Happy Returns?

Trisha Almeida had been working at an information-systems company for nine years when she quit after her maternity leave ran out. “I wanted to give my son, Aidan, my undivided attention,” says the San Francisco mom, who gave birth in 2012. By the time Aidan was 4, Trisha was ready to lean back in. She started networking and posting her resume on job sites with little success. “I got a lot of calls over six months, but once they realized I’d been on a break, it wouldn’t go further,” she says. “I never expected people to think twice about hiring someone with my many years of experience.”

Trisha’s trouble getting hired after being a stay-at-home mom doesn’t surprise Tami Forman, executive director of Path Forward, a nonprofit founded in 2016 that has created temporary positions in 35 companies for women who’ve been out of the workforce. “Managers are reticent to make a hiring decision that could backfire. When they’re looking at two resumes, and one has a gap and one doesn’t, the one without the gap feels like the safer bet.” Add to that the mostly unfounded fear