Employer Partnerships

Enabling supportive and inclusive hiring of returning professionals

Are you looking to access and support the highly skilled and experienced, yet often overlooked, talent pool of professionals returning to work after long career breaks?

Does your organisation want to hire skilled employees with fresh perspectives, who are motivated and loyal?

Do you want to increase your social value?

At Career Returners:

  • We have over 11 years of expertise, knowledge and experience with supportive returner hiring
  • We have a Community of over 10,000 returning professionals, 90%+ women
  • We have partnered with over 200 forward-thinking organisations, including many long-term partnerships
  • We have directly supported over 4,000 returners back into professional careers.

We know that one size does not fit all. We’ll work with you to understand your talent strategy and design a solution that works for your organisation.

We partner with employers across sectors to provide end-to-end support with designing, promoting and delivering a best practice inclusive hiring solution, tailored to your organisation. From our extensive experience, we can maximise the likelihood of success for both the returners and the business. 

Public sector procurement increasingly rewards suppliers who can deliver lasting social value. Our returner initiatives offer employers a powerful, measurable way to meet expectations in line with the UK Government’s Social Value Model.

RETURNER HIRING = BUSINESS FOR GOOD + GOOD FOR BUSINESS

Returnship

A professional placement with transition support and a high likelihood of a permanent role

Supported Hiring

Hiring directly into a permanent role with transition support

Retraining Programme

Career change training and longer-term work placements, with transition support

Cross-Company Returner Programme

Join forces with other organisations on our multi-company programmes

Return to Work Support Programme

Employer-funded coaching and training to support returning professionals to become job-ready

Talent Pooling

Create talent pools of returner candidates ready to step into business-as-usual roles

Returner Event

Engage with returner candidates to showcase your organisation, provide support and create networking opportunities while enhancing your brand visibility

Contact Us to explore how we can support your talent strategy

What our Employer Partners say about us

EDF logo
“We’re always on the lookout for new diverse talent pools so having a returners programme seemed a great addition to our current recruitment channels. Returners have amazing past work experiences with skills that are in short supply in the open recruitment market – this coupled with their enthusiasm and energy has made the investment in a Returners Programme very worthwhile. Career Returners provided us with all the support we needed in setting up our programme and we’ve received some great feedback about the coaches and support provided to the returners themselves. We’re looking forward to building on the success of this year’s scheme with our Returners Programme for 2024.”
Head of HR
EDF Business Solutions
Print
“J.P. Morgan launched the ReEntry Programme in 2013 in New York with the goal of offering experienced professionals who are on a career break of two years or more the support and resources needed to relaunch their careers. We extended our programme to the UK in 2015 and we’re really happy to be part of a cross-industry network here that shares learnings and best practices. ReEntry today operates in 20 locations around the world, and we could not be more proud of our returners and the team who work so hard to make this happen."
Global ReEntry Program Lead
J.P.Morgan
BT logo
"Attracting and retaining diverse talent is a key priority for us in BT Business. Career Returners have helped us access a truly diverse pool of talent that matched the critical skills that we need for our teams. We have been blown away with the calibre, engagement and potential of the 18 colleagues who make up our first 2024 cohort. The guidance and expertise that Career Returners provide has helped us put some real structure and rigour into how we support Returners when they join BT Business. They understand the Returner demographic so well. Returning to the workplace after an extended break is a huge step, so getting this right and ensuring the transition back to the workplace is as smooth and supported as can be is really important to us. We’re looking forward to working with Career Returners again this year and welcoming our second cohort in autumn 2024."
Head of Talent Acquisition
BT
DEL_PRI_CMYK
“Women Returners [now Career Returners] was an obvious partner for us to work with on our pilot returnship in 2022, based on their unmatched return-to-work experience and knowledge. Their expert advice and guidance at every step of the design, engagement and recruitment stages was invaluable and their Manager Training and Returner Coaching provided essential tailored support. The partnership ensured that the pilot was a huge success and the returner programme has become a key part of our Inclusion strategy. We look forward to continuing our strong working relationship."
Inclusion Lead and Return to Work Programme Manager
Deloitte Ireland
Bank of England 150x100 Conf sponsor
“The Bank has found partnering with Women Returners [now Career Returners] truly invaluable. They have been involved with our programme since its inception in 2018 and were successfully re-awarded the contract following a competitive retender process. Their expertise in the Returner market and the advice, guidance, and support that they have been able to provide has been incredibly useful. Our Career Returners Programme has welcomed over 100 professionals who have taken career breaks ranging from 2 to nearly 30 years and has a very high conversion rate to permanent colleagues. We’re looking forward to continuing the partnership with [Career] Returners.”
Programme Lead
Bank of England