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Episode 207: Career Pivots - Advice & An Actual Pivot From Media to Economic Development, with Faye Penn

Faye Penn headshot

Faye Penn is the Executive Director of women.nyc, which is dedicated to helping New York City women succeed in their careers and businesses through innovative programs and partnerships. She is also an Executive Vice President of Initiatives at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where she oversees the project startup team. Among her previous roles, Faye was an editor for titles including New York Magazine, The New York Post, The New York Observer and InStyle and an executive at Lifetime Television. Faye discusses her successful career transition from media to her work in economic development, including how she literally mapped out her skills and experience to form a cohesive and persuasive narrative describing how they transferred from one industry to another during the interview process. She also shares why it’s important to treat a career pivot as a job and the critical questions you need to consider when pivoting.

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Carol Fishman Cohen: Welcome to 3,2,1 iRelaunch, the podcast where we discuss return to work strategies, advice, and success stories. I'm Carol Fishman Cohen, CEO and co-founder of iRelaunch and your host. Today we welcome Faye Penn. As executive director of women.nyc, Faye is dedicated to helping New York City women succeed in their careers and businesses through an array of innovative programs and partnerships.

She is also an executive vice president of initiatives at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where she oversees the project startup team. In previous lives, Faye was a Brooklyn small business owner, founder of the web mag, Brokelyn, and editor for titles, including New York Magazine, The New York Post, the New York Observer and InStyle and, an executive at Lifetime television. We will discuss Faye's successful career transition from media to her work in economic development for New York City, and what steps someone contemplating a career pivot should consider. Faye, welcome to 3,2,1 iRelaunch.

Faye Penn: Carol, thank you so much for having me. I'm such a big fan of iRelaunch and I'm also really excited to talk about public service, which is a really dynamic, exciting and creative sector, that I would have never thought about entering years ago, but ultimately I'm so glad I did.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Thanks, Faye. We really appreciate that, and we're big fans of the work and the innovation that you are doing and can't wait to hear more about both of your roles. But first let's talk about your own transition. You successfully transitioned in your career from media to your work in economic development for New York City.

Can you give us some details about how you did that?

Faye Penn: Absolutely. So it wasn't something I set out to do necessarily, but it's a path that emerged that I'm really grateful for. And I want to start by saying, if there are people who are listening who have a media background, there are so many industries that value your communication chops, your marketing instincts, your writing abilities, your presentation abilities, that even though media has become an increasingly challenging field, there are so many skills that are applicable to other industries that we don't always think of.

And one of the things I'd like to talk about is how everybody needs to get their ideas across. Every industry needs to communicate. Every industry needs to sell. Every job requires, not every job, but every industry requires presentation. And so when you're able to apply those talents to other industries and think of yourself not necessarily as a journalist, which is an amazing thing to be, but an increasingly difficult thing to be, unfortunately.

But as a communicator, the world opens up. So that's one of the things I like to emphasize. It's not just about media pivots, either. It's about how you see the skills that you developed working in one industry and how readily applicable they may be to another industry.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Before you go on, let me just highlight that for a second. So essentially you're saying, it's how you tell the story and the language that you use in order to convey how these transferable skills can be applied somewhere else. And that process of trying to analyze that and figure it out and translate it into the new language, is something that's hard to do.

And that's one of the things that we'd love to hear more information about or how you did it.

Faye Penn: That's probably why I don't have a website. I own fayepenn.com, but telling your own story is really difficult. Look, whether you're in a role in a company or you're applying for a role in a different company, the question remains the same, how do your talents and skills further the company's goals? So that's the story that you need to tell. The story is the same. And I would say in my experience as a communicator, communications and storytelling is something that all companies need to do a better job of in one way or another. Whether it's internal communications to the team, external communications to customers, or through external affairs to the public and to elected officials as is the case in government, this is an example of a skill that is applicable in diverse ways. What are your skills and how would those skills help you further a company's aims? I have a colleague named Cindy Gallop who is a well-known influencer, especially around aging. And she says, "How can your skills help a company make a lot of money?"

Not every job is related to that, but a lot of companies want to make money. What can you do that can help them make more money? I would never suggest as a career pivot to only focus on that because you need to focus on your own interests and your skills and your happiness and how you want to work and so many other things. But I think that always figuring out how to tell a story that leverages your skills to further a company's or an organization's objectives is how you win.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Excellent. Thank you. So I asked you a question that got us off on a tangent, but I wanted to get back to the original one about your personal story and how you transitioned into a new career.

