A Helping Hand For Mothers Looking For New Opportunities
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After moving to Connecticut following a divorce, Angelina Capalbo found herself working temporary jobs for which she was overqualified so that she could be sure to pick up her daughter before the day care center closed.
With the help of a new business that assists mothers eager to return to meaningful work outside the home, she landed a full-time position as a marketing specialist at a small business near her Farmington home.
Capalbo is one of the first clients to be placed by Untapped Potential, a business launched by former optical engineer Candace Freedenberg. The Canton resident is like the people she’s trying to help; while taking time away from corporate work to raise her three children, ages 12 to 17, she used the skills she honed at IBM and Kodak for her volunteer work.
Freedenberg began her business with a social mission nearly a year ago to help educated moms who had stepped away from demanding professions return to jobs that matched their skills and experience.
Her goal was to give women who had been serving on PTOs, town boards and sports and arts organizations the confidence, connections and current skills they needed to tackle the challenges of returning to the workforce.
While attending a networking event organized by women’s leadership coach Kelley Biskupiak in early 2015, Freedenberg had her “ah ha moment.” She looked around the room at the other stay-at-home and under-employed moms, realizing that many, like her, had master’s degrees in business and undergraduate degrees from prestigious colleges.
“They want to contribute and they’re not participating,” Freedenberg says she thought.
The Gig Economy
“There’s some major brainpower sitting in New England’s playgrounds,” said Susan Rietano Davey, of Avon, a partner in Stamford-based Flexible Resources and a leadership coach to Untapped Potential’s clients. “We’ve done the studies. We know your best hire is almost always the mom. They don’t have time to get trapped in the politics.
Candace Freedenberg, left, and business partner Christina Mitchell, center, of Untapped Potential, work with client Dana Kosior, right, of Canton, at LaSalle Market Cafe in Collinsville July 27. (Emily Kask / Hartford Courant)
“Most have made a decision to create a career lattice that allows them to stay challenged and engaged, but not give up their firstborn’s blood,” Davey said.
Freedenberg switched from full-time to part-time work after the birth of her second child. While pregnant with her third child, a corporate shuffle made her position full-time so she decided to leave her rewarding and challenging career.
“I wanted the opportunity to raise my own children,” Freedenberg said. She knows she’s lucky to have had the financial means to make that choice, she said, adding, “It’s been so fulfilling.”
Some women keep working full-time even though they’d like to cut back to be with their kids, because they’re afraid that if they get off the ladder they’ll never get back on. Others take low-paying work for which they’re overqualified, like retail or paraprofessional teaching, so that they can work around their kids’ schedules.
When they try to return to the professions they left, they can’t get to the first step because resume-screening software rejects those with an employment gap, Freedenberg said.
Untapped Potential offers multiple options to businesses. One, called a ‘maternity match,’ seeks to give businesses the opportunity to retain their existing staff by providing experienced professionals for a 12-week period to cover for an employee who is on maternity leave and may not want to immediately return to full-time work.
Untapped Potential, a social enterprise — a for-profit business with a social mission — has received start-up support and guidance through reSET, a Hartford-based, nonprofit organization whose mission is to help launch and support social enterprises. Untapped Potential was accepted to reSET’s annual, five-month accelerator program. The program provides entrepreneurs direction on every area of business development.
More than a third of the U.S. workforce participates in what is known as the “gig economy,” a fast-growing sector where consultants without benefits or freelancers work on a short-term basis. Untapped Potential doesn’t charge clients for coaching, resume help, peer networking and job placement.
Instead, Untapped Potential earns revenue by taking a small percentage of the flat fee businesses pay when they bring in a temporary, freelance worker. If the business is hiring a permanent staff person, it pays a flat placement fee.
Freedenberg says she wants “to change the way that short period of motherhood is viewed, by encouraging employers to see the value in the experience” and maturity of mothers.
By agreeing to hire someone who is pivoting to a new field or has been away from work for a time, Freedenberg said companies are getting someone with experience and talent for a discounted rate.
It also gives businesses a chance to try someone out for three months without making a commitment.
For mid-career women who may want to use skills developed while volunteering or who want to bring their career in a different direction, Untapped Potential helps them find what amounts to paid, mid-career internships.
Tapping a Mother’s Value
Untapped Potential partners with businesses seeking to hire professionals to fill a temporary need, or, like in Capalbo’s case, hire someone with a high level of skill at what is essentially a bargain rate.
“Because of where she is in her career, I get a better skill set than I could have hired at this price point,” said Beth Kandrysawtz, chief executive officer of Motorlease Corporation, an automobile leasing firm in Farmington where Capalbo was hired.
A mother of two teens herself, Kandrysawtz not only likes the idea of helping another mom, she said, she feels she gets a motivated, loyal employee.
“It’s a very short period in life when you’re juggling young children,” Kandrysawtz said. “If you can be supportive during that phase, you get more committed employees.”
Capalbo’s new job makes use of her social media, marketing, technical and executive assistant skills. After a couple of years of not being able to find a job that matched her abilities, she landed this position after Freedenberg helped her to update her resume to include the skills she acquired from forming two startup businesses.
“I knew I was capable of so much more,” Capalbo said. Before her daughter’s birth, “I had worked my way up the corporate ladder. I needed to find a new career. I needed to tap into my potential.”
Untapped Potential will host a networking event geared to working and stay-at-home moms in Hartford, on Aug. 4 from 6 to 8 p.m. For more information or to register go to www.upotential.org.
