Would you mention that you had children at a job interview?

oreocrumbs, even leaving aside what your mum was asked to do, how did she decide who had children of nursery age?

My mother was in charge of sorting people (mainly women) as candidates for interview in a public sector job and her 'brief' was to look for women who had children beyond nursery age. The reason - less likley to go on maternity leave and once the children are past nursery age mothers are less clingy and not as inclined to stay off if the children are ill. Mum said she lost count of the number of brilliant cv she threw away without them even being considered as they were the wrong age/stage of parenting. This is the public sector! I was shocked!

It all comes down to the attitudes of the employer - male or female doesn't matter.
I've had a lovely male boss who had the same view's as poledra's former boss re: working mums and their excellent time management. He actively supported me when I went p/t.

But I've also had shocking male and female bosses who - even though some had children themselves - would not employ mothers - and discriminated against mums already in the workplace.

It's still a workplace/industry lotto as to whether you will be greeted with open arms or as a pariah as a working mum.

I wouldn't unless it was necessary - i.e. to explain a significant gap in employment, as it probably sounds better to say you took a career break because of family responsibilities, rather than have them assume you were just unemployed!

Otherwise I can't even imagine how it would come up. I don't know whether it would lead to discrimination, but it would probably sound a bit weird and unprofessional to start going on about your children in an interview!

21 years ago (I was 19) I was interviewed for a fairly basic admin job in a male-dominated industry. I had worked there as a temp for weeks already so they knew me and were happy with my work.
Anyway, I used to wear a ring that just happened to be on my engagement finger.
They asked me at interview (and I was a bit angry about it tbh) if I was "you know, umm err, going to get married, and then umm err you might want to have children and leave etc".
I looked the male interviewers in the eye and said clearly and politely "you do realise that you are not allowed to ask me that".
I then added that actually I was not engaged and even if I was it had no relevance to the interview.

i would love to work in parent-oriented company

I did, on the same basis as Tortoise. I was taking a 30% pay cut and moving out of the city where I was doing very well in a professional job to move in house.

It has worked very well. My office is full of parents, everyone has photos up and there is absolutely no question that if you have to go / work from home for a family related reason, you do so.

I was directly asked in an final round interview if I had children and when I said yes was told - by the female MD - that in her opinion working mothers did neither job well ( i.e. both work and parenting)... ...

This was in front of another senior member of her team who has just returned from mat leave! I nearly said.. 'I'll get me coat then'

I've been musing some more on this, and realised that, although I do not intentionally mention my children in interview, I probably do mention it to recruiters (my new job prospects these days mainly come through headhunters) as I work 4 days a week, and want to keep that going for a few years at least. So I guess the message will have got through to most prospective employers anyway.

I do think the tide is slowly turning, in my industry at least. One of my most recent bosses (a single woman with no children in her forties) said she would have absolutely no qualms about employing women with small children as they were the best time-managers she'd ever come across and they generally fitted in as much work as anyone else even with time-constraints of having to leave for school pick-ups etc. She did say that this generally did not apply to men with children, as it was still the women who did most of the work at home, regardless of how 'wrong' this was!

I do appreciate this is not the case for most industries- I work for one where it is easier to flex your hours and can in fact be a bonus, as global working means that vendors and colleagues can be on very different timezones. I quite often do evening TCs (with in my hand ).

I will have to when I go back to work because I have a 10 year gap.

I think my younger sister is in a worse position than me as she is childless. I think most employers will make the assumption that she will be taking a couple of mat leaves over the next 5 years or so just based on the fact that she is childless and 30.

Because of my age and because I am a woman, I think there would be an assumption by employers that I would either be getting pregnant or that I already have small children and so will have childcare issues.

For that reason, I probably would mention my children, and their ages (10 and 13), so that employers would have less reason to discriminate against me.

I have mentioned my dcs before, but wouldn't again - I can safely say that I wasn't given a job because of it. I just know it. I am not being paranoid. The woman even asked me what I would do for childcare. I naievely told her too - what I should have queried was what it had to do with her!

I am a fairly young mother of two and there is a bit of a stigma associated with that, which I wasn't too aware of until I tried to enter the working world just graduated with a young baby.

I am a bit older and wiser now since I last interviewed and would not only give them a run for their money, but I would not mention dcs until asked and even then, very carefully!

