EP102: What Do You Need To Restart Your Career?

Interview with Anna McKay / Back-to-Work Expert for Parents

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Parents pause their careers all the time. They do it to devote all their time to their families. But at some point, they may want to return. If they're an attorney or accountant, there's a path. For others, though, it's challenging. As the founder of Parents Pivot, Anna has tips for Lead Parents who want to return to work this year. 

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Transcript

00;00;05;27 - 00;00;25;09
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a dad in a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things we've produced each week at the Company of Dads.

00;00;25;10 - 00;00;47;04
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead out of the week. We have our community both online and in person. We even have a new resource library for all fathers called the Lead Dad Library. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. So sign up today at the company of dads dot com, backslash the Dad. Today our guest is Anna McKay, a return to work specialist.

00;00;47;07 - 00;01;13;16
Paul Sullivan
She's the founder of Parent Pivot, an organization dedicated to helping parents who pause their careers get back to paid work. She came to this work from personal experience. She had worked for Deloitte before a series of international moves upended her career. And she says, quote, after 11 years coaching three international moves and two kids, I found a parent pivot in 2019 to help parents and caregivers navigate the pivotal point in their careers.

00;01;13;19 - 00;01;26;03
Paul Sullivan
And while many of her clients are mothers looking to reenter the workforce, she's recently began working with more fathers trying to navigate the same reentry. Welcome, Anna to the Company Dads podcast.

00;01;26;06 - 00;01;28;22
Anna McKay
Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited about.

00;01;28;22 - 00;01;53;01
Paul Sullivan
This. All right. So you were cruising along in your career. You get out of school, business school, working at Deloitte and then the first international move, you know, comes along. What was that? What was that like? You know, kind of go back to what you were thinking then. What were some of the feelings and what was it like when it settled in that, that there you were, you know, living a different life than you had been, you know, some months previously?

00;01;53;04 - 00;02;23;04
Anna McKay
Yes. So the international move for me was actually a huge opportunity. I had been working as an accountant, working as an auditor. It was something that I knew I could do and was good at, but something that I didn't want to do. Long term. And right around the time that my husband had the opportunity to go overseas, I found coaching, and fell in love with the work and knew that that was what I wanted to do.

00;02;23;05 - 00;02;30;26
Anna McKay
So it was the perfect opportunity for me to switch from working at Deloitte, being an auditor, to starting my own coaching business.

00;02;30;29 - 00;02;37;24
Paul Sullivan
So, like as a former auditor, were you coaching people on how to commit like tax fraud or something like that? What type of thing? What type of coaching were you doing?

00;02;37;26 - 00;03;06;07
Anna McKay
Definitely not. No. I made my own career transition right from auditor to coach, from not knowing what I wanted to do, from doing something that that I could do, that I wasn't, super connected to or super excited about to something that I was hugely passionate about and so I wanted to help other people make those transitions. And so I started out with career transition and leadership coaching, when we moved overseas.

00;03;06;10 - 00;03;12;13
Paul Sullivan
And were you doing it mostly in the expat community, or were you doing it back to people living in, in the States?

00;03;12;15 - 00;03;39;12
Anna McKay
So all the brilliant opportunity was that right before we moved, I had the opportunity to coach all of the interns at Deloitte that summer on, you know, their internship, how they were doing, set them up for success. And I loved that. And, you know, and, and Deloitte got the benefit of having this huge class of 70 people get coaching where no other program at the time, this was 2008, was offering that kind of support for their interns.

00;03;39;12 - 00;03;58;07
Anna McKay
So, so that was a huge benefit. But then when we moved overseas, I was working mostly with people who were also living as expats abroad. So we were first in the Philippines and then we were in Beijing. So most of the people that I worked with were expats, with multinational companies that are headquartered in the US, but they had operations overseas.

00;03;58;07 - 00;04;24;11
Anna McKay
So I would work with, with people who were, who were on their expat assignment trying to get back to home and trying to kind of navigate that that path internally within their company. But also, I would work with lots of people who mostly women who left paid work. They had huge successful careers when they were in their home countries, but then their lives kind of got shifted.

00;04;24;13 - 00;04;45;16
Anna McKay
They moved overseas. So they didn't kind of know what they wanted to do while they were on this sabbatical from work. Some of them had kids, some of them didn't. And then when they looked to go back to their home countries, they found it quite challenging to talk about their time away from paid work and talk about all that they had to offer when they wanted to get back to paid work.

00;04;45;19 - 00;05;06;05
Paul Sullivan
You know, I think we hear the phrase often today. You know, coach, I'm I'm a coach of this coach. We know what it means to coach a sport. But but really drill down for the listeners. Like when the rubber meets the road. What do you do as a coach? How do you help people? What is, you know, a day in the life of a coach or the day in the life of an assignment that you may have with, a particular person?

