STEM-experienced Women ReLaunch Careers at P&G

In a world where digital-everything is exploding, and STEM experience is in high demand, how do you fill open roles with talent that has the STEM skills you urgently need, and a diversity of thinking proven to help grow your business?

If you’re April Cielica of P&G’s IT organization in Cincinnati, you create ReLaunch—a program designed to recruit STEM-experienced women who are looking to re-enter the workforce after pausing their careers for personal reasons.

“Women have told me when they tried to come back into the workforce, they were advised that the easiest way was to pursue another degree and get back into the university recruiting pipeline,” says Cielica.

Knowing that the fast evolution of technology instills a learning mindset in STEM professionals, Cielica realized P&G could help women fast-track their re-entry into the workforce—and the company would benefit, too, “P&G gets motivated recruits who have specialized skills in businesses where we have limited experience and bring ‘how things are done elsewhere’ insights that generate new ideas and approaches to benefit our business. Our STEM-experienced hires get support in learning the latest STEM developments, establishing new networks, and flexibility that makes it easier to re-enter the workforce and have a very successful career.”

The first ‘ReLaunchers’ joined P&G early this year—and have been so successful that P&G leaders across the U.S. are queuing up to hire more.

Marlon Sylvester in Capital Management was trying to fill a role internally—with no success. “I definitely needed an experienced person given the nature of the business and our business partners. So, I took a leap of faith and decided to try the ReLaunch program.”

Sylvester hired Tracy Sandefur, who had progressed her IT acumen and leadership responsibilities for twenty years at IBM before deciding to stay home several years to care for her children. Now a P&G employee, Tracy is charged with developing an architecture framework that can create a roadmap across different systems where data resides and analyze it seamlessly.

Sylvester appreciates that he was able to fast-forward Tracy’s integration to quickly begin creating value, “She has the overall maturity to assess a situation and probe beyond the surface to understand the core issue and focus there. That comes from working in tech industry, from being a full-time mom, and from raising a family.”

Says Sandefur of her experience, “Having been in IT a long time, you understand things like taking apart mainframes. You may not need that knowledge anymore, but it helps you to more quickly understand the next level of technology.

For me, the biggest opportunity was modernizing my IT knowledge. As I sharpen my skills, it’s not like ‘oh my gosh, this is completely, new crazy stuff.’ It’s like ‘Oh, I did it this way; now I’ll do it this way.’ Almost as if you are learning local colloquialisms.”

The resounding success of the inaugural ReLaunch class has spread across P&G functions, proving the effectiveness of this innovative program—and creating the draw to make it a standard recruiting practice. For example, our Grooming business is looking fill STEM roles at our headquarters in Boston.

If you know a STEM-experienced woman who is interested in re-entering the workforce after an absence of two years or more, please share this link: www.pgcareers.com/relaunch