Rebecca Joy

11/12/2025

My lovely parents …! I’m soooooo looking forward to this workshop with Dress for Success Canada Foundation — it’s one week away! 🙌🏼

If you’ve taken a career break, and are in workforce re-entry mode, you’re likely no stranger to self-doubt.

🫠”I’ve been out of the workforce for too long- who will ever hire me?”

🫠 “My resume gap shows no recent experience - what do I do?”

🫠 “I’ve been applying with no bites … what’s wrong with me?”

Let’s build up that confidence, together! Join us on Wed, November 19 ET / 4pm PT

👇🏼 Comment below if you plan to join or tag someone you know who may benefit! 🤗

11/17/2024

Moms returning to the workforce, what challenges are you facing?

Join us for our webinar, “Re-entry Moms: Job Search Tools to Build Confidence."

The initial stages of re-entry are riddled with self-doubt ... let's exchange that for a confidence boost --

I'm excited to deliver a session next week that'll empower you with strategies to streamline your job search after a career break.

👉🏼 Tuesday, November 19

@ 5pm PST | 7pm CST | 8pm EST

Hosted by Eston Ferraton of Dress For Success Winnipeg.

** Bring your queries / biggest roadblocks to submit for a dedicated Q&A session at the end! **

Link to register below 🤗

10/22/2024

I'm excited to collaborate with Dress For Success Winnipeg to bring a workshop / webinar for those in early stages of re-entry.

We will discuss how to navigate employment gaps / career breaks on a resume, how non-negotiables can streamline your job search, the benefit of a simple skills audit, and how aligning your job search to your life season is epically important!

Please join us on November 19 @ 5pm PST | 7pm CST | 8pm EST

Image description (ID) and registration link in comments (or just scan QR)!

Looking forward to seeing you there! And don't forget to bring all your burning questions for the Q&A afterwards :)

06/13/2024

I just wrapped up my re-entry beta program last month, and am amped to share with you that my next cohort will start in September 🙌🏼

The program I've built is designed to launch you into

✨knowing your worth,
✨feeling confident about what you bring to the table,
and
✨feeling worthy of applying for roles that excite you 😃

The mamas who worked with me these past weeks told me that ALL re-entry modules either

met expectations ✔️
exceeded expectations 🙌🏼
OR

blew their minds 🔥
​

I've identified 10 modules, or pillars, that are crucial to re-entry confidence & success,

and I made a short guide to walk you through all ten pillars of workforce re-entry.

Download your 10 PILLARS to re-entry SUCCESS — free guide 👇🏼

Share in the comments:

Which pillar surprised you the most?

Whichever pillar are you currently focused on?

Which one are you headed toward next?

Launching your workforce re-entry after a stint away from pay, caring for kids full-time? If you don't know where to start OR are lost along the way, I got you! Download your guide: 10 PILLARS to WORKFORCE RE-ENTRY SUCCESS!

06/05/2024

Yup, that's right ... the second round of my workforce re-entry program is running this fall!

If you know you need support in your re-entry job search journey, I'd be stoked to have you.

I'm looking for 12 mamas for my SEPTEMBER 2024 program!

More details to come...
Stay tuned!

05/27/2024

📢 Results are in!
[ 91% yes / I think so VS. 9% no ]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you "think" you've experienced maternal bias in the job search

— and wouldn't feel confident to answer "No, I have not" —

then it's likely that, yes, you've come up against maternal bias.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this poll 🙏🏻

We know maternal bias is a pervasive issue, so I am not at all surprised at the results as a whole.

I wanted to get a sense of *how* women experience it —

whether it's a straight-up in your face experience

OR

whether it's an elusive, hard-to-put-your-finger-on-it type experience.

To be honest, I thought the "elusive" category would be much larger 🧐

It's disheartening to see that in 2024

the "it wasn't subtle" answer

was by far the largest category of YES

when it comes to experiencing maternal bias.

Le sigh. Not sure why I thought maybe this would've become less in-your-face these days ...

The issue runs deeper than maternal bias.

➡ Caregiver bias (hits dads/parents/caregivers)

Any type of time away from paid work to perform unpaid care flies in the face of "ideal worker norms," which speak to

✴ Steady career path
✴ Full-time commitment
✴ Continuous availability
✴ Uninterrupted career focus
✴ Lack of personal responsibilities (outside of paid work, such as domestic tasks and care)

It goes without saying that this ideal worker norm is outdated and harmful. (Yet it is consistently used to measure & rank potential talent)

➡ Broader gender inequality

UN report (linked in comments) points to the Gender Social Norms Index, concluding close to 90 percent of men and women across the globe hold some sort of bias against women. This number remained unchanged from 2020 to 2023...

In fact, the data shows no improvement in biases against women over the past *decade* 🤯

➡ Masculinity

I'm quite sure maternal bias is related to ideas around masculinity + stigma for men in caregiving roles.

I plan to explore the connection further -- please tag anyone in this realm of work or research. I'd love to connect!

(Of course these things: maternal bias, caregiver bias, gender inequality, masculinity are deeply embedded within the context of a global capitalist economy, which cannot be ignored...)