00;05;06;06 - 00;05;08;24
Paul Sullivan
Tell me some of the things that you'd help that person work through.

00;05;08;27 - 00;05;28;19
Anna McKay
So a couple of things, like, I think in the work that I do with people returning to paid work, there are a lot of common challenges that I see. First is I don't know what I want to do, this lack of clarity around what they want to do when they return to paid work. Another is confidence. I don't know, I haven't been using these professional skills.

00;05;28;22 - 00;05;51;20
Anna McKay
I don't know how what I've been doing. And my unpaid work translates to the workforce. So there's a lack of confidence and there's a lot of uncertainty around there, and then there's just a lack of clarity around how to navigate the job search process. So a lot of coaching is helping people, is digging in deep to understand what the best solution is for that person.

00;05;51;22 - 00;06;18;11
Anna McKay
And it's tailored to that individual based on their background, based on their experiences, based on their skills digging in and uncovering kind of, with the clarity piece, digging in and uncovering what might be the next best career for that person. And then it's providing that guidance and accountability and support, and professional experience to know what's worked in the past to help you navigate that career transition back to paid work.

00;06;18;14 - 00;06;39;25
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. But like, what would that process look like? Somebody comes to you said of de Novo. They they've gotten to the point, you know, as I say, like leaving is one thing. If they made that decision for whatever reason and now they something has some forces are propelling them forward that they want to reenter. And then they have to get over that hurdle because this is, you know, sort of human nature, 101.

00;06;39;25 - 00;06;53;01
Paul Sullivan
They have to get over that hurdle, reach out to you for help. So when they come to you, what do they typically, you know, you've gone through three things here, but what do you typically do in the first, you know, month versus. Yeah, I mean how long did these assignments last or these three months, six months or times.

00;06;53;01 - 00;06;59;12
Paul Sullivan
How would you sort of get them to the whatever point they, they want to be, whatever outcome they're they're looking for?

00;06;59;15 - 00;07;21;03
Anna McKay
Yeah. So when I'm working with individuals one on one, it's a minimum of three months. And then I also have this group coaching program that's a little bit over three months. So that's what we start with. And then you can go from there. And so when somebody first comes to me it depends on where they are. Sometimes people will come to me and they'll say, you know, this is what I did in my previous career.

00;07;21;03 - 00;07;43;29
Anna McKay
I was you know, we had somebody come in and say she used to work for IBM. She, was really into technology. But that career was 20 years ago. And so she came to me and she was like, I don't know what I want to do. Obviously, the world of technology has changed hugely in 20 years. I don't think I want to go back and do that, but I don't know what I want to do now.

00;07;44;02 - 00;08;07;23
Anna McKay
And so what we did with her was we, we think through the first step is kind of thinking through what have you been gravitating towards in your unpaid work? What are the things a lot of the people that we work with have been hugely involved in their unpaid work. And a lot of times that they've made choices about where they spend their time in that involvement.

00;08;07;23 - 00;08;27;22
Anna McKay
Right. So when you choose where you want to spend your time, that's something that you're usually passionate about, right? So that's a clue to, what they might want to do. And this individual had spent time organizing a huge busing system that for her children's school, like in her neighborhood, there wasn't a bussing system for her kids school.

00;08;27;22 - 00;08;48;00
Anna McKay
So she organized one with all the families in her neighborhood, did all the logistics and the operations, and manage the route, manage how this was going to happen. And and she that's something that she did. And she felt hugely successful and like it added a lot of value to her community. So we we started with that. Right.

00;08;48;06 - 00;08;56;04
Anna McKay
And so in, ultimately she ended up deciding to go back to paid work in, project manager kind of marketing role.

00;08;56;10 - 00;09;04;21
Paul Sullivan
And you're going to say air traffic control. So you keep reading that they need a lot of help. That's what I was hoping is like air traffic control. No, no.

00;09;04;21 - 00;09;22;24
Anna McKay
It was in this project manager and account manager role for a marketing company, which leveraged a lot of those, kind of like picking up all the pieces, knowing all the things that are going on at one time, which is oftentimes like something a lead parent is always involved in knowing all the scope of all the things that are going on.

00;09;22;24 - 00;09;29;04
Anna McKay
So project management is actually quite, common thing that people want to go back to when they're returning to paid work.

00;09;29;06 - 00;09;48;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I mean, is it easier if you when you left paid work if you were an accountant, like you could presumably go back to being an accountant, or if you were an attorney or if you were a nurse, does that make the reentry easier, or are there similar obstacles? Is that a person with with that kind of professional background?

00;09;48;25 - 00;09;49;21
Anna McKay
Yeah. So I.

00;09;49;21 - 00;09;50;21
Paul Sullivan
Would say is.