Faye Penn: So my story is essentially, I had about a 20, 25 year career in digital media, in magazines, in newspapers, and I loved covering New York City. I also did some women's empowerment content, and some women's career content at titles, including most recently InStyle where I was an executive editor.

I was also running partnerships and I had a really exciting project with Michelle Obama's office around Let Girls Learn, which was her initiative dedicated to helping girls around the country gain access to education, which is not something that exists everywhere in the world for girls.

Carol Fishman Cohen: That must have been amazing.

Faye Penn: It was a lot of fun. So I think that actually probably helped me get the women.nyc role, because we had a project, we were trying to get Michelle Obama on our cover. And of course this was one of the final covers of the Obama administration. It was the end of 2016 and a lot of magazines wanted Michelle Obama at that time.

And so her team challenged us to come up with something that would benefit Let Girls Learn. And so we looked at the work that this entity was doing for the Peace Corps, and they were working in numerous countries around the world.

And the other thing was that Michelle Obama had all of these relationships with designers. She was known for debuting to wearing clothing from a variety of designers and leveraging their careers while she was in the White House. She was very supportive of up and coming designers. And so we went out to those designers and we asked them to design a tote bag, designed by one of the countries where Let Girls Learn was having an impact.

Carol Fishman Cohen: That's so creative. That's a great idea.

Faye Penn: Oh boy, did we have fun! We had Carolina Herrera. We had Diane Von Furstenberg. We had DKNY, we had Jason Woo. We had seven designers and they designed these fabulous tote bags and we sold them in a web store. But what was really exciting about this project from a career development standpoint was, it was a nose to tail execution. We did everything from work with Michelle Obama's office on what this was going to look like, to recruiting the designers, to figuring out who's going to make the bags, to figuring out what they were going to look like, and where they were going to be manufactured. And how are we going to sell them? How are we going to price them? How are we going to ship them? Everything. It was so entrepreneurial and it was so much fun. And we raised $50,000 for Let Girls Learn. And, we were able to recoup our own costs, which was important internally. It was a great experience, both in enterprise and in partnerships, because the White House was involved.

On her team was Time Inc., which was a big organization. There was the Peace Corps, and there were some contracts that had to be executed on fairly short order. And that was my first introduction to what that looks like in public service. But anyway, I was having fun at InStyle, I really was.

And Laura Brown, who was the editor in chief is a magazine natural, if ever there was one.

Carol Fishman Cohen: I've met her. She's great.

Faye Penn: She's terrific. She really, she's a natural in that element. But I didn't see a path forward for myself in the print magazine business. I enjoyed the work tremendously, but working in a shrinking industry wears on you mentally and emotionally.

And I didn't see where I was going to go. And it's funny because magazines and the media reward youth, which is somewhat ironic since magazines are a fairly dated enterprise. I was having a lot of fun. Laura was a great boss, but I just didn't see a path forward in the magazine industry for myself.

And also it was, there was going to be an ownership change. And Time, Inc. was up for sale, and I wasn't sure how that was going to go. So I started looking around. And I was recruited to go work on a digital project at Lifetime Television around women's empowerment. TV at least seemed to be growing, even if traditional cable was having its own struggles.

And while I was at Lifetime, my boss was invited to a breakfast she couldn't attend, and asked me to go. And neither of us really knew what it was, but I showed up and it turned out to be then Deputy Mayor, Alicia Glen revealing the women.nyc website before a group of advertising and creative leaders in New York City.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Wow.

Faye Penn: And I was like, "This is amazing. This is a job. This is cool." She was basically showing the women.nyc website, which was designed as a portal to connect women with the many resources that were available to them through the efforts of this administration. For instance, we have a program called WE NYC, which is, Women Entrepreneurs in New York City, which is an incredible resource at the Department of Small Business Services.

If you are starting a business or growing a business in New York City, it is designed to help you every step of the way. There were various funding tools available to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs, because studies show that women business owners raise less money, have fewer revenues, have less access to capital and higher interest rates than men.

And so these were funding tools specifically designed to level the playing field. There were really interesting programs through the New York City Housing Authority to create a food business, or a childcare business, and there was all kinds of technical assistance and help with certifications.

These weren't specifically for women, but they were certainly of interest to a lot of women. And then there were programs that hadn't launched yet. But through women.nyc, New York City launched the New York City Women's Fund, which provides grants of up to $50,000 for female creatives to finish projects in film, television, digital entertainment, music, and theater, to female creators.

