] from accusation to curiosity and empathy and support,” Grinberg says. “The more enlightened leaders and business owners and hiring managers are going to approach recruiting with a more empathetic lens and a more human lens. Rather than just filling seats, create a more authentic and more human experience.”