Here Is How I Restarted My Career After A Three-Year Break

With relocation to Germany and a baby on the way, Varshini Sankar’s career took a backseat to her family responsibilities for 3 years. But it took just one decision to change her life — VMinclusion Taara.

Recently I read that almost 50% of the women in tech drop out of the workforce after approximately 5–8 years and most of them do not re-join. I may well have been a part of this statistic if it hadn’t been for VMinclusion Taara. After all, I did decide to take a three-year-long career break and at one point feared that I would never be able to make it back into the workforce again.

I was an ambitious woman, very focused on my career growth and personal learning trajectory. I was an engineering graduate in Electronics and Communication working with some of the finest tech firms in Chennai. From 2010 to 2015, I worked with HCL technologies, and later in November 2015, I joined VMware India, Bengaluru as a Technical Support Engineer. But then, after a year, I quit the job I loved and relocated to Germany with my husband because his job required him to be there. By the time we moved back to India, I was pregnant, and I was sure that I wanted to focus on my baby for the first few years.

I loved being with my baby every day. But I still remembered the great times I had at work with my colleagues, the challenges, and the incredible high of being able to meet every challenge thrown my way. By the time my baby was one year old, I felt my life had been reduced to diapers, feeding bottles, baby food, pacifiers. And while my baby was the love of my life, it was as if I knew nothing apart from being a mom. I’d forgotten my identity, and how invested I was with my career. More than anything else, I wanted to be financially independent and rekindle my interest in technology.

I decided to start looking at opportunities in the tech sector. And I quickly realized that in the few years that I had been away, technology had evolved significantly and that I was ill-equipped for the vastly transformed modern technology landscape. The fact that disruptive new technology trends were emerging every day just made the situation more complicated. I wanted to return to work, but I knew I would have to upskill and learn the latest technologies before that. The problem was, I didn’t know where to start. I also had some constraints on my time. With a young baby to look after I couldn’t attend physical classes or sessions. An online course that allowed me to learn at my own pace and yet offered industry-leading certifications was ideal. But the question was, where could I find a course that fits this bill?

Around this time, I spotted some social media posts shared by my former colleagues at friends at VMware. The organization had launched a unique return to work program that addressed my pain point — upskilling for women on career breaks to prepare them for an eventual return to work. Best of all, the courses were available online and self-paced, so I could schedule my learning according to my convenience. It seemed like a dream come true. I enrolled in the program immediately and today I have completed all 3 levels to become a proud Taara graduate. Best of all, I landed my dream job recently.

VMinclusion Taara has been nothing short of a boon for me. Motherhood made me resilient, efficient and a better multitasker. VMinclusion Taara helped me leverage these traits to secure a better future for myself. It gave me the courage to dream again and the wings to fly.