💡 What are your thoughts on all of this? I would love to hear insights, analysis, stories, ideas ... 🙏🏻

Apologies to my Facebook peeps: I shared results on LinkedIn but forgot to share here 🙂

Image description in comments.

The Mom Project Women Back to Work The Female Quotient HireMamas iRelaunch

02/11/2024

Moms: How do you experience maternal bias in workforce re-entry -- Is it

Evident (not subtle at all)? 😑
OR
Elusive (hard to put a finger on)? 🤔

👉🏼 Maternal bias is when mothers are viewed as less competent or less committed. In the context of hiring and recruitment, they are passed over for interviews and/or job offers.

The perception of a mother's lack of competence and commitment within a paid work sphere is rooted in a harmful, outdated concept of “ideal worker” that reflects corporate mid-20th-century workplaces + 50s breadwinner/homemaker setups.

Sociologist Joan Acker (1990) and Harvard law professor Joan C. Williams (1999) spoke to this 👆🏼 in their work ... and yes ... nothing's changed.

Why are we as a society still, in 2024, operating from a 75-year-old norm?

We've arrived at an unprecedented point in history with the rise of AI ... and after learning that maternity-related resume gaps triggered biased results in LLMs (NYU 2023) - [[ not subtle ]] - I wonder how can we embrace LLMs to boost efficiency in hiring?

Can we train them in new narratives? Neuroscience behind leadership strengths of mothers/caregivers/parents, for example?

It's alarming that old biases creep so easily into innovative tech. Mitigating that creep has gotta be prioritized. (On all fronts, not just maternal bias).

I digress...

I'm curious if the bias you've encountered during a workforce re-entry is out in the open, or more elusive ... ?

I’d love for you to participate in the poll on LinkedIn with your answer 👇🏼

(If you’re not on the platform and are planning a job search soon, this is your nudge to get over there, create a simple profile, and vote! 🙌🏼)



https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rebeccajoytromsness_careerbreak-mom-motherhood-activity-7161358012413005824-JusN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_iosh

01/24/2024

Yet another study to add to the pile of research that maternal bias in hiring and recruitment skews decision-making ...

This past fall 2023, researchers at New York University, led by electrical and computer engineering professor Siddharth Garg, found that maternity-related employment gaps triggered pronounced biased results in Large Language Models (LLMS).

Garg said: "Employment gaps for parental responsibility, frequently exercised by mothers of young children, are an understudied area of potential hiring bias.

This research suggests those gaps can wrongly w**d out otherwise qualified candidates when employers rely on LLMs to filter applicants."

The team examined bias in LLMs — advanced AI systems trained to understand and generate human language — when used in hiring processes.

The study (linked in comments) looked at three state-of-the-art LLMS — ChatGPT-3.5, Google’s Bard, and Claude — and the results raise concerns over bias and discrimination.

Some sort of automation in the hiring process is a given in 2024; over 98% of Fortune 500 companies use applicant tracking systems, and LLMs are of great interest to employers to boost efficiency in hiring via algorithmic tasks, the report says.

It would be nice for LLMs to recognize the full scope of *work* performed and *skill* sharpened during maternity/parental leave and full-time care for children ... Instead of labeling maternity info as "liability" perhaps LLMs could be trained to take a cue from neuroscience.

Neuroscientists [majority female] have recently set the record straight regarding postpartum brain restructuring toward specialization in particular areas:
- learning
- empathy
- planning
- stress-management
- emotional regulation (EQ)
- attuned to the needs of others (enhanced non-verbal communication)

and more ...

But sufficient data is an issue: There's 9X more research in men and male animals than in women and female animals in neuroscience and psychiatry studies from 2009-2019. That's a significant [massive] gap in research.

I digress ...

Diary of An Honest Mom
The Female Quotient
iRelaunch
The Mom Project
Moms at Work

AI systems were fed hundreds of resumes and rejected women who listed their maternity leave gap. The tech reported 'leave is not relevant to the job and could be seen as a liability.'

01/13/2024

Centering hiring & recruitment decisions on finding the “ideal candidate” doesn’t work in 2024.

Why?

Ideal candidacy is rooted in harmful outdated notions of the “idea worker norm”

Which is full commitment to work above all else.

Fact: 73% of the US workforce identifies as “caregiver,”

which means workers have care responsibilities after they clock out —

for children as well as elderly, ill, and disabled family-members and friends.

In Canada, 35% of the workforce was a caregiver (as of 2012 stats), and one in two will become a caregiver in the near future

👆🏼
… these stats do NOT include parents of 6 million Canadian families with children).

Over half of working Canadians have some level of unpaid care.

Thankful for ideas42 for their brilliant behavioural-science-based paper on the opportunity employers have to create an “ideal workplace.”

As Nike’s Director of Social Media Engagement Sami Unrau and others have said, resetting the default at the workplace is the way forward,

instead of clinging to ideals that reflect outdated corporate mid-20th century workplaces.

When majority of workers don’t fit the “ideal,” something’s gotta give.