And that was aimed at helping to level the playing field in Hollywood, where you see tons of women in the entertainment industry, but too few at the top. So this is designed to help more female creatives finish their projects.

Carol Fishman Cohen: I remember when that got launched, that's an amazing initiative.

Faye Penn: And it was the kind of thinking that Alicia Glen was doing, right? How do we use government to help fight inequity in New York City, to help level the playing field for women to advance in their careers and businesses? I can talk a little bit later about some of the initiatives that we launched since then, but I was fascinated by this.

Carol Fishman Cohen: This is all happening at the breakfast?

Faye Penn: Yeah, like, "This is amazing. I want to do this." And then when I heard a few weeks later that they were looking for a new executive director, I jumped at it. I said, "I have to do that. That's amazing." And that worked out well because there was a leadership change at Lifetime.

And the project that I was hired to work on was suspended by the new CEO and ultimately I needed a new job. I want to talk about that for a minute because it was hard. I hadn't secured the women.nyc job yet. I was still interviewing and I was looking at some other things. I really wanted that job. But there was a short period between when one role ended and when I was hired for the next one, and it was about three months, which is pretty short as these things go.

But it wasn't easy personally. I've always said that I wanted to be in business for myself by the time I was 50, and I saw how much discrimination exists in the workforce and how much ageism. It's real. You know and I know that it's real. And I struggled with that, that I hadn't launched the business that I said I was going to launch, to be in business by myself and be impervious to the corporate winds by the time I was 50.

And I feel like that situation gave me a lot of empathy for people who are struggling and trying to find their footing. And, I guess what I learned through that process, it was relatively brief for me, that there's something great around the corner for everybody. And it may not be a straight line and it may not happen immediately, but I remember talking to somebody about it and she told me that, and I didn't believe her.

She's like, "You're going to find something great." I just couldn't see it. I didn't know what it looked like. And so I just wanted to put that out there, that it's hard, and I see it. And a lot of the pivot workshop that we do at women.nyc, which is to some extent, that's part of my experience. But my experience talks about that.

Carol Fishman Cohen: And it's such a reality. Especially with our relauncher community, the relaunch process can stretch a year or longer. And the emotional resilience that you have to have during that time is considerable and it is really hard. So it's important to bring it up and talk about it.

Faye, let me ask you, we were talking initially about language that you have to translate what your transferable skills are to this brand new context. And I wanted to know if you can give us an example of how you did that yourself when you were presenting yourself in the interviews, maybe with women.nyc or whoever else you were speaking with.

Faye Penn: So, in this particular instance, I was not an obvious candidate, right? InStyle, Lifetime Television, I think I always afraid they would see that and not think of me because people in this realm tend to come from public service, from elected officials' offices. Some people have MBAs, some people have master's degrees in public planning, public administration and so forth.

And one thing is I'd been around a while. I was 50 years old and I’d done a lot of things. And I took everything I had done, and I packaged it up to align with the demands of the job. So I started out in my career in New York City journalism. I knew a lot of reporters. I knew the ropes of journalism.

I understood how the press works. And that was a plus. I had a website called Brokelyn, and through Brokelyn, we launched a series of successful bar passports. We had this product called the Brooklyn Beer Book, and it was 30 beers at 30 bars for $30. And I would never imagine that would be my ticket to a government job.

It turns out that we have worked in entrepreneurship. So I was able to say I had a small business in New York City, and I wish I had WE NYC, which is our entrepreneurship program, to turn to at that time, because I might not have sold it. I didn't have the network that I needed to support my own business.

I had a background in digital media and women.nyc has a web portal. And I think that having had a background in women's empowerment, and the partnership with Michelle Obama's office was appealing. And we had a great video of that project that I showed. And so it's anything but a straight line.

But I mapped out how I had everything that they needed for success in this role. And I remember during one interview, somebody said, "I think we need a really strong policy person in this job." And I said, "This building is full of really strong policy people. You don't have anyone with these skills."

And I think that was persuasive. And so I told the story that connected my background to this effort in a way that I guess was persuasive. I think the point is it wouldn't have been obvious. It would not necessarily have been obvious to somebody hiring me, but I made them.

And another thing I wanted to say was that, I worked my personal networks too. Somebody who worked at EDC was a parent, whose son was on the same football team as my son's flag football team. A dad whose son was on the baseball team, knew somebody at EDC. A guy who was my first editor at Brokelyn had migrated to EDC.

