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 think what many SAHP want re:value , is for people to not assume they are lazy or mooching or unfeminist idiots.

Who thinks this? No one here has said. I have never heard it, seen it on tv, social media etc.

Being a sahp is decision each family must make for itself. There is nothing unfeminist about it. Trying to tell women they should be a wohm or a sahp and trying to bully them into doing one or the other is unfeminist. Its trying to remove their choice.

Gorgosparta ok I know CV fluffing is no good but seriously, do you just send out CVs saying "I have been sat on my arse mostly for 9 years, didn't want to dress it up"? You won't get anywhere that way either.

No! Like OP and almost every recruiter has said, you simply say that you took a career break of X years to raise your family or carry out 'domestic responsibilities', and leave it at that. I haven't seen anyone on this thread have an issue with that, or with being a SAHP.

...when you see someone is trying too hard maybe that's because they really want and need the job?

Well maybe, but that doesn't mean they'll be any good at it.

Going on this thread alone, I've not seen anyone insulting SAHPs as being lazy, mooching, idle and whatever. Worst I can recall was someone saying that SOME people use it as an excuse not to work, which I guess is true...there'll always be SOME people who do anything you care to name. But she didn't say that this made SAHPs lazy by default, in fact I think she'd spent some years as a SAHM herself.

I've seen an awful lot of horseshit deriding working mothers though.

do you just send out CVs saying "I have been sat on my arse mostly for 9 years, didn't want to dress it up"? You won't get anywhere that way either.

Read the thread. Its a career break.

Cooking at home does not make you a chef. If you put that on your cv for a job in a restaurant, it will be ignored. Because that restaurant owner knows you are not a chef or anywhere near one. And you also have no clue what being a chef entails.

If its not for a restaurant, its not relevant. But also glaringly not true. Again it makes you look like you have no clue what you arr talking about.

The main thing is if your family value it.

Families need and value whatever sort of arrangements help them to trot along smoothly, in my experience!

The rest of this post looks like you are desperately looking for outside validation. The part about asking your children to retrospectively defend your life choices doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. I think that's opening a nasty little can of worms.

Mumpster- loads of us on here who have a role in recruitment have said a number of times: just write 'career break to care for children.'

That's if. No fluffing it up. No mention of whether you found it extremely challenging/easypeasy.

Just stick to the basic facts

maybe when you see someone is trying too hard maybe that's because they really want and need the job? Just sayin'.

I'm not a charity, though. I'm not in the business of giving jobs out to people who really need them. I'm in the business of finding the person who can do the work I need done, to the best standard. Otherwise, I (or my employer) won't have a business for very long.

Seriously, do you realise how many applications most entry level roles attract? Coaching people on their CVs would be a more than full-time job. If someone had done the stupid fluffy "domestic manager" stuff but otherwise had competitive experience, I would probably shortlist her, because I do know there are people giving out this crappy advice and that it can be hard to get back in. But if someone just sends in a weak CV that implies they don't really understand what the role entails and that domestic duties qualify them, well, game over.

It's crappy that the Jobcentre gives out that advice and someone should really take it up with them. In the meantime, my best advice to people wanting to get into/back into the job market is only to listen to advice from people who actually do recruitment. Also, this: askamanager.org

The part about asking your children to retrospectively defend your life choices doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. I think that's opening a nasty little can of worms.

I agree.

I'm a hiring manager (but not a professional recruiter) and I've got absolutely no issues with employing ex-SAHMs so long as they're willing and able to fulfil the requirements of the job. I'm more than okay with 'career break', 'family break', etc.

Having said that, the 'mumsy' CV-padding is indeed cringeworthy and makes me suspect that the applicant simply hasn't understood what it means to display professionalism.

The worst example I've personally seen involved a woman applying for a role as a project manager in a technology-related field, who actually tried to argue that managing a bunch of techies was somehow comparable to managing unruly toddlers (in a covering letter, not a CV). having performed the job in question, I can very much guarantee that highly skilled programmers won't take particularly kindly to anyone trying toddler-management techniques on them.

OTOH, I've recently hired a brilliant mother of three who, during my interview with her, made a great argument for how returning to work after the birth of her youngest had made her better at her job. She included that having external pressures on her (e.g. having to pick up the kids after work) meant that she'd become a lot more effective at getting things done within a given timeframe, seeing as staying late all the time simply wasn't an option any longer. She was very convincing but made all her mum-bonus actually sound relevant to me, her potential future boss, as opposed to arguing that her being a mum in itself somehow qualified her for the position.

