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.

I'm a SAHM (about to go back part time), my mum's a nursery worker. Today I did do some lovely wholesome activities with my kids for the first time all holidays but they also had TV on and off all afternoon, I quietly cried in the messy kitchen at least twice and I told the toddler to fuck off under my breath. Whereas my mum gives her key children professional care. Everything she does is to the standard she was trained in, and she has supervisors watching over her to make sure nothing slips. Not to mention the stacks of paperwork.

It doesn't mean her life is harder than mine - she gets to chat to colleagues and go home at the end of the day to her nice quiet house, plus she gets paid. But she is employed, which implies a degree of pressure and standards that don't apply to me. She has work experience. I've been accruing life experience, which isn't worthless, but it's not employment either. I'd have got seven years' worth of experience of something whatever I'd been doing. I mean, you'd hope I'd have got the hang of being a useful adult by my mid thirties.

My mum runs her house. So do I. She doesn't put 'solely responsible for key budget' on her CV just because she does her own food shopping. Nor do I. It's not work. It's not the same.

Running your own house.....

I don't know what kind of house some people live in on here, must be huge, as "running" mine is just living to me, it's not a full time job and doesn't require proffesjonal skills, and it's not to anyone I know. It reminds me of downtown abbey kind of stuff, with servants, housekeepers, butlers, cooks etc, lucky them. For the rest of us, it's just normal living that adults do.

This thread has taken an infuriating turn.
This doesn't need to be about sahp/wohp . In saying that i am not interested in the minutiae of your life as a SAHP, that isn't a judgment on your decision to do that in any way. It's just that it is utterly irrelevant to whether you will be good at the job I am recruiting for. I actually don't mind if your work experience is a decade old, it's the quality of that experience I am looking at. And your enthusiasm for the job you have applied for.

Yes but babbity I don't think sahms &wohms are two neat separate groupings with all other variables the same where we can measure if either had a significant impact on children over all.

I have never felt undervalued as a SAHM, I have been essential to happy family life.
But then I have never tried to get back into the job market. Perhaps that's when we hit the wall. No intention of applying for jobs in the forseeable future however, so I am happy to continue in my blissful little patch...

I would put caring responsibilities but depending on the job, may elaborate on this elsewhere. Things like training courses related to disability and having a lot of knowledge of the sen system and even the experience of having a severely disabled child, will be relevant in some jobs.

I once had someone applying with the job title of
Doctor/nurse/conflict resolution/financial management/nanny/cleaner etc you get the gist listed as job title,
Workplace was "my home" and she'd done it for x y amount of years.
Straight in the bin.

I may have written something extremely similar on a cover letter before, but it was meant to attention grabbing and tongue-in-cheek, as the job I was applying for in the media industry and I believed I would have had a better chance of an interview with an unusual cover letter (I did get an interview). I would never put that on my CV though. That stays strictly professional.

This "running a house means I can project manage and I'm basically an accountant" thing infuriates me when I see it on self congratulatory memes on facebook, never mind on a CV.

It's incredibly offensive to those of us who actually have developed those skills in a professional capacity and is a clear sign the person putting it on their CV doesn't have the faintest idea what the role entails. Reminds me of a woman I interviewed once whose example of managing a complex budget was running the office tea fund.

AccrualIntentions I am sorry that you are offended.

It's all us SAHM dumb bunnies who get ideas above our station.
We really don't have the faintest idea what the big wide world is all about.

What do you care? You won't give them an interview anyway. Sometimes when you're filling out the trillionth job application, having decided that you're not going to lie about being a SAHM like many others do, you just decide to write something somebody might actually read.

Besides, you assume that SAHM tasks are not the same as 'executive led' tasks but actually, they are in terms of the skills you need to do them. It's YOU who needs to think creatively about transferrable skills.

I've never learned as much in my 20 yr career about time management and dealing with people as I have in the 5 years at home. But of course I should never fucking SAY so. Perhaps I should write 'spent time betraying my economic responsibilities to do the meaningless (because they're mine) task of educating small children. I fully regret it now, as befits an obedient unit in the econo-hive'.

Perhaps I should write 'spent time betraying my economic responsibilities to do the meaningless (because they're mine) task of educating small children. I fully regret it now, as befits an obedient unit in the econo-hive'.

Love it.

@Accrualintentions - where do you draw the line though? I've just hired a woman who does do the accounts as a housewife (the house, her sole trader husband's) with the condition that she becomes part time CIMA qualified in 12 months (she has taken one exam already and stormed it).

What do you care? You won't give them an interview anyway.

Because people are being given the advice to do this and its switching employers off. Without this stuff you gave a better chance of getting a job. Which is the point of the ops post.

To give advice

@plantsitter Lets make it clear that OP probably does hire housewives. But she doesn't hire those who put ridiculous statements in their CVs.

I agree that some skills developed as a SAHP are valid for some careers. But putting nurse / financial management / conflict resolution to me underplays those skills in the actual workplace.

Nurse is an actual job. If a SAHP claimed to have been nursing as part of their SAHPing I'd be unimpressed.

where do you draw the line though? I've just hired a woman who does do the accounts as a housewife (the house, her sole trader husband's) with the condition that she becomes part time CIMA qualified in 12 months (she has taken one exam already and stormed it)

That would be similar to volunteering.

Becoming a SAHM has taught me to think outside the box.

I had a great career before kids-well paid, high status, flashy company car, lots of international travel.
Having kids, jacking in my career and staying at home with them really opened my eyes and has opened up so many paths in my life.
I am glad that I was able to take the leap and have such a supportive partner.
I have 5 or 6 close friends with similar life experience.
None of us knew what lay ahead, none of them ever did resume their career, all of them - including me are now in a happier position as a result.

@Gorgosparta - no it really isn't the same as volunteering. Sigh.

To give advice

How benevolent.

'let's make it clear that Someone else probably does something'. Rapier-like, nuttynoo. Especially combined with your deliberately annoying use of 'housewife'.

Nutty - I'd interpreted Gorgo to mean that your employee's background gave her measurable skills which were directly relevant to her current employment in the same way as volunteering. Not that it was volunteering.

no it really isn't the same as volunteering. Sigh.

Sigh. Yes it is. She has gained skills in an unpaid position and can prove that she has an idea how business accounts work.

Why else would you hire her?

Running a house budget and doing accounts for any business is different.

Yep artisan thats exactly what i was saying. That is relevant experience.

The defensiveness here is completely outrageous. Says a lot about the way some people feel about their choices, that comments from people who read CVs sayig "It's OK to have a career break to be a SAHM but don't treat it as professional experience, just give a short explanation of why you've been out of the workforce" is seen as "SAHM have no value."

I echo a previous commenter who said, the only people who need to value your role as SAHM are your partner and children, and if they don't that seems like a personal problem. I have a job and don't expect anyone but my boss, colleagues, and clients to value it either.

How benevolent.

Fuck me, people trying to help is now looked down on aibu?