So I also worked my personal channels, just to put in a good word for me. And I wanted to say how important that is. If you've been out of the workforce and you may feel like you don't have a network, because you haven't been networking with people in a professional setting, the way you would want to be for a year or two or four or five or six. You have a network. Everybody has a network, whether it's the families who live on your block or in your building, or go to your church, your synagogue, or your mosque, or parents at school or parents at sports teams. Communicating your goals to all of those people in casual conversation is a really important ingredient in a career pivot.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Yes. So there's so many things you're saying right now that I just want to call out and underscore with our audience. So that's why we say, "Go public with your job search, tell everyone about your interest in returning to work, and the more specific you can be the better." But I love how you're calling out, like parents of kids on sports teams, because many of our relaunchers in our community are parents and have taken a child care career break. And that population is probably one that doubts its network, its current network the most. It's great to hear this actual example of how other parents on the sports teams were part of the network that was critical to you moving forward in getting this new job at EDC. And I guess the other thing is how you talked about the mapping out of your prior experiences and how you're going to tell that story. I can almost picture you visually writing it out, in different categories and connecting them and then thinking about that language to bring it all together.

That's super important. And I just want to highlight that for relaunchers, 'cause you can do that with volunteer experience as well as paid experience, and it can be done over the course of a very long career path, like Faye's illustrating with all of her prior jobs.

Faye Penn: I have one friend who was volunteering at her kid's school, over her, it wasn't exactly a career break, it was a sort of simmer, a career simmer. She was freelance writing and she just got a job as a parent coordinator at school. I had another friend who was volunteering as the co-president of the Cortelyou Road Merchants Association, which is an association of small businesses on Cortelyou Road, and she was very successful in that work. And she was able to leverage that into a full-time job at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Volunteer work really matters. Showing up. Stepping up. There are a lot of organizations that are completely powered by volunteers. And it's a great way to check out new skills and also to showcase the ones you have and to make a difference.

Carol Fishman Cohen: So I want to get back to some of the tactical steps here and I'm trying, putting yourself in the place of a relauncher who's been on a career break, who is thinking they want to make some sort of career pivot to a new area. Are there certain questions they need to ask themselves? If they're trying to decide between one pathway or another, is there a way to test out which one is the one that at least maybe they should start pursuing? How do you guide people in that process?

Faye Penn: Those are great questions, Carol. It really starts with self-reflection. Somebody asked me to do a workshop on career pivots through women.nyc. And so I was forced to ask myself these questions and to do some research and to figure out, what are the keys to a successful career pivot outside of my own circumstance? What does it take to do this successfully?

And so we still offer the workshop by the way, I'm going to plug it for a second and say that if folks are interested in the career pivot workshop, we don't offer them all the time, but we do offer them through women.nyc. And so if you want to be apprised of an upcoming session, they're free and they're on zoom.

Please subscribe to the women.nyc newsletter and you won't miss them. Then you'll do that by just going on the website. A little preview of what you would experience at that pivot workshop is we start by asking, “why?” “Why are you doing this?” “Are you pivoting away from something?” “Are you pivoting towards something?” “Is it because you're bored because you're not inspired anymore because you've been out of the workforce for a variety of reasons?” First do an inventory of what's driving the decision. And then ask yourself three questions: “What do you like to do?” “What are you good at?” And, “what are you interested in learning?”

Carol Fishman Cohen: Good questions.

Faye Penn: And I advise having a journal. Keep track. This is your new job. Your career pivot is a job. Treat it like a job and spend time on it every day. That's not only to give it shape and project management, but also mentally to feel like you have specific steps every day is really important if you're between jobs, to make sure you're moving forward. You gotta always move forward in whatever direction you decide. So spend some time mapping out things you like to do, things you're good at, and things you're interested in. And certainly you can ask other people what you're good at. Sometimes it's hard for us to tell our own stories.

Sometimes it's hard for us to identify our own skills, but it's really interesting to hear other people say what they think we're good at. And, it's not always the same thing that you would say. And then, I say, "What do you not like to do?" "Where do you not get it?" And, "What are you not interested in?" And I think that it's important to keep in mind growing careers and emerging industries and expanding industries, which is the other half of my job, which is the initiatives portfolio at EDC.

