Three years ago I became a mom and it has been three years since I left my high-profile corporate career. For anyone who reads this, it is easy to deduce that motherhood gave me a new designation — stay at home mom. Well, here is the truth, I am a victim of the work-life -balance conundrum. The poor maternity leave policy, lack of flexible work hours at my workplace made it extremely difficult for me to juggle career and family. I initially tried to make both work but then decided to take a break.
But having worked for so many years I yearned to be back in a professional set up. I missed being back in an office. That’s when I took to the internet to look for part time, flexible jobs and I was pleasantly surprised that there were quite a few platforms out there, who were working to help women like me to get back to work. I registered on those platforms, listed my skills and now here I am writing this post working out of home, doing something that I love, in the company of the one I love – my 3 year old daughter.
This International Women’s day, I want to share with all those moms who are thinking of starting afresh, 7 career destinations that are helping women restart their career after a career break.
1. Jobsforher.com – Bengaluru-based JobsForHer was founded by Neha Bagaria in 2015, with a vision to bring women back to the workforce. They offer job opportunities ranging from full-time, part-time, work-from-home, to freelance opportunities and also work with companies to provide returnee internships.
Top employers : Citibank, Future Group, GE, Godrej group, Kotak Mahindra Group, SnapDeal, Unilever.
2. Sheroes.in – Noida based Sheroes was founded by Sairee Chahal to offer the diverse range of work options available to women and help them find mentors and build communities via offline events.
Top employers : Best Deal TV, Intel, Paytm ,Kraftly, Oriflame
3. Avtar I-Win – Founded by Dr. Saundarya Rajesh in 2005, this Chennai based company has nearly 40,000 women on its network and has placed 8,000 women after a break. Their workshop called Segue Sessions are perfect forums for women to connect and network with other women.
Top employers : Deutsche Bank Group, Unilever , Microsoft IT, Vodafone, PepsiCo India, IBM, Genpact, Goldman Sachs, Accenture.
4. KoffeePlace.com – A Mumbai based online community for female professionals, which allows candidates to add pictures and video clips, and gives them a glimpse into what it’s like to work for the company.
Top employers : Mumbai based young starups like OnCourse Vantage, Wowtables,Indear.in that offer flexi work environment to its women employees.
5. Hersecondinnings.com – Founded by Manjula Dharmalingam and Madhuri Kale in November 2014 and present in Bangalore and Mumbai, this is an ideal platform to make women financially independent. They offer a work from home options, temporary assignments, permanent jobs, projects and consultancy and entrepreneurial opportunities.
6. Qweens.in – Founded by Niti Jain, Neha Shah and Deval Shah, this is a Mumbai based interactive platform to network, make friends, share experiences and find mentors via rendezvous.
Top employers – Women can find diverse range of work from home assignments across India on this platform.
7.Mykindofjob.com– This Mumbai based job site caters to a wide audience including new mothers who can’t work full time but don’t mind working from home or part time options.
Top employers – Reliance Capital, Shaadi.com, Ernst & Young, Cox and Kings
The growing number of women specific job portals indicates that Indian Inc is slowly taking note of the shrinking women population at the workforce and the growing gender imbalance.
1. Women hold only7.7% of board seats and just 2.7% of board chairs.
2. 54% of companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange 100 have no women board directors.
Source: www.catalyst.org
Further a report by www.sheroes.in throws light on loss of financial independence and loss of GDP value by the women opting out of work. It says, “India has only 17 % women in formal GDP workforce, only 5 % women in leadership roles and our gender ranking globally is at 113 out of 136 countries. Almost 48 percent women drop out of work before reaching mid levels and most do not come back.”
If women’s participation in the economy were on par with that of men, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 can be higher by as much as 60%, as per a report by McKinsey Global Institute.
So if you have been thinking of getting back to work, or just want to test the waters to see what is out there on offer, just know that you are not alone and there are millions of women just like you, thinking the exact same thing, and these organizations are there to help.
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Parul Gupta
Rati Ramadas Girish
Mansi Zaveri
Rushita Sheth
