am I being uresonable to not want to wear my engagement ring in an interview?

[Butternutsquash22]

I have an interview for a civil service graduate placement scheme coming up, and have decided that for a few reasons I don't want to wear my engagement ring.

I dont think it's any of their business, as it won't affect my work, but wearing it might make them think 'oh another young girl who is going to be getting married soon, so will prob want to start a family... Not worth the bother training'. H2b thinks I'm bwing paranoid but I think that it could unfairly have an affect on my chances of getting the position.

Obviously if I got the job I would wear my engagement ring at work.

Am I being unreasonable? What would you do?

KatieScarlett, I'm sure where you are it's genuinely fine, but the point is that the Civil Service (and still more the wider public sector) isn't homogenous. Where I am is 70% male, 30% female, and part-time workers are sidelined (they have to allow part-time working because of general policies on flexible working, but everyone knows it's career death).

Besides, back to the question I asked earlier - what's the downside for the OP in not wearing her ring?

Oh, and that 53% isn't as great as it looks once you break it down by grade - figures for the Senior Civil Service and Band A, please?

To carry your argument further, do you not believe that the fact that she is presumably female and seemingly fertile be enough for most sexist bastards to discount her if they were that way inclined?

Why is the addition of an engagement ring (in todays society) an indicator of likely pregnancy? What is the significance of an engagement ring? To me it says, "I'm getting married".

What is the significance of an engagement ring? To me it says, "I'm getting married".

It also means "could be thinking of starting a family soon / coming off contraception" - I hate to be so blunt, but that's just the way the unofficial HR policies of some of the offices I've worked at have been.

In the worst case IME, the grad job i took out of uni was actually a rather nice place to work for - (actually it was my 2nd out of uni job, because i ended up in a company which was a horrible place to work for before quitting, nothing to do with sexism, it was just horrible working practices, and i don't count it mentally as "my first real job there).... i ended up staying for many years in the place with my female boss who had the questionnable hiring practices.

that was the same dept that ended up firing a female employee because she couldn't get her act together with working from home and childcare (a long story in itself, and one where i personally (privately) sided with the employer because she was just taking the piss)

So yes, aside from the initial of hearing her thoughts on female grads off the record, actually it wasn't a terrible place to work in practice.

I know that sounds odd, because it's easier to paint someone who's weary of hiring "settling down age females" as the devil incarnate, but, it isn't as black and white as that.

Hope that answers your Q, blueshoe :) For the record I will be advising DD to ensure she takes off her wedding ring/engagement ring in 10 years when she's out of uni and looking for a job, if she has one/goes for a career path where this thing crops up. It's immensely sad, but I'd rather give her a realistic idea of the world rather than telling her how it should be/ how I hope it is for her
To give another example, I've never experienced salary gaps (to my knowledge) in any office where i've worked, although my role is more "output focused" than some office jobs, which perhaps enforces a certain level of accountability when it comes to auditing a co. for wage gaps. Harder to prove outright discrimination doesn't go on , if it's in figures/etc.

"seemingly fertile be enough for most sexist bastards to discount her if they were that way inclined?"

Katie, I think the issue is more than just "won't hire fertile female" - it's more subtle than that - i.e. several equally strong candidates appear - judged on seemingly the most irrelevant attributes to filter them further. Has Candidate A got good childcare backup in place? Plus points. Has Candidate B got engaged recently? NEgative points.

Rather than the "against females" thing you're more talking about - I doubt anyone is that blatent these days, or not MANY of those types of people left... I'd hope not!

I've actually sat on interview panels for people applying for graduate posts in the civil service (very unlikely to be what the OP is applying for, not least because that particular bit has now been privatised). I don't think I'd have paid any attention at all to what rings a woman was wearing, much less let it affect any decisions I made about recruiting her. Unless we were very different to other bits of the civil service, or things have changed markedly, the recruitment process is very formal, with decisions having to be justified based upon real information relating to their suitability for the post. Also lots of stuff relating to discrimination we had to be aware of and comply with. I'd be extremely, extremely surprised if wearing an engagement ring made any difference to your chances at all.

As others have said, it's not like you have to be married to have kids, and neither is a lack of engagement ring any indication that you're not about to get married. If somebody is going to be biased they'll be biased because you're a woman of child bearing age. Leave the ring off it it makes you feel better, but it really won't make any difference.

I wouldnt wear it. Even without your worry of them thinking that you might have a baby, it is in a sense volunteering more personal information than you usually would in that context. It might distract them, and also as engagement rings are quite individual there is the chance for personal taste to come into play, if your ring doesnt fit with their mental image of what the future employee should be like.

Are candidates for the Civil Service Fast Stream allowed to be asked questions about childcare backup? Or their future plans for offspring? I think not.

Anyhoo, it's been lovely guys, but got to go out for dinner and am still wearing dressing gown.

Good luck again, OP.

Me too notinbed hence the argument

I wouldn't wear it either.

And bubblewrapped - it's really insulting to say that someone who is single is less likely to be reliable than someone in a stable relationship.

If your potential is the Civil Service then it is funded by public money and,like most such bodies,doesn't give two hoots about wasting spending it so you shouldn't worry about it.

Potential employer

I'm with Katie - at least as far as the main civil service departments are concerned then the main thing they care about is whether you are the right person for the job. I also sat an interview for an excellent civil service job whilst heavily pregnant and planning to take the next year off. I also got the job. The rationale in the big departments is that if you get someone good in, then you get them in for, if not life, then at least the foreseeable (sp?) future and so what's a year on mat leave in the larger scheme of things.

OP I really believe that it won't make the slightest difference whether you take your ring off or not. Good luck.

But surely all we can give are our experiences as no-one has the definitive answer.

Agreed, NinkyNonker, absolutely. It just seems to me that there's no harm in leaving the ring off - it removes a niggling "what if" if the OP doesn't get the job. And I also agree that wearing the ring gives away more personal information than you'd necessarily volunteer in an interview.

And yes, the Civil Service has very formal hiring processes. Nothing that's written down, or even (these days) said between the interviewers, will be other than relevant to the job spec and the person's suitability. But ex post facto justification is a marvellous thing: if you've got several strong candidates (and I agree that if the OP is clearly the best candidate the ring won't count against her) it's easy to produce respectable-sounding justifications for picking one rather than another. Doesn't mean that what appears in the paperwork actually reflects what's going on in the interviewers' heads. (Where I work has just gone through a redundancy exercise. The paperwork is ultra-respectable and would pass any audit. No-one in the whole place, including the people who weren't selected for redundancy, believes that the process was anything other than a stitch-up. It's not a stitch-up for sexist reasons, but it's still nothing to do with who's best qualified to do the job.)

Thank you ladies for your input, you've backed up my thoughts. Katie, I do hope that I find the office I could be working in as lovely as your experience, and have no reasons for doubting this, as my contact so far has been lovely but i think if I wore it and then didn get the place, I would always wonder.

Because they can't ask me whether I'm engaged, married etc, why should I wear something that answers the question they can't ask.

Thank you for all your good luck wishes, I hope I get it!!

In the interview for my last job the older man on the panel looked very pointedly at my (empty) ring finger and asked about my relationship status with a "I know you don't have to answer this.." disclaimer

I got the job and got up the duff without ever an engagement ring troubling my hand, so that showed him

frgr, thanks for answering my question. That makes sense.

I agree that where there is more than one strong candidate, as is likely in this climate, people get knocked out for the most trivial of reasons. No need to risk it.