We look at ways to foster equitable growth in emerging and expanding industries in New York City. And if someone said to me, "Where are the jobs?" I would say, "Life sciences, offshore wind, sustainability, obviously tech, cybersecurity." These are all fields where there is growing opportunity in New York City, but it has to connect to you somehow.

You can't only pursue a job because a field is growing. It has to be something that you connect with. And other there's more questions, right? Once you have this list of what you're good at and you want to do, and you're interested in and what you definitely don't want to do...

Carol Fishman Cohen: And how you look at both not only what you want to do in your interest, but what you don't want to do. You don't often hear that. That's a really good extra question to answer for yourself, to give yourself some perspective on what you, as you're saying, should pivot away from or toward. And I love that. I also love that concept, are you pivoting away or are you pivoting towards something and what's driving it?

So really great questions and a great way to look at it. What are some of the other questions?

Faye Penn: What matters to you in life? What kinds of books do you read in your free time? Do you want to have an impact on others through your work? How Is it important to you to live out your values at work? Do you want to teach, help people, provide health care, or are you content to work in a field that doesn't necessarily make your heart sing, and you do those things on the side? What are your non-negotiables? And now, I feel like there's a lot of conversation about work style. Do you want to work remotely? Do you want to work in person? I would add to that, do you like working at a desk? Do you prefer a busy office or are you comfortable working on your own? Do you want to work with your hands? Do you like to be on your feet? Are you the boss? Do you want to be a boss? Are you more comfortable in a support role?

All of these questions are relevant. And then, I think, really, money. How much do you need to earn immediately?

Carol Fishman Cohen: Yes.

Faye Penn: How much do you want to earn long-term? Are you able to weather unpredictable pay or do you need consistency? Are you able to start lower to build back up or do you need to earn your current salary? That's not relevant necessarily to a pivoter. The worst thing to happen would be to put all this effort into planning a career pivot and find out it's not sustainable financially.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Exactly. So it sounds like you're asking yourself a lot of questions at the same time and then in answering those questions, you're gradually narrowing down exactly the kinds of things you want to do. And then do you have to think about how that might translate into different types of jobs or how you would tell the story about how that translates?

Faye Penn: I think it's to give you a sense of the realm of possibilities. And I think, the other piece of this is really conversations.

Who are the people that you know, who are similar to you and your strengths and your preferences and your abilities and what are they doing? And one of the things that I was talking about when I first got to EDC was we had a lot of conversations about cybersecurity. That was a growing field. And I was like, "What are all my English major friends from the magazine world going to do in cyber security?" And they said one of the most important roles in cybersecurity is communication because it's not necessarily obvious how to protect yourself on the internet. And translating these processes so that civilians can understand them is really important.

And that's true in all of tech. I'm not sure all of my InStyle friends would love cybersecurity, if they lead with fashion and style and that whole realm, but some of them might be. And there's communication roles in tech. I would say don't necessarily judge the whole industry by what you assume to be the main product, for instance, offshore wind is growing in New York City.

And so there may be roles in research and development and building turbines and factories and working on the turbines themselves that could be of interest. Or it could be a communication role or a graphic design role, or if you're really interested, deeply interested in sustainability and green energy, there may be a way to fit what you're good at with an industry that entices you.

Carol Fishman Cohen: You know, when you're describing this process, Faye, it sounds like it could take a really long time. Can you talk a little bit about the timeframe and do some people go through this process really fast and then they figure it out and they get hired and other people it takes years? Or what does that look like?

Faye Penn: I think it's hard to generalize. I think it takes as much time as you have, if you need a job next month, you're going to have to accelerate it. But I would say that it's a good hiring market, so it probably takes less now than it did two years ago, ironically.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Although, sometimes we say sometimes you have to take that less than perfect job to pay the bills while you're strategizing for the next one.

That can be like the true pivot, but I could see that applying here. What about credentialing or coursework? Have you ever seen people use that as a way to signal to an employer or to just make a jump into a new field?

Faye Penn: Absolutely. It really depends on what field you're in. I think that my advice is always just keep moving forward. When you're in a career break, use that time proactively to take classes, volunteer, perhaps get a credentialed. There's so many classes online. LinkedIn Learning looks at the most in demand skills and has all these online modules where you can learn them online and get a certificate on your LinkedIn profile for having completed them.

And there are so many ways to dabble in a variety of fields online, from LinkedIn Learning, there's Coursera. And there are also meetups, there are organizations, if you go on meetup.com, you won't believe the different professional groups and associations that you can find at any given time.

