Why the Rise of Returning Professional Internships is Significant for Military Spouses

BY CAROL FISHMAN COHEN

In mid-March 2016, my local TEDxBeaconStreet Talk "How to get back to work after a career break" got elevated to the big TED platform. Fast forward to 2023; it has been viewed nearly 3.7 million times and translated into 30 languages.

My TED Talk focused on career reentry and returning professional internships, now known as “returnships.” TED Talks are supposed to discuss a “Big Idea.” The “Big Idea” I put forth was that if employers can successfully use internships as a vehicle to engage with the population of professionals returning from a career break, they could then use internships to engage with a whole range of non-traditional career transitioners. These transitioners include veterans transitioning to civilian roles, military spouses resuming their careers during or following their partner’s active-duty service, retirees coming out of retirement and expats repatriating in their home country.

The concept rests on the theory that some employers consider it risky to hire nontraditional career transitioners. The internship reduces the perceived risk because it allows the employer to base the hiring decision on an actual work sample instead of a series of interviews, and the employer does not have to make the permanent hiring decision until the internship period is over. Companies have launched veterans return to work programs based on their returnship program model or have broadened the candidate pool for their returnship program to include veterans and other career transitioners.

Returnship participants are paid, and they either start the program as part of a structured cohort or join the relaunch “community” at their employer one by one on more of a “rolling admissions” basis. Depending on the company, the returnship can be as short as eight weeks or as long as one year. Hundreds or even thousands of people apply for a limited number of spots in a cohort, which can range in size from five to one hundred participants. At the end of the returnship, a participant is either asked to “convert” to a permanent employee or may not get a permanent offer. Sometimes the “returnship” is extended if management needs more time to evaluate the candidate, or if they are waiting for “headcount” to open up in a particular business area. Even if an offer is not received, these rich professional development experiences are excellent resume and interview material.

“Conversion rates”—the percentage of returning professionals who “convert” to permanent employees—are averaging over 85% in 2023 vs over 50% in 2016.

The data show “returnship” programs are a proven way to successfully engage with professionals resuming their careers after time away. The stronger the business case for career reentry programming, the more programs will launch or expand and the better it is for employers and relaunchers, including military spouses. In fact, based on the strength of the returnship conversion numbers, some employers are hiring returning professionals as employees from day one, doing away with the returnship entirely. In 2023, roughly 80% of career reentry programs are returnship-based and 20% are “direct hire.”

In my original 2016 article for NMSN, I wrote: “A group of engineering companies piloted mid-career internship programs for returning technical professionals in 2016 through the STEM Reentry Task Force initiative with the Society of Women Engineers and iRelaunch.” The progress of the Task Force over the last seven years is an indicator of how career reentry programs have grown. Today, over 40 employers have joined the STEM Reentry Task Force and nearly 1,000 “relaunchers” have participated in Task Force employer programs.

We have seen three waves of career reentry programming:

• Wall Street and financial services drove the first wave starting in 2006,

• “Tech-fueled” employers in a range of industry sectors including, aerospace and defense, automotive and industrial equipment, drove the second wave starting in 2015, and

• Today, the third wave is being driven by the public sector.

A number of exciting “firsts” have occurred: the State of Utah launched the first state returnship program, the Boston Fed launched the first returnship program in the Federal Reserve banking system and NASA/JPL and The Aerospace Corporation launched the first FFRDC (federally funded research and development center) programs. While on your career “break”— we all know it’s not a “break,” especially if you are a military spouse—determine what kind of work you want to return to and get as specific as possible. We use the iRelaunch “Job Building Blocks Worksheet” to extract and prioritize components of past work and volunteer roles and use them to construct your post-career break career path. Identify coursework, certifications or other skills updating you will need to be a viable candidate.

Consider doing volunteer work related to your career goals or shadowing someone working in your desired field. And study up on your own; follow experts, read articles and books, understand new products and services, acronyms and controversies in your field. Immerse yourself in your chosen field and re-establish your subject matter expertise. Doing all of this will boost your confidence as you proceed with your job search.

Seek out employers with career reentry programs. Listen to military spouse and relauncher Lauren Gonzalez talk about Lockheed Martin’s Chapter Next program which is one of very few that offers part-time options in addition to full-time.

As I suggest in the TED Talk, if the potential employer does not have a career reentry program, try suggesting that they engage with you on a short-term, nonbinding basis. An internship-like arrangement does not need to be called an internship or “reternship.” It can be a contract role, special project, temp job or maternity-leave coverage. Some hiring managers will dismiss the concept and others will have never thought of it before and will consider it.

I can’t complete this article update without discussing the impact COVID-19 had on relaunching professionals and employer career reentry programs, and the developments that are particularly relevant for military spouses. Career reentry programs went virtual and remote over much of the pandemic, similar to many work roles not requiring a physical presence. For parents with school-age kids at home, the “virtual relaunch” was a gentler relaunch for families than pre-pandemic when going back to work meant mom or dad reported to an office on the first day of their relaunch. The virtual relaunch meant a newly working mom or dad was “around” and had the flexibility to interact with kids throughout the day. Most importantly for military spouses, the pandemic eliminated “Facetime in the office” requirements, and remote work became the norm. Employers are reversing some of these arrangements now, but there are still more remote roles than before COVID, which allows military spouses the location flexibility required for continuous employment.

Carol Fishman Cohen, CEO of iRelaunch , partners with the world's largest corporations to build career reentry programs to hire professionals returning to work after a career break. She is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review on career reentry topics. Her seminal HBR article "The 40-Year-Old Intern" was the first to identify the emergence of internship-like experiences as a way to successfully engage with and hire returning professionals, and predicted the proliferation of these programs we see today. Her 2021 HBR article “ Return to Work Programs Come of Age” focuses on innovations, trends and best practices developed over nearly two decades of career reentry programming. Cohen’s TED Talk "How to Get Back to Work after a Career Break" has been viewed nearly 3.7 million times. Her return to work at Bain Capital after 11 years out of the full-time workforce is documented in a Harvard Business School case study and iRelaunch is the subject of a Stanford Graduate School of Business case study.