I certainly wouldn't call online courses, studying or good voluntary work CV fluffing either. You are gaining knowledge, new skills and working in professional environments and you can link all this to your previous profession to ease the transition back into paid work or use it to re-train and gain valuable new experience!

I was a SAHM for 6 years and all I put n my CV is that I took time out to have my children. End of. I wouldn't put any of the other crap unless maybe i was applying to a nursery school.
It makes you look a little desperate I think or conveys that you are not confident in skills you once had before motherhood.
I also thinks it undermines the recruiter tbh. I am sure many, if not most of them have had kids.

I certainly wouldn't call online courses, studying or good voluntary work CV fluffing either.

I think everyone on this thread would agree.

Bossybitch that's great advice, I have an interview next week and I'm stealing that!

I never said you should positively discriminate if someone fluffs their CV as they need a job, I said you shouldn't negatively do it. Which OPs answer shows you don't do anyway, as you said it depends on the rest of their experience. So I guess all you are saying is not that people shouldn't do it, but it irritates you personally OP? Which is fine, it irritates me too but I just understand the reason people do it (even if I personally would never do it).

Oh windy I like your post. I'm in the same position as you with 3 and separated. I'm desperately trying to search for my next position with my contract running out in November.

It seems to me that the worst people to discriminate SAHMs are women themselves!!! A very sad world we live in!!! It's usually the most shallow, ignorant and narrow minded who's egocentricity shines through!!

Guess what, some SAHMs ARE lazy, and do fuck all with their time out of employment (and fuck all with their children)! and there really is no dressing up their CV if they think they're beneath doing any bridging back to work with shadowing/volunteering/CPD

Some SAHMs do an eyewatering amount of CV relevant stuff, running clubs, fund raising, learning new skills and doing adult education courses, organising community initiatives, chairing councils and associations.

Most I think lie somewhere in between. And might not have been chairperson of everything, but will have been involved in some stuff outside the home that involves organising other adults and working with people beyond their own family.

If someone really has nothing to put on their CV from the last nine years except not burning their house to the ground and getting their kids taken into care then really they are not at the CV stage and need to take a step back and do some bridging activities - get involved in some stuff, learn something etc.

Nobody's CV should just be what they've done with their own family!

It seems to me that the worst people to discriminate SAHMs are women themselves!!!

This is probably true, but that's because it's not an issue that men face on any significant societal/cultural level.

It seems to me that the worst people to discriminate SAHMs are women themselves!!! A very sad world we live in!!! It's usually the most shallow, ignorant and narrow minded who's egocentricity shines through!

I don't think you're clear on what discrimination means.

I don't think you have to ask your children to defend your life decisions.
They tend to offer their opinions and views as to your choices themselves
Well, ime anyway.
Perhaps those who are worried about opening cans of worms are finding it hard to validate their decisions.

windy, I'm sure you know this, but it sounds as though you could do with hearing it again....everyone I know who was raised by a working single mother thinks she is the absolute dog's fucking bollocks. They can't believe she did all that work AND all that parenting, alone, just for them, doing what is generally considered to be two people's work. Having their own kids just magnified what a complete trooper raised them.

I know it's not on to say that I don't know how single parents do it, but I can't help it. I think single parents deserve fucking medals.

It seems to me that ironically the people who come across with the most downbeat view of SAHM often seem to be SAHM themselves.

The complaining about feeling undervalued is not coming from WOHM

How much does it cost to be courteous and respectful of others?

£37.95 plus £5 postage and packaging (excluding the Jersey, Gurnsey and the Highlands and Islands)

You aren't asking people to be respectful, but to swallow a load of sanctified crap about motherhood.

Indeed gilly my DC have both been offered fabulous opportunities this week.

They are well aware that DH and I working has paid for this. And sweethearts that they are bought a bottle of champagne to thank us this evening .

They feel they've only gained by us both working and are the happiest, fabbest, most delicious kids imaginable.

I shall miss them very much when they leave in a few weeks . But thstsvadvit should be. And I'm happy I have a great career as well as fabulous memories of everything we've shared.

Actually reading this thread and what some people put on applications has boosted my confidence in my own.