I took a career pause four years ago, after seventeen years working as a product manager, continuing education instructor, and market researcher. My infant son awoke routinely at 10:00 pm, 2:00 am, then up for the day at 4:45 am. My daughter, then age 5, experienced years of night terrors. In the most humbling moment of my professional life, I admitted that not only could I not do it all, I couldn’t do anything at all. Sleep won out over my need to work. And so I stepped back.

Joe is now 5, heads to kindergarten in fall 2016. Elizabeth, now 9, sleeps like a log. Last December, it occurred to me to start looking for work.

The Puget Sound Business Journal reported last May there are 25,000 open tech jobs in the region that have been open for 6 months or more. So it seems like women like me with experience, proven track records, local contacts, and interest and ability to learn and get back to work would be a sure thing in filling those roles, right?

Not so fast. Here is the true story of what happened when I started to interview and head back to work.

A friend mentioned there was a senior product manager role at a local late stage startup focused on the work collaboration space, I jumped on it. “Why not?” I thought. I chatted with friends inside the company (thanks, LinkedIn) who gave me great tips. I updated my portfolio, put together a couple of business casual outfits, and applied.

Five on-site interviews later, after drafting marketing materials, developing and demoing a vertical version of the company’s product, I sat in a conference room talking with the company’s CEO. After some small talk, he grilled me on the intricacies of the overall SaaS marketplace, remarked “You don’t have any recent experience,” checked his phone and politely ambled off with a pleasant, off-handed goodbye.

I was astonished. A junior recruiter could have told me that in a phone screen. My internal response was “Did anyone tell you I was re-entering the workforce? And grew a product just like yours from market entry to really large revenue and market share? Just like you want to do?”

What was going on? A couple of things were at work here: a corporate level diversity challenge and perception of skills currency.

Corporate Diversity Hiring: Post interview, I learned from local recruiters that the company which passed on my awesome product marketing abilities has a huge diversity problem. And they’re not unique. Subsequent conversations with local female executive and tech organizations uncovered similar stories all over the region. There’s lip service given to solving the diversity challenge at the C-suite level, including Lean-in circles and diversity recruiting. But my story is a perfect illustration of where that talk breaks down. Candidates like me are brought in, then shot down because we don’t fit the narrow definition of what a traditional hire looks like.

Sadly, I’m not alone: 43% of all women take a career pause to raise their families and care for elderly parents per the Center for Talent Innovation, a nonprofit research organization focused on minority groups in the workplace. The numbers are even higher in professional circles, where over 60% of female MBAs take a career pause per a Vanderbilt University study. And while 90% attempt to resume their careers, only 40% land full-time jobs, according to the Center for Talent Innovation. About 25% of women who attempt to resume their careers take part-time jobs, and roughly 10% become self-employed.

That’s a huge untapped workforce – a recent Wall Street Journal article addresses this issue. There’s a ton of open jobs in the Puget Sound. Seems like a great matchmaking opportunity, but there’s both the traditional hire perception and real short-term skill barriers in play.

Skills Currency: Moore’s Law seems to have an analogous corollary when you take a break from work in tech. For every year you step back, you lose 2 years worth of expertise. Things change fast. Four years out, I might as well be living in a cave. During my interview loop, I nodded sagely and panicked internally as interviewers mentioned tools and technologies that I was vaguely aware of but hadn’t had the opportunity to use. That said: my business, product, and marketing fundamentals are sound. My track record is proven. A simple skills brush-up would fix any gaps quickly.

To do that, I attended GSV Labs’ Reboot Immersion Accelerator down in Redwood City. Reboot Accelerator is a program designed for women who have taken career breaks to care for their families current with the most recent technology skills and contacts, giving them the confidence to re-enter the workforce.

The program content, speakers, and attendees were top-notch. My cohort has women with legal, biotech, high tech, government, and higher Ed backgrounds. Titles like digital initiative lead, PR director, senior marketing manager, group product manager, senior intelligence analyst. Organizations like Merck, Anderson, Stanford, CIA, and Microsoft. Some, like me, want to re-enter the workforce as their children enter school. Others face major life changes—separation, divorce, geographic moves, career change—and need a quick way to get back to work to support themselves. All of us want to get back to work, using our skills and experience.

It was immediately evident there’s a huge opportunity for this course in the Puget Sound region, where 47% of the workforce is female. This is one way to help fill that open channel with qualified candidates, and to offer local women this tremendously useful program. The program launches in Seattle this Fall at UW’s Co-Motion Incubator.

 

Epilog: It’s a small world in tech.

I recounted my interview story to the ReBoot Accelerators’ cohort as part of my introduction. Turns out, a founder’s spouse is a VC and is focused on addressing the corporate diversity challenge in all his firm’s investments, and a lead VC for the late stage start-up that I talked with earlier this year. He plans to share my story with the company’s CEO. So, I’m guessing I won’t get a re-interview opportunity there anytime soon! But I’d sure like to be a fly on the wall when they have that conversation.

It doesn’t solve the larger corporate diversity issue. But it’s a start. Cynthia Tee at Ada Developers Academy advises women to build allies, and she’s right. It’s allies like this VC that will help change things.