A friend of mine, the mother of six, just had a job interview. While she didn’t try to hide the fact that she had children, she also wasn’t planning to share that she had six of them. So, imagine her surprise when one of the interviewers said, “So you have six children. I’ve just read your CV and it was on there.”
It wasn’t. She believes the interviewer found out by speaking with a friend of hers who worked for the same company or by looking at her Facebook page. She has her privacy settings at an appropriate level, but her cover photo was a family picture–complete with all six children.
Her husband has a similar picture as his cover photo–albeit with five kids (pre-latest baby). He’s never, ever, not once been asked about family size in a job interview. And why should he? It’s not part of doing the job. It wasn’t part of the job my friend applied for, so why ask?
To keep reading, click here: Anti-Mom Bias is Real and Based in Reality
Anti-mom bias is real. However, it is not “based in reality,” to the extent that phrase connotes the stereotypes being valid and the discrimination justified.
One of the key issues is workplace flexibility, regardless. I’m male and, frankly, I’d rather work from home and/or be part-time (I’m in IT). I came near quitting my job when my kids were 3 and 6 years old, because my job unexpectedly became fly-out-Sunday-evening/return-late-Friday trudgery. The only reason I didn’t quit: the long-distance project collapsed before I could land another job. Now that I’m nearing retirement and the kids are all 21 or older, I’d *still, really* prefer to work part-time and/or remotely. I’ll never move up the corporate ladder, but I just don’t care that stuff.
I’ve always given the following resume-writing advice to job seekers. And this advice now applies to social media, as well as to resumes:
Do not put anything on your resume that reveals facts upon which discrimination can be based.
– Don’t list the year you earned your degrees; that can reveal your age.
– Don’t list personal information, like “proud father of six and husband to Bill”.
– Don’t list religious affiliations, like “elder at Church/temple.”
– Don’t list racially-based affiliations like, “grand drangon for my local Klaven of the Ku Klux Klan”, or “member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.”
– Don’t list political affiliations like the NRA, the area Party, etc.
And don’t put this stuff on your social media accounts.
If you make this information known, managers can discriminate against you. So good hiring managers don’t even want to know this information.
It is amazing how much information can be made available on a google search, like in this company backtracking this applicant from a friends connection. It has gotten to the point where setting privacy and limiting who sees your posts have to be vetted on how they use the information, they shared from your site.
But to the main point of this article, being a mom causing hiring and working problems, this falls right into a discrimination problem. There should have been no reason for the company to do a Facebook search unless being socially active is a job requirement but this photo was seen via another person’s Facebook page.
Companies that feel that women who are Moms aren’t fitting into the mode of worker they so desire should post job openings listing specific job requirements–hours required, performance, etc. They should also list how they view job schedule flexibility because most jobs don’t have to follow that old mandate of 9-5 business hours to achieve business ends.
It is time to break the mode as job schedule flexibility is a key motivation for getting good employees.
Again this was a clear case of discrimination, plus I wouldn’t be so friendly with that friend who shared that photo as it appears that the friend was clearly working against her being considered for the position,
“So you have six children. I’ve just read your CV and it was on there.”
Wow! just wow! I’m guessing that she was too floored by it to think to ask “where on my CV is it?” or some other comeback.
Too many times I think of a great comeback AFTER the interview that was out of bounds.