This woman helps overqualified housewives break up with their career breaks
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It starts with two lines on a pregnancy test. You feel ready to step into motherhood but are determined to not let it change you or your life. Cut to nine months later, all your days are spent between changing nappies, being your newborn’s human pacifier, and squeezing in a nap whenever possible. While your brain runs on overdrive trying to cut through the post-pregnancy brain fog, realisation hits, everything has indeed changed.
Back in 2021, Chennai-based Sankari Sudhar too found herself in a role she had neither anticipated nor prepared for, that of an overqualified housewife. A computer science graduate from the prestigious Anna University in Chennai, Sudhar had spent eight years climbing the IT ladder, juggling deadlines, and debugging code. But with the birth of her son, life threw her a curveball. “I thought managing a baby and a career would be a breeze. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t,” she recalls.
With her parents living far away and no support system in place, returning to a full-time, 9-to-5 IT job seemed impossible. She considered doing freelance work but realised she didn’t have the required skills to take on projects individually because her IT experience had been limited to working in teams. To add to that, when she signed up for a few job portals, she was bombarded with spam calls and unreliable opportunities. “That’s when I thought, let me start a business. Though I worked in IT, I wasn’t passionate about my work. So I thought if this is going to be my second inning, I should do something I really like that I can see myself doing long term.” Initially, Sudhar considered going the traditional way — taking a franchise or starting a chai shop but all of it required a significant investment of time and money which Sudhar wasn’t ready for then.
Like many new moms, Sudhar grappled with sleepless nights, a fussy infant, and a plummeting sense of belief in herself. “Even during my short career break, I could feel the hit to my self-confidence.” But, she soon realised she wasn’t alone. “I started connecting with old friends and colleagues, and the story was the same everywhere. Highly educated women, sitting at home, unable to rejoin the workforce after having kids,” Sudhar says. These conversations planted the seed for what would eventually become Overqualified Housewives, a platform designed to help women get back to work after a career break.
“We have women with advanced degrees sitting at home because traditional workplaces don’t cater to the realities of motherhood,” she says. For most women, the idea of going back to a high-pressure 9-5 while raising a child is daunting. For others, the lack of confidence and an up-to-date skill set creates hurdles.
Sudhar decided to create a solution that was practical and empowering. In August 2022, she soft-launched Overqualified Housewives with a post on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram linking to the website with a signup sheet. The premise was simple: to match businesses that needed skilled professionals with women looking for flexible work opportunities. While it’s not restricted to just new moms or married women looking to get back to work after a break, Sudhar says that most of the women who register with them happen to be married with kids, in a long career break. The platform started small, supporting just a few skill sets, such as content writing, HR and graphic design.
Within ten days of her posts on social media, over 1,000 women had registered. “I was expecting those numbers in three months,” Sudhar says. Soon, businesses began signing up too, drawn to the untapped potential of a demographic often dismissed by traditional hiring practices.
The platform operates with a unique model, where the hiring organisations pay a fee to the platform for each successful hire, while the job aspirants can register for free. Overqualified Housewives provides opportunities for freelance, part-time and full-time jobs and the salaries can range anywhere between ₹10,000 – ₹80,000 depending on the type of work profile you’re matched with. They currently work with a range of small and medium enterprises and startup companies in fields like content writing, HR, business development and sales and technology.
Sudhar also introduced weekly skill development programs, where industry experts from different fields are invited to talk about recent trends and new skill requirements. The women who register for it are charged a nominal ₹199 per session and it helps them get acquainted with the skills they need to learn to transition back into a job. These sessions, conducted via Zoom, cover everything from writing a standout resume to the basics of freelancing.
In the last two and a half years, Overqualified Housewives has provided direct employment opportunities that were aligned with their new lifestyle and changed skills to over 1000 women by connecting them with vetted companies. While they operate across the country, so far, most placements have been in the Southern part of the country.
One such story is that of 33-year-old Smrithi Radhakrishnan. With a master’s in electrical engineering, Radhakrishnan worked as an assistant professor in Tamil Nadu until marriage and motherhood in 2021 led to a career break. Life as a new mom and a move to Goa for her husband’s job made it harder to return to her old field. After a break of three years, she was ready to rejoin the workforce and decided to pivot to digital marketing and SEO so she could work remotely. She upskilled by completing a six-month entrepreneurial internship and earning Google Analytics certifications before jumping into the deep end of the job pool. “In 2023, I found Overqualified Housewives on LinkedIn and registered. They sent me relevant opportunities, and I eventually secured a flexible, well-paying part-time role with an understanding boss. I’m grateful for their support and have recommended them to friends seeking flexible jobs,” says Radhakrishnan.
For women wanting to get back into the workforce, Sudhar has one piece of advice: “Never let anyone lowball you into a lower pay than what you deserve but at the same time be open to roles that’ll allow you to learn. Prioritise learning and upskilling since you’re restarting after a break rather than focusing entirely on the package.”
Overqualified Housewives today has over 33,000 women and 700 businesses in its database. But Sudhar acknowledges that getting women back into the workforce isn’t just about matching resumes with job descriptions — there are other big challenges, “First, there’s the confidence gap. Many women are afraid to even tell their families they want to restart their careers. Second, there’s the skill gap. Industries evolve quickly, and a two-year break can feel like a lifetime. Finally, there’s the support system—or lack thereof, particularly in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where women’s access to money and open-minded family dynamics is limited. I’ve had women tell me they can’t afford the ₹200 for a skill development session because their husbands wouldn’t allow it,” Sudhar says.
Despite the hurdles, Sudhar is optimistic about the future. Her team, now seven women strong, is working to expand the platform’s reach. They are launching a web application for businesses to sign up for hiring on a yearly subscription basis to streamline the process. Sudhar also plans to make the skill development programs free and introduce in-depth certification courses to help women become industry-ready. “This isn’t just about giving women jobs; it’s about building confidence and giving them the door of opportunities to walk through,” she says. While she’s just getting started, Sudhar is already proving that motherhood isn’t the end of the road—it’s just the beginning of a new chapter.
