AIBU to think SAHMs shouldn't put this nonsense on a CV/job application

[windygallows]

In the last year I've recruited for numerous part-time jobs, receiving applications from many women who took time out to be with family and are now returning to work.

Many of the applicants have been straightforward and simply noted on their CV that they have been SAHM - simple.

But increasingly applicants, perhaps based on some guidance from career counsellors or MN, are finding more creative ways to describe their absence from the workforce.

One, we'll call her Mrs Jones, wrote that for 10 years she was employed by the 'Jones family' and that her work involved 'organizing international travel for her family.' Because organizing a holiday is similar to the tasks led by senior executives.

Another wrote a list of every task she did at home from getting groceries to cleaning the house which, while impressive as an exhaustive list, doesn't really mean much when applying to an office-based role. Especially as it's basically a list of everything most employees have to fit in outside of work.

More galling are the claims that women make about the critical role they played - with my favourite being the one who 'Spent 7 years looking after my two children who needed and deserved my attention.'

There is huge value in the work that SAHMs do but please, please don't put this kind of waffle on your CV. You never know if your interview panel will consist of a FT working, single mom like me who finds it pretty insulting that working means her children apparently lost out on 'the attention they needed and deserved.' Urgh.

Yes, I'd consider that voluntary work as well.

That's just your opinion though, isn't it?

No, it's interviewing best practice. As an interviewer, I should not ask someone if they are a parent, because that fact has 0 to do with whether they can do a certain job and it would be illegal for me to weight it as such.

The interviewee is free to respond to a question "Tell me about a time you did X" by saying "I had to show blahblah while parenting...". I might follow up by asking them more about the skill/example, and indeed it would be fine for me to say "how old is your DD, oh I have a DD just a year older" after that, etc, but as an interviewer I will not spontaneously ask or bring up someone's kids and parenting status.

I'd class that as voluntary work LEM and put it in reverse date order on CV - i.e most recent experience first.

Basketofdeplorables- hear hear.

What's beneficial to society is having children who are raised well to become positive, well adjusted members of society. And neither SAHP or WOHP have the monopoly on that. You can be a wonderful SAHP or a crap one, or a wonderful WOHP or a crap one.

Be a SAHP if that's what you want and it suits your personal circumstances but please cut out the bullshit that somehow your children are going to be more beneficial to society than those of WOHP

Does it suffice to cover gaps in cv? So if I were writing a chronological cv I could say 2005-2010 voluntary work pfa? Or not included in employment history?

I really need to redo my cv

I agree whimsy on cvs is a bad idea. I did however in a covering letter once mention that having had a child in hospital long-term meant that I had developed excellent advocacy skills, and was not intimidated by speaking to senior professionals outside my field of expertise (both of which were key skills for the job) I have no idea whether it went down like a lead balloon, but I did get an interview! My take is that there are skills developed in non-professional spheres that can be useful to the workplace, and if an employer is too blinkered to realise that, then honestly I'd prefer to take my skills elsewhere. I have a fairly impressive CV despite a long period as a sahm, though, so I was both confident and picky!!

I don't have a lot to say about the cv but Maternity leave is very different to years of looking after several preschoolers.

The generalisations and assumptions being thrown about are odd.

Artisan - thanks ! You answered my next q

I agree totally OP. It makes people sound as if they haven't got a clue what happens in the real world. Which is a shame because it probably isn't true. Why are people being advised to do this. I don't think it needs to be justified. It's a choice people make. They shouldn't need to make excuses or bolster it up into something it's not.

wonderful you do choose to have several preschooler though. We all chose to have children. Work not so much.
How many of us would do it should we win the lottery. The people at work finish work and then come home to the children.

'As an interviewer, I should not ask someone if they are a parent.'

I never suggested anyone should ask. I made that clear in my posts.

We seem to be in agreement that someone talking about things they have done as a parent can be a relevant topic for them to bring up at interview, and can be used by the interviewer as evidence they have a particular competence, just as scuba diving or playing the violin could be.

Doctor/nurse/conflict resolution/financial management/nanny/cleaner etc you get the gist listed as job title
I work in one of the professions listed here and am a mum as well. I do all those jobs after work and weekends. It would really annoy me to see that listed on a job application!

It's belittling because it's essentially saying I can do everything you can do in 40 fewer hours

I don't think that's wholly true, but there is an element of truth in it. Yes many working parents do the laundry do the housework, organise shopping, sort holidays, make breakfast and lunch, help kids learn whatever and they do it in the mornings or evenings or weekends, not during the working day, because they are working. So it's not less hours it's different hours. They still do these things, it still takes as long, they simply do it on top of working.

There is things they will do less of, change less nappies, do less entertaining, less external activities, but they still do these things.

Is it hard to stay at home, yes, is it harder than going to work, rushing about with childcare, packing your evenings with catch up, I don't know, for me, no, it was easier at home, and I'm comparing to when I was on maternity leave, I personally found working and still doing it all harder, but I don't think it's a competition.

If these threads show anything it's that women feel judged, whether they're doing full time childcare, or working full or part time.

They are being judged. Many people negatively judge SAHM, WOHM, women who don't have kids, women who they think might have kids, women whose kids are now adults, young mothers, old mothers etc etc.

