‘Value your Broad Background’ with Derek White

This episode, we’re delighted to bring you our first conversation with a male returner. Derek White enjoyed a fascinating and varied career which equipped him with a broad mix of people, business, technical, marketing, procurement, and project management skills.After making the decision to follow his wife’s diplomatic career, Derek took a career break of 7 years to care for their young family when they relocated to Canada. He describes this period as a precious time in his life and talks about the valuable transferable skills he gained through various entrepreneurial projects, despite the career sacrifices he made due to the interruption in his career trajectory. As the children grew older and the family relocated to London, Derek decided the time was right to return to work. The route back to work was not easy though, with ‘confidence destroying’ rejections before finding success.Hear how Derek secured a 3-month returnship which gave him valuable experience and networks in a new country, and then went on to find a fulfilling role at the Department for International Trade. In our conversation, Derek talks of the value you build through all the activities you do throughout your career and career break; “I have definitely found that being a bit older and having a broad background, I can add in many different ways”. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYzFollow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH

Om Podcasten

Is it possible to return to a fulfilling, challenging, successful career after a long career break? After listening to these stories we want your answer to be a resounding yes! On our Career Returners podcast, you’ll hear from a diverse range of people who are successfully back at work after taking long career breaks for childcare, eldercare, health or other reasons. They’re sharing the ups-and-downs of their return-to-work journeys – the challenges, the rewards and the learnings. After each story, we’ll chat over some of the key themes that emerged and share some of our top return to work tips. The Career Returners podcast is brought to you by Career Returners, the return to work specialists. We work with employers and career returners to enable professionals to return to satisfying and fulfilling work after career breaks of 2, 5 or 15+ years. Over the years we’ve coached thousands of career returners, and we’re excited now to share some of their inspirational stories with you. After listening to this episode, do head along to careerreturners.com where you’ll find lots of advice, over 100 success stories, and a range of return to work opportunities for people on career break wanting to get back to work. While you're there, do sign up to our free Network and also our Facebook group for extra support and connection. Website: careerreturners.com Facebook: facebook.com/careerreturnersnetwork/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/careerreturners/ X: https://x.com/careerreturners