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Returnships help women back in to work after a career break

Posted over 7 years ago by Rebecca Thomas
Returnships

Here at Pitch we’re passionate about cultivating talent and retaining it long term, so the idea that anyone needs to choose whether to have a career or a family saddens us – but it also inspires us to support frameworks that allow parents to thrive in the creative industry.

And we’re not alone, there’s been a recent rise in such opportunities, schemes that aim to bridge the gap between out of work talent and companies with a skills shortage are encouraging diversity across the creative industry by giving people returning to work a helping hand to get back into the swing of things. Initially introduced in the UK in 2014, the mid-life internship has made its way to our industry, adopted by an array of reputable organisations.

Creative Equals who define themselves as the ‘gender equality kitemark of the creative industry’ have recently partnered with creative bigwigs such as D&AD, the IPA, SheSays, the School of Communication Arts and more, to enlist the help of creative marketing agencies for ‘returnship’ programmes.

The initiatives allow women to apply for a "return to perm" via an agency that offers a paid internship style programme with a permanent position at the end; training for free at a vocational academy, sponsored by agencies or the opportunity to answer briefs from home, with agency support, in order to help build and update their portfolios.

This admirable attempt to fix the disparity between candidates and employers has ever  mounting importance, considering research by the Young Creative Council that revealed 60% of females feel they can’t stay in the creative industry with a young family and an additional survey found that 55% of mothers feel advertisers don’t understand them, further alienating the female demographic.

Talented people should not be penalised professionally because they prioritise raising a family nor should women feel that they have to leave the industry in order to do so. Pitch are proudly affiliated with The Bloom network that aim to support women in marketing and communications, see here to get involved and encourage women to enter and stay in the industry, nationwide.