My article for the Canadian Education and Research Institution for Counselling (CERIC) is live — give a read!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments,

💡 Should employers center flexibility for all employees across the board in order to reflect current demographics and fastest-growing workplace identity group?

Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence
Moms at Work

Thanks again to CERIC’s CareerWise editor Lindsay Purchase 🙌🏼

12/27/2023

Yes, indeed …
But it doesn’t have to be that way!

I’ve been on the workforce re-entry beat since summer 2022, after doing research for my own prospective re-entry

and finding depressingly perplexing results.

Indeed’s survey of stay-at-home mothers (SAHM) returning to the workforce is from May 2023 (link in comments) …

Survey facts:

🫠 73% of women re-entering the workforce reported encountering biases in the hiring process due to their status as a SAHM …

🫠 93% of the women who were surveyed said they had experienced or anticipated experiencing challenges reentering the workforce

The bias and challenges of these women reflect a much greater cultural acceptance of an outdated division of labour between

domestic [unpaid labour & care] and public [paid labour] work spheres,

rooted in the “ideal worker norm” (which is commitment to paid work above other responsibilities).

The Forbes article below references sociologist Correll’s 2007 study, which found that childless women recieved 2.1 times as many call backs as equally qualified mothers.

💡 Mothers are undesirable candidates compared to other candidates.

👉🏼 , maternal bias, discimination at play

Sociologist Kate Weisshaar’s 2018 study — over a decade later — found that call-backs double for parents who are unemployed when compared to parents coming off a career break from stay-at-home parent status.

💡 Stay-at-home parents are undesirable candidates compared to unemployed parents with the same length of time away from the workforce.

👉🏼 caregiver bias, maternal bias, discrimination based on perceived commitment to family over career

“Stay-at-home” anything as a parental status title needs to be retired for good.

Nothing about parenting has anything to do with the verb “stay”

… Other than when framed within the toxic ideal worker norm,

where one parent — father— is the breadwinner who “goes to [paid] work”

and his spouse — mother — “stays home” to do unpaid [unrecognized, devalued, invisible] work in the domestic sphere.

Words convey meaning.

And “stay at home parent” is meaningless if we as a society claim to recognize and value unpaid labour.

The continued use of the term signals our collective societal agreement that unpaid labour counts for nothing,

and indeed, mothers who care full-time for children “stay” away from pay,

and the domestic sphere is all theirs

while their

deservingness, commitment, capability, reliability

within a work-for-pay environment

is questioned.

🔥 This is why I created the Joy Before Work re-entry program.

Consider joining us in January 2024 for sixteen weeks of confidence-building, workshopping, re-entry strategy, and community 🤗

If you’re a —- which I call “full-time unpaid caregiver parent” — or if you know someone whose re-entry has been challenging,

we’d love to see you in Jan!
Still 6 spots left 🙌🏼

Deets to apply in comments.

12/21/2023

Dads with job-search spouses, this is for you!
(Esp. if her progress is slow + confidence low)

💡 Did your partner’s career take a backseat to yours when your kid(s) were born?

Because
(It made more sense for the one making more to continue making more, right? Many couples land on this decision for mere practical, pocketbook reasons)

💡 Is your partner the “default parent” / “primary parent”

Which means they are the first contact on school or daycare email list, pick up kids when sick, the first to turn to when kids have big emotions, endless energy, hard questions, bottomless tummies, night terrors, illness, accidents, big ideas, wishes, stories, friend drama, Santa lists, …

That’s invisible emotional labour poured out on demand.

💡 Are you given praise for any child-related / family-related accomplishment?

Because
(Fathers are rewarded in the workplace more than childless men)

While your partner is expected to do those same things [with zero notice or praise] as part and parcel of her motherhood identity?

(And when they do the child-related “things” they lose proximity to promotions, career mobility, and miss out on a chunk of their pay after babies,

all the while their commitment, reliability, and competence is consistently questioned).
Because

💡 Is your partner the secret, quiet, invisible wind beneath your wings

That you didn’t (or did) realize ?

Part of your success is dependent on their “back seat” career status? Not because you asked them to (neccessarily),

but because current society is designed for this to “make sense”

based on harmful, outdated norms?

…

None of this is about you, personally, by the way.

These facts 👆🏼paint a picture of the society we continue to live in and come up against.

Imagine a world where the gender pay gap and fatherhood bonus didn’t exist.

Many fathers would be released from the immense pressure of breadwinner expectations that stem from toxic masculinity, gender stereotypes, ideal worker norms… 🥹😭

I digress …

If this lovey human has stepped out of paid work
+ is re-entering the workforce at any point, they will need support.

From you.

Invest in her.

Many full-time caregiver moms/parents

😞lose their sense of identity,
😞lose confidence,
😞lose momentum

when coming up against a career/workforce re-entry riddled with maternal bias.

My ask to successful fathers who would love to see their partner’s job search soar:

Consider gifting her with confidence this year ✨🫶🏻

Especially if she’s been financially dependent up to this point, it’s your opportunity to show her you believe in her.

🤗 👇🏼 Ask her if she’d benefit 👇🏼🤗

Program deets & link to apply are in comments below👇🏼☺️