People should be less judgemental.

I agree it's not a competition. I guess it feels like people are making it one when they pile in with 'I do everything you do plus work'.

What you find harder will depend on so many factors. For me I don't really like work or being at home 😂 Work days used to be easier, now maybe being at home days are because things have changed.

We seem to be in agreement that someone talking about things they have done as a parent can be a relevant topic for them to bring up at interview, and can be used by the interviewer as evidence they have a particular competence, just as scuba diving or playing the violin could be.

Yes, I think so. I was just concerned at the implication that an employer had asked every interviewee a question about what they had done as a parent, which they would certainly be on dodgy ground to do. If they were just adding a spontaneous prompt to help the candidate, who had already mentioned having kids, not a problem. Lots of people don't realise that employer shouldn't ask you about kids and good ones won't unless you bring it up, so it can be helpful to know that.

StatisticallyChallenged
Can I just check that what you are saying binkybix is that your parenting is of a better quality because you spend more hours per week at home with your child. Cos that's what it sounds very much like

Of course - SAHMs sacrifice their life to raising offspring of benefit to society so WOHMs must be raising delinquents and ne'er do well drop outs of no use to society whatsoever. Is that true? No, its utter bullshit but that's what some SAHMs are saying on here.

SAHMs discipline their children, play with their children, shop, cook, clean the house, garden, decorate the house, drop off and pick ups, lunch boxes, do household admin, arrange holidays, care for their children when sick (have I missed anything?) Oh, wait, WOHMs do all those things too

Again - the use of the word bleat is diminishing and infantalising.

In this instance, it was meant to be diminishing - that was the point. It wasn't used to describe the work generally that SAHPs do. That would be dismissive and you would be right to pull me up on it. In my post above it was used in direct reference to the idea that doing the work of managing a home and family is somehow more valuable when done for 24 hours a day by a SAHP, than it is when done for less time by a WOHP. In terms of relevant experience when applying for jobs, it simply isn't.

Again, I'm not talking about the general experience of being a SAHM. I am simply talking about the role in terms of its relevance to potential employers. Those skills gained from parenting which most employers will be interested in are pretty much universal, regardless of whether you are a SAHP or a WOHP.

In every reply to me, you have brought up how much harder it is being a SAHM, how much more tired you are. I'm not suggesting that it isn't or you aren't. But it isn't relevant to my point so therefore, yes, you are bleating on.

if I'm applying to be a youth worker, to run play schemes, or to be a carer in some way, I might well consider some of the skills gained in child rearing too be transferable.

That would be more likely to show that you do not understand the role of a youth worker, it is very different to being a parent.

The idea that you do the same amount of work in say 3 hours as you do in 8 is only put forward for SAHM. If you said it about anyone else's work they would think you were mad. It is child care. If you do it for 8 hours you have done more of it than someone who has done it for three - you are not doing the same in those 3 hours.

Even professional childminders are not told they are doing an hours work spread out over a whole day, because they aren't, and if you suggested they were and that perhaps you should only pay them for one hour because you could do everything they do in a much shorter time then they'd probably tell you to find childcare elsewhere. But for some reason while accepting that a childminder is working while she cares for working parents children, people are belittling what a SAHP is doing.

You aren't doing all the things a SAHP does in a short space of time, you doing whats s/he does for a shorter amount of time. Just as if I drive an hour to and from work, I am not doing exactly what a long distance lorry driver does, just more efficiently and in a shorter space of time.

People on this site complain about child minders not doing enough - but surely if you do everything that can be done in a much shorter space of time, you should be happy for your CM to just sit your child in a chair and do nothing with them. Or do you expect her perhaps to entertain them, feed them, arrange activities. sort out their squabbles change them. keep them clean and safe - the minute by minute necessities that a working parent is not doing all day.

Not a criticism of working parents at all - as I say I have been one. But I never kidded myself, when I was at work that I was doing the same amount of childcare in a shorter time as a SAHP.

That would be more likely to show that you do not understand the role of a youth worker, it is very different to being a parent.

No it shows that you do not understand the concept of a skill being transferable and a useful part of your bank of experience, rather than being 'literally a thing that is exactly the same as another different thing'.

No one said you are soing the same amount of childcare.

But working parents still

Cook
Shop
Do uniforms
School run
Wash clothes
Organise activities
Organise holidays

We are not talking time. We are talking what jobs/skills you gain when being a sahp.

Infact most people do the above if they are adults. Parents just do it for more people.

Despite which non of us sahp or wohp do those things to a professional level while doing it in our home.

The work experience part of a CV should not include the role profile of being a full time parent. Key skills where appropriate can go on a CV as can volunteering with school PTAs et.

Staying at home or working have both strengths and weaknesses which vary individual to individual. That said, I think that since working mothers do the same tasks as full time mothers, as well as juggling work, their skill set may be more appealing as they can multi-task more. Stay at home mothers may to more of the same thing but that actually means fewer life tasks as a whole. Just my perspective.

The point is if you a a SAHM of cause you do things like childcare for longer periods of time but working mums still do them. So if they were to be included on a cv as a skill set they could be included by us all.