Return Journey is the essential guidebook for career returners. It’s a practical, psychology-backed roadmap for any professional returning to work after a career break – and for any coach, employer or friend wanting to better support a returner.
Return Journey is written by Julianne Miles, Co-Founder of Career Returners, a renowned return to work expert, a Chartered Psychologist and a successful returner herself. Listen to Julianne talking about Return Journey and her own return-to-work on our Career Returners Podcast (see below for more podcasts and articles).
Your Return-to-Work Companion
Returning to work after a career break – for childcare, eldercare, health or other reasons – can feel like a daunting prospect. No-one needs to do this alone.
Like having a wise friend by your side, Return Journey supports you at each step of the way, to return to fulfilling work and thrive in your next chapter. It blends coaching tools, evidence-based insights, real returner stories and step by step practical guidance.
The A-Z of Returning to Work
- Part I – Starting out: get past your mental blocks, boost your confidence, get clarity in your career direction
- Part II – Finding work that works: move from paralysis to action, tell your career break story, develop and implement an effective job search strategy
- Part III – Thriving back at work: prepare mentally and practically for your return, ride the emotional rollercoaster of the first six months back, go from Returner to Returned.
Drawing on Julianne’s decades of experience, she tackles the challenges all the way along the return-to-work journey – psychological, practical, societal – and helps you to navigate your way through.
This powerful book answers such questions as: Where do you even start? How do you regain a sense of professional identity after so long out of the game? Where are the role models to look up to? How do you talk confidently about your career break? How do you tackle the recruitment bias against returners? How do you set yourself up for success in your return-to-work role? How do you handle the emotional turmoil of the first few months back at work? How do you know when you’ve finally ‘returned’?
From Career Gap to Career Strength
Julianne changes the narrative around career breaks. Returning to work is not about hiding or regretting your career break or struggling to catch up. It’s about coming back stronger than ever, valuing the wealth of skills and experience you bring from before and during your career break, and building a career that is more successful and rewarding than ever before.
Available now in paperback, audiobook (read by Julianne) and e-book format, at all major retailers, including:
Hear Julianne highlighting advice from the book and talking about writing Return Journey, founding Career Returners and her own return journey:
Podcasts
- Career Returners podcast
- ‘4-Quarter Lives’ podcast
- ‘Squiggly Careers’ podcast
- ’40s women and beyond’ podcast
- Better@Work Podcast
- Minter Dial’s Leadership podcast
Articles
About the Author
Julianne Miles has supported thousands of people in their path back to work after a long career break, over the past two decades. A Chartered Psychologist and a successful returner herself, she is an internationally-recognised expert on returning to work, a pioneer in the development of corporate returner programmes and a leading voice in the returner movement.
After a first career in corporate strategy and marketing, a four-year career break, retraining as a psychologist and running her own career psychology practice, Julianne co-founded Career Returners in 2014. Career Returners is a social impact organisation that supports a global online returner community, partners with leading employers worldwide to create routes back to work, delivers return-to-work employability programmes and provides returner guidance for government bodies.
Julianne’s mission is to make career breaks a valued part of a lifetime career and to remove the career break penalty. She was awarded an MBE in 2019 in recognition of her pivotal role in changing the landscape for UK returners. She lives in London, England and has two adult children.