Yes, I mention them. I've been at home for quite a while with them though so in some ways I have to talk about the skills being at home with them have given me. Like others have said I show it as a positive rather than a negative.

MrIC - sadly, a man saying at interview he has children gets respect whilst a women typically doesnt. My DH proudly tells people he has 3 small DC as they then think he will be hard working as because he is male he is automatically the provider

Women with children however are usually viewed as a liability as obviously they will be the ones taking time off / not motivated

i agree with sunshine in that i am now a lone parent and figure that the three years spent learning to be judge & jury when required/ counsellor/ nurse/ activities manager/ cook, cleaner AND bottle washer/ housemaid/bank manager/personal shopper/ ... have equipped me with many transferrable skills - including being able to think on my feet and hit the ground runnning at the same time.

i was once asked in an interview if i had children, i wish i had asked the interviewer 'why? do you??'

as an employer i expect honesty from the start or IMO there is a trust issue that is going to be difficult to overcome - however, it would make no difference to me whether the applicant is male or female, i would ask the same questions regarding children/childcare

MrIC - you do get that it is an entirely different ball game if you are a man, don't you?

I have a 10 year career gap due to raising my kids and being a SAHM.

Just completed a year at college to get myself back out there. I have explained the gap on my CV as what the hell else could I say I have been doing for 10 years?

I am worried it will go against me, although my DC are hardly little anymore.

I mention my daughter at the slightest opportunity (proud dad emoticon)!
In my last two interviews (one for a PGCE, the other for a job) I also mentioned the fact that we were hoping to have a second and therefore might have to take paternity leave. I wasn't asked; I volunteered the information. Admittedly I'm in a sector (teaching) were I suppose being parent is sometimes considered a bonus as it gives you added empathy with your students.
Anyway, I got the job and a place on the course.

I interviewed at 28 weeks pregnant, not much hiding that one :) (None of them asked me if I had children though - and I didn't mention it, almost literally the elephant in the room).

I wouldn't mention it at interview, nor my role as carer to my chronically ill dh. The second is more likely to crop up in a work context, for example how having access to up-to-date information on his current meds whilst in out of hours could be useful.

I would, however, ask about travelling or overnight requirements, as both are very difficult for me because of my carer/parental responsibilities. I would not expect to have to ask about them as such things should be clearly spelt out at interview, to all candidates to help them decide if the role is suitable for them and their commitments. I will say in my old team, we had 5 people working part-time because of childcare commitments, 4 of which were men.

That said, I have two gaps on my CV which are best described as "couldn't be arsed working" - in both cases I had finished heavy-going contracts abroad and needed some chill-out time before starting again (this was when I was single) - I didn't need the money so I just didn't work. It was great! But explaining those at interview / on an application form is tricky. For one of them I put 'returning to UK from Sweden' - like that took 5 months to achieve. I'm surprised I've never been asked if I walked back or something!

I've had one interview since I had my DCs and it just didn't come up. As far as I am concerned its up to me whether I take on a role and whether we can manage the childcare. I interview a heck of a lot of people and some bring it up and some don't.

To answer Borvil - I always state both at interview and as part of the applications process what the expected hours and requirements are of the role. The person then coming to interview has to make the decision about whether they are able to fulfil those requirements. If that information wasn't passed on to the applicants for your role at interview then its the fault of your company for having poor recruitment processes, not the applicant.

It has never come up in the interview whether or not I've had children so I've never mentioned it.

It is irrelevant because even since the children were babies I have been able to do long shifts/sleepovers and residentials.
Having children has made no difference to my work.

I mentioned it for this job because they asked me why I wanted a three day a week position (given a fairly impressive resume), and that seemed a better answer than any of the other possibilities.

My previous job interview, I was headhunted, and I told them I was 10 weeks pregnant during the interview so if they wanted to offer me the job, they'd also have to give me maternity leave and I wanted to come back 4 days a week. They agreed.

I've had several interviews recently and sometimes I've mentioned it, sometimes not. My last job was part time so people have asked why I was working part time. Also, when I returned to work after maternity leave, I took a step down, in order to work part time, so people have asked about that too.

At the interview for the job I got, I was interviewed by two women in their 30s who both had small children. It was very good to know that, at that company, being a mother needn't be a disadvantage for your career path.

I'm not married or engaged but I do wear a ring on my engagement finger. I have done since I was about 12. I know that it confuses people about my marital status so I like to wear it!