00;09;50;23 - 00;10;15;18
Anna McKay
What makes it easier to go back to paid work is something like accounting or bookkeeping, right. Something that hasn't really changed a lot in in a five year time span or 5 to 10 year time span, something that is a little bit more difficult is something where you need to keep up with, changing, like technology is typically a huge kind of more challenging space to get back to paid work.

00;10;15;18 - 00;10;47;06
Anna McKay
But, you know, then a lot of companies are recognizing they need, more diverse talent. And so they're, you know, they're looking to add in returners. But, so I'd say any career where you, where it hasn't changed a lot, that's a lot that's easier to get back into. Right. And accountants are always in high demand. I mean, and so I've have several companies that are looking for, expos, and they're happy to get those CPAs back to work.

00;10;47;08 - 00;11;07;05
Anna McKay
After a period of time. But I've also had people come to me who are accountants before and that they wanted to they wanted something different. Right. But they weren't quite sure what that was. And so I have one client come to me in the beginning, in the spring of this year, and she was looking to get back to paid work she had done, you know, Treasury management before.

00;11;07;07 - 00;11;26;05
Anna McKay
And she, she was it was an, a career that she wasn't loving. But, what we did in coaching was kind of uncover the reasons why she wasn't loving it, what she wasn't loving about it. And now that she was returning, she was able to kind of put up some guardrails and figure out what it is she wanted in her next career.

00;11;26;05 - 00;11;31;27
Anna McKay
She did go back to a more flexible career. In, in Treasury management.

00;11;31;27 - 00;11;51;00
Paul Sullivan
So, yeah. And, the, you know, like the people who come to you are self-selecting. They, they realize they want to go back to work and therefore they want your help. And so you're kind of eliminating a whole group that is choosing not to do that or doesn't have to do that. But still, when they come to you, what are their what are their challenges like at the top 3 or 5 challenges?

00;11;51;00 - 00;12;02;06
Paul Sullivan
What are their insecurities that that they have? What are the things that you really time and time again, you find yourself helping these people sort of get past, so then they can move on and return to to paid work.

00;12;02;08 - 00;12;27;02
Anna McKay
Yeah. So one of the most common things is that lack of clarity or lack of understanding about what they want to do. Another common thing is kind of that that lack of, confidence and, and not understanding kind of how their unpaid work translates to the paid world. And I love to help people, communicate how their unpaid work helps an employer.

00;12;27;02 - 00;12;51;01
Anna McKay
And I love to turn kind of like this shift, help people shift their mindset from like, oh, I've got a career gap that's horrible to oh, actually, I've got a career gap, and I've done all of this stuff. And that can actually be a benefit to an employer. I've come up with a whole framework for, ways that returners add value that traditional workers don't always bring to the workforce.

00;12;51;01 - 00;12;53;20
Paul Sullivan
Like what? Like what? What are some of the ways that they have a.

00;12;53;22 - 00;13;22;26
Anna McKay
Yeah. So I'd say one thing is fresh energy. So if you've been out of paid work and you're looking to get back to paid work and, you've got this kind of gratitude for being in the workforce and gratitude for, for the opportunity to get back and excitement to get back into a professional setting again. Right. And we're somebody who's been continuously working, maybe doesn't have that fresh energy that a returner does.

00;13;23;02 - 00;13;34;17
Anna McKay
And so, yeah, so bringing that to a team and infusing that in a team that's kind of like stock or kind of been kind of always doing the same thing can be a huge energy boost for your team.

00;13;34;19 - 00;13;44;11
Paul Sullivan
Or maybe it's feel like you come back and people are complaining like, what are you? What do you people bitch and moan about? You know what it's like to organize a bus route in my neighborhood. You know how like, horrible my neighbors are?

00;13;44;13 - 00;13;49;24
Anna McKay
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

00;13;49;26 - 00;14;26;24
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. When you think about it, it's still, you know, again, the company does. We're trying to challenge all kinds of, of stereotypes and kind of normalize all kinds of different roles, particular that of father being a dad. But it's still more typical for a mom to take, career path of not more typical, more accepted, more understandable if the mom becomes the lead parent, devoting all her time to her family when it comes to the fathers that you're working with, either individually or in your groups, are there particular challenges that they face that are different from the challenges that perhaps moms looking to return face?

00;14;26;26 - 00;15;00;02
Anna McKay
Yeah. So I'd say some of the challenges are similar in terms of that lack of clarity. I'd say, I'd say sometimes they have a different. Both men and women have a challenge in telling their story about the unpaid time, right. Unpaid work experience time. But I'd say for men often times feel like they need to really lean in heavily to more of that prior professional work experience and kind of just skip over that unpaid work experience.

00;15;00;04 - 00;15;11;14
Anna McKay
And, and I'd say, you know, there's real benefit in that unpaid work experience that they should also communicate. But it's I mean, that's definitely a challenge for both.