And what's amazing is that a lot of them are online now. That's one of the virtues, I think a lot of us are having zoom fatigue right now. But one of the virtues as a job hunter is that the world is at your fingertips, whether it's meetups or online classes or different webinars, everything is a lot more accessible now.

And I don't see that going away either.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Wow, Faye, this conversation just flew by and we're running out of time now. So I wanted to wrap up by asking you a couple of questions. First of all, you started to tell people how they can get on the mailing list and find out more about women.nyc. Can you just give us a brief synopsis of your dual roles and anything else that you want our audience to know about the work that you're doing?

Faye Penn: Women.nyc is an initiative designed to help women succeed in their businesses and careers through an array of programs and partnerships. In addition to the pivoting workshops that we offer, we also have New Venture 50+ , which is an entrepreneurial bootcamp aimed at women 50 plus.

And we haven't talked about that, but that's also a really promising avenue for a lot of people, not just women. I know that everyone in your audience isn't a woman, but, entrepreneurship studies show that folks who are further along in their careers are often far more successful entrepreneurs than the ones who are wearing the hoodies and just starting out that we're so familiar with from the media. So we also have a program that we're working on that will connect job seekers with professionals in New York City in a variety of industries for career conversations. And if folks want to subscribe to the women.nyc mailing list, they will find out about that when it launches.

And we're really excited about that.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Super exciting.

Faye Penn: And we also have an initiative called the Childcare Innovation Lab, where we are looking at ways for the public and private sector to innovate around making childcare more accessible and affordable in New York City.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Very timely.

Faye Penn: That real people have to take career breaks to raise their families.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Wow. That's very ambitious and so needed right now. So we'll be following that also.

Faye Penn: And if I might talk about the initiative's role for a moment.

Carol Fishman Cohen: I love that title by the way.

Faye Penn: Initiatives. It's a broad portfolio, so I think it's fairly apt. This is where we pursue projects that foster equitable growth in emerging and expanding industries in New York City. So we look at opportunities to create jobs and opportunities for folks throughout New York City, to access those jobs through training, through MWBE technical support to make sure that diverse firms have access to growth in those industries and the ability to compete. And, MWBE is, Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise.

We have projects across industries, including life sciences, offshore wind, tech, manufacturing, sustainability, the circular economy and more. And we are always looking at ways to expand opportunity to the most possible number of New Yorkers so that these opportunities that come our way are distributed equitably.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Wow. You must be really busy. You're doing two very full roles there, and thank you so much for telling us about them.

I want to end by asking you the question we ask all of our podcasts guests, and that is what is your best piece of advice for our relauncher audience, even if it's something that we've already talked about today?

Faye Penn: Keep moving forward. Don't go back. I've seen a lot of people who maybe have lost their footing a bit or are re-evaluating their careers, try to go back to what they did the last time they felt successful or comfortable in their careers, which maybe it was 10 years ago. And maybe you're really good at that. But guess what?

There's a whole bunch of new people competing with you doing that thing that you did 10 years ago, even if you were really good at it. How do you leverage it to the next thing? And I also want to say that, we haven't really talked about this, but I feel that while ageism in the workforce is real, that there's also opportunity for mature people, people who have a few years under their belt. There are many circumstances where the perspective and the maturity that you gain over a long career in the workforce is valued. And rather than perhaps trying to shoehorn yourself into a role where there's a lot of age bias, find an organization and a sector that will value your experience, and the wealth of knowledge and perspective that a worker midlife and beyond brings to the table.

Carol Fishman Cohen: I'm so glad you touched on that. That is relevant to many people in our community and we regularly see people in their forties, fifties, sixties, relaunch their careers after taking career breaks and we see companies actively engaging with them.

Yes, I agree, age-ism is out there. But to hear the way you talk about it in terms of looking at it in terms of opportunity is very powerful. So thank you for ending on that note and Faye, thank you so much for joining us.

Faye Penn: Carol, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for inviting me on your podcast and best of luck with your iRelaunch endeavors.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Thank you so much.

And thanks for listening to 3,2,1 iRelaunch, the podcast where we discuss strategies, advice, and success stories about returning to work after a career break. I'm Carol Fishman Cohen, the CEO and co-founder of iRelaunch and your host. For more information on iRelaunch conferences and events, to sign up for our job board and access our return to work tools and resources, go to iRelaunch.com.

And if you like this podcast, be sure to rate it on Apple podcasts and your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to share this podcast with a friend on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media.

Thanks for joining us.


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