Claire Douglas

My story is similar to many. I worked hard, got a place at business school.  I left the City with 2 young children to try to achieve the work/life balance I was struggling to find. My desire to spend time at home conflicted with a desire to work and I felt dissatisfied and disillusioned with a company that didn’t support the bigger picture. Having freelanced and worked with several small companies I found myself wanting to “do more”. When I discovered The Return Hub it felt like I had found a company which was totally on the same wavelength with the underlying ability to really make a difference given its “recruitment” roots. After a few exploratory chats with Dominie (we’d known each other years ago) I found myself winding up my other work and heading towards The Return Hub’s office near Bank in mid-September this year to start a full-time job… What I found was a bit of a revelation. Much like me, many other women had found The Return Hub. I began by meeting them and realising the wealth of talent and seniority out there, actively seeking roles but struggling to be seen. Women who had taken time out from careers at senior level in M&A, research, business management, law, compliance, fund management, sales and trading, relationship management, client service etc. These were people hungry to work and get their teeth into a new role, having stepped back, taken time out and then realised that they wanted to get back. Surprisingly, many of these candidates said they would prefer to work full time, although an attitude to flexibility was high on the agenda. From the employer side, I have met and have spoken to countless companies intrigued to find out more about us and keen to tap into this wealth of talent. It is so rewarding to be working for both sides of the coin, representing such great candidates and showing clients what treasures are out there if they can just be persuaded to be open minded about a non-linear CV! Clients who have truly signed up to what The Return Hub are offering will say they are consistently blown away by the high quality of the candidates they see from us. Our aim is to develop this recruitment route and embed it into the mainstream hiring business It is our mission to help bring as many women back into work as possible. In my short time here, we have broadened our client base to more global players across buy and sell side and taken on more niche and smaller companies who have the agility and flexibility that is so attractive to our candidates. Every day I speak to new candidates who discover us. I have also seen some great successes with placements of people who have been out for several years securing senior level roles applying and transferring their skills to positions in different areas and functions. At The Return Hub we really care about making a difference and showing as many employers out there what they are missing out on. We also support our candidates with tools to aid with their job search and relish the chance to provide networking opportunities for our community to support each other. We are working in exciting times and our business continues to grow. For 2018 we will be working with even more clients as part of their ongoing recruitment strategy, to make placing career break returners part of the norm and at the same time reaching out to more women who want to relaunch their careers. The future for the returner landscape is more exciting than it has ever been with more and more publicity around the benefits of gender balance in the workplace. In brief, working at The Return Hub has been hugely satisfying, the team are great, and we are all enthused about rising to the challenges ahead. I’d encourage everyone to sit up and take note. For more information on what we do check out our website www.thereturnhub.com.