00;15;11;17 - 00;15;32;03
Paul Sullivan
You know, we're talking about the individual lives here, but if you're on the other side and, you know, you obviously have to be talking to the company so that you know what companies want. How did the best managers handle returners, like how did the best managers, you know, support those returners and get the most out of them without saying, you know, stupid shit like people do all the time when people return from maternity leave, like, how was your vacation?

00;15;32;06 - 00;15;49;09
Paul Sullivan
That's awesome. That is vomited on every day. I know, but, you know, how do you help those managers be, you know, great managers who can, you know, get the most out of a different type of worker who brings different types of experiences but can help the company in a in a different way?

00;15;49;11 - 00;16;10;29
Anna McKay
Yes, exactly. And so, like I mentioned earlier, that fresh energy that returners bring, they bring that kind of eagerness to learn, and willingness to do and try different things. A lot of times they've been, you know, implementing new systems and learning new technologies along in their, in their unpaid work. And so they bring that learning mindset to the work world.

00;16;11;05 - 00;16;40;12
Anna McKay
They might not. So a manager, they might not have the, the most current set of skills in that specific, line of work. And so what I would say is like the manager having patience and making sure that there's they're fully up to date on all the technology that needs to be incorporated, all of kind of like the systems, all of whatever, the information is that, that they need to be successful in their job.

00;16;40;15 - 00;17;01;19
Anna McKay
And once they're kind of given kind of a lay of the land and who to go to for what kind of support, I think they're often willing to kind of take on that learning themselves and run with it and move forward. So I would say as a manager of a returner, just making sure that you're very clear on, okay, the these are the ways to learn.

00;17;01;19 - 00;17;28;28
Anna McKay
And, these are my expectations even for the first three months, like even setting up expectations of spend the first couple of weeks just learning your role and just learning where everything is like anybody who's starting a new job needs that time, right? So, so really giving that time and, and then and then letting them come to you with questions and, and make mistakes and, and, and and learn from those.

00;17;29;00 - 00;17;44;25
Paul Sullivan
You know, when you get feedback, you know, in month five, six, 12 from, from people that you've coached, what is the feedback that you get from them once they've returned to paid work? Both. You know, both both the bad and and the good.

00;17;44;28 - 00;18;22;05
Anna McKay
Yeah. So I'd say a couple of things. One time, a couple of times they're they're more surprised. One of the things I hear is that parents are often surprised at how fast they can move up in the company after they return to paid work. Sometimes they're brought in at a lower level than they should have been, but sometimes, they enter paid work and they are just rockstars because they're really able to leverage kind of like some of their project management skills, some of their relationship building skills, some of their kind of drive and determination that they've used in their unpaid work.

00;18;22;09 - 00;19;05;08
Anna McKay
And they actually get promoted quicker than they expected. So I think that's one of the really good things. I think one of the other things it's challenging for people returning to paid work is, is how do I navigate everything that I was doing at home and work as well and paid work as well. So, you know, and I think that when you're shifting from as being the lead parent, being responsible and in charge of the majority of the work at home, shifting that when you're returning to paid work and kind of like shifting that work so that it's spread out a little bit more throughout the family, can sometimes be

00;19;05;08 - 00;19;21;14
Anna McKay
a huge challenge that people don't often think about or address head on. And I love that there are systems, that we talk through in our thrive program to help people kind of navigate that process, too.

00;19;21;16 - 00;19;38;12
Paul Sullivan
Adam McKay, founder of Parent Pivot. This has been awesome. Last word to you is going to air in the beginning of 2024, off to a new year. Anything else people need to know about you or parents pivot when they're thinking about returning to work. Any any parting tips for the listeners?

00;19;38;15 - 00;19;57;05
Anna McKay
Yeah, I'd say, you know, take some time to reflect on what you want to do. Right. The beginning of the new year is often a great opportunity for that. So, so reflect on what you really want to do and start your job search with intention.

00;19;57;08 - 00;20;02;09
Paul Sullivan
Fantastic. Anna, thank you again for joining me on the Company Dads podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

00;20;02;11 - 00;20;05;03
Anna McKay
Love it. Thank you.

00;20;05;05 - 00;20;22;29
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Company Dads podcast. I really appreciate you tuning in week after week, trying to use this moment here to thank the people who make it possible. Number one of course held are mirror, who is our podcast editor. We also have Skip Terry home to many of you know and lead diaries.

00;20;22;29 - 00;20;48;26
Paul Sullivan
He's taken over our social media. Terry Brennan is helping us with our audience development. And Emily Serban is there, each and every day helping with the web development akin to any of this without, an amazing board, of advisors. So I just want to say thank you to all of you who help. And I want to say thank you to everyone who listens and, hopefully to tune in again next week.

00;20;48;26 - 00;20;49;15
Paul Sullivan
Thanks so much.