By the time Peggy Helmink turned 40, she drove a Mercedes-Benz, worked 80-hour weeks and commanded a management position at prestigious furniture maker Herman Miller. And it wasn’t nearly enough.
“When I announced I was leaving Herman Miller, they all said I was crazy,” Helmink, now 46, recalls. “But I wasn’t satisfied.”
So she sold her home in Holland, Mich., left her savings in the bank and joined the Peace Corps. Helmink spent the next three years in Budapest, Hungary, helping run the government’s economic development office, living on $200 a month. Without children or a spouse, leaving the corporate safety net was easier for Helmink than for many mid-career workers who crave some time off. It was coming home that was tough.
“The reality is that when you start hitting your 40s, your value becomes questionable and women are especially vulnerable. If. . .you’ve been out of the loop a while, it’s rough.”
Would she do it again? Absolutely. “I never imagined the value the experience would have for me. It far outweighed the disadvantages.”
While taking a detour from your career path can be perilous, it can also lead to a more fulfilling career down the road, say some who have taken time off to pursue a dream. And low unemployment is forcing more employers to look less critically at a gap of time on a resume.
“We view this as a full employment economy, and there is a lack of qualified candidates,” says Jeff Garton, director of staffing and placement for Kraft Foods Inc. The Northfield-based food giant hires 1,100 to 1,200 people every year in North America. “In the old days when you saw a gap on a resume, the red flags went up. They still go up, but if you can explain it well, it can be a positive thing.”
Garton says employers like Kraft are changing their attitude about workers taking some time away to refresh themselves. And some companies even give veteran workers either paid or unpaid time away with a job guarantee at the end. Among them: American Express, Apple Computer, McDonald’s Corp., Nike and Xerox Corp.
“Sabbaticals are of interest to employers (in attracting and retaining top employees) and the trend is growing,” says Diana Reace, a research consultant with Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm in Lincolnshire. Hewitt recently surveyed companies about sabbatical policies and will report the findings later this fall. In a similar survey in 1994, one in four employers offered a paid or unpaid sabbatical.
Still, unless you go back to a guaranteed job, returning to work after some time away requires even more energy than the first time you entered the work force. Helmink started her career re-entry process nearly a year before returning to the United States. She researched firms that could use her experience in Hungary, as well as her management skills from Herman Miller and her 10 years experience as an adviser to the industrial development and energy departments with the World Bank. She sent letters to several firms while still in Hungary, and landed a job with Atlanta-based Universal Management Concepts as a Chicago-based consultant helping small- and mid-sized firms set up business overseas.
Whether it’s six months off to paint landscapes or several years off devoted to child-rearing, the key is to never lose touch with your marketable skills.
Peace Corps volunteers get job-search workshops three months before returning home, says Kim Mansaray, the organization’s regional manager in Chicago. Volunteers’ most common mistake, she says, is in underselling their time off from their traditional careers. “They need to reinforce with employers their ability to work with people different from them and their experience in the global market. Those are things employers are all wanting today.”
It’s important to recognize that time away may make you a different person. Less than a year after Helmink joined the consulting firm, she quit to form her own Lincoln Park consulting firm.
“This changes you,” she says of her time off the corporate ladder. “I have to admit my attitude toward work is different. I still work hard, but I also try to volunteer in the community when I can. I see guys working 80 hours a week with bags under their eyes and the stress is killing them. What is the payoff in that, a heart attack?”
