Aibu mat leave shouldn’t count as a year of work on cv?

[windygallows]

I’m currently Interviewing candidates including an internal colleague who claims to have 3 yrs experience In a particular skill/role. However over 1 yr of those 3yrs she was off on mat leave.

I think it’s okay for her to say she was employed in the role for 3 yrs but she can’t really say she has 3 yrs experience doing it, can she? Really she’s only been doing the tasks involved in her role for 2 years. This fact is important since the role requires significant experience and I think 2 years is not enough.

I’ve been on mat leave twice and not trying to discrimate, just trying to be logical about it. Would welcome thoughts on whether I’m BU or not I’m thinking 3 yrs employed does not equal 3 yrs experience.

I haven’t checked with HR but pretty sure they wouldn’t agree with me!

Should read 'no way of knowing.'
Mumsnet really needs an edit function!

And it’s sometimes hard to fully suss that out at interview especially if they have to only give a few examples of their work
This is a two way street. There's a thread about an interviewer claiming flexible working but turns out that it meant you had the option to choose your start/end time but then had to stick rigidly to those hours.

It's all about asking the right questions.

But how is it ok for you to be vague about your age; the number of years you’ve worked; omit certain facts such as your maternity leaves - yet you judge this woman for doing the same. You have your reasons (fear of ageism), I’m sure she has her reasons. You are no different to her and it’s highly disingenuous of you to think you are. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Wow - there is a huge difference in stating a rounded down number in overall experience 'e.g. 20 years of experience' rather than, say, 23.5 versus actually stating you have more experience than you have?

Clearly anyone looking at the dates on my CV can count up the exact dates that I've worked.

You should hold yourself to the same principles as you hold others. Working 25 years does not put you on the moral high ground, to pass judgement on others.

Are you going to be specifically asking everyone about their maternity leaves henceforth? As I said, you could be interviewing someone like me who had 4 DC and much more than a year out of the workplace, yet you wouldn’t necessarily have a clue.

OP No one has judged you as a manager, or said experience is pointless, or that lying on a CV is OK. As you have done with this woman's CV, you have picked up on one aspect and ignored all other relevant points. The fact is she has a legal right to show continuous employment following maternity leave and does not need to give away anything in her CV that suggests she has children. It is also true that she may have overblown her involvement in projects in order to get to interview stage. Why can't you just acknowledge that this is what most people would do and doesn't show she is a lying, untrustworthy person. The ONLY way to assess if she could do the role is to offer her an interview and ask pertinent questions. You could also set an exercise if you need to see evidence of specific ability. It will be obvious to HR is she's not suitable, but you can show you've supported her progression attempts.

Oh the irony of you saying you've adapted your CV to reduce years of experience due to discrimination, but you have a major issue with someone doing a similar thing at the other end of the experience spectrum. Either way neither of you are being completely honest, but neither of you are being maliciously untruthful. Why can't you just try to support her?

Clearly anyone looking at the dates on my CV can count up the exact dates that I've worked.

Indeed, and they may then question why you've stated one thing on your CV and another on your cover letter. I don't personally think there's really anything wrong it, but you have to apply the same standards to everyone. It's hypocritical for you to round down like this to create a good impression, while also picking at someone including mat leave on their CV (as is standard).

This comes up about part time work too. I used to manage two women, both v good at complicated job where 3 years experience needed to apply for manager/team leader role. This was minimum, and needed to be, you could tell the managers who hadn't had enough experience.
Both had two years, went on maternity leave, one came back full time, the other p/t. Maternity leave didn't count, but in some circumstances you could say skills learned at home, or in other work are transferable.
They sought promotion after a year back at work. Nothing between their cvs but the f/t worker was more confident at interview and no gaps in her knowledge. The other realised she wasn't ready and went for a specialised senior professional role instead where she was excellent at supporting and advising workers.

Wow - there is a huge difference in stating a rounded down number in overall experience 'e.g. 20 years of experience' rather than, say, 23.5 versus actually stating you have more experience than you have?

You may interview at a place where the panel believe that any woman over the age of xx or who has a day more than 20 years work experience is an uppity, wizened old crone with no business even being alive at such an advanced state of decrepitude.

Totally absurd and discriminatory, of course, but you seem down with discriminatory practices so it’s all good.

YABU. Let's start discriminating against Mums when they take mat leave. After all, women aren't being discriminated against enough at work.
I took credit for work that was finalised when I was on mat leave because I devised the project, set it up, walked everyone in the company through it and then it took about 6 months into my mat leave for it to be completed. Without me it wouldn't have happened. Just because I wasn't sitting in the building doesn't mean it wasn't my work.

windy your hipcritical. You round off your years because you don’t want employers to discriminate you. Nothing to do with your maternity leave and time spent physically on the job. You hide years. Thats dishonest.

Yet you discriminate against a woman who rightly so includes her maternity leave.

I’m just starting to think you begrudge younger women now.

^If she wasn't an internal candidate you wouldn't know otherwise...
This is the problem. I think you need to look at her cv on face value and not use prior knowledge to influence shortlisting.
Then you need to design the interview to reveal the extent of the experience.^

@Boulardii hit the nail on the head early on. I can see your logic op but you're not being fair and don't seem to want to listen the majority view. so why did you bother asking?

italic fail

Surely in your 20-25 ish (give or take) years of experience, you would have come across this type of scenario time and time again? I’m amazed you even need to ask strangers in the internet how to approach your job properly.

A well considered and appropriately rigourous interview process will highlight any deficiencies in a candidate. A cv is a guide and a subjective one at that.

Thanks, mixed up mummy. Sometimes Ifeel Like it’s pointless posting when you just get ignored.

And before you give another extreme example for one of my comments, obviously it wouldn't be OK to say you have 10 years more experience than you do. In this case she's included 12 months maternity leave, which is her right and shouldn't have caused all the judgement you've shown.

I've always made it clear that I have had a couple of years out, give or take. The more experience you have though, the less it matters.

YABVVVVVVU. I've been on the receiving end of this kind of crap and you can argue the toss all you like but it's discriminatory and wrong.

I wouldn't have made it clear on a CV though, just to clarify. If I've been employed by someone while on maternity leave and returned after mat leave then I won't include the maternity leave separately on a CV, as I was still in employment while on mat leave, and no-one would.

It might come up in an interview, but employers aren't allowed to ask whether you have children or whether you have plans for any more.

Have you considered the extra value an internal candidate brings experience wise? Yes she's had 2 years not 3 but surely the experience is more relevant because she already knows the company, the policies and procedures, has a relationship with staff etc. Personally, I think that that counts for a year as it can take that long to get up to speed with a new company depending on the difficulty of the job.

I completely agree that she doesn't have 3 years of experience and she lied on her CV but agree with many others that everyone does do it. I think that is wrong but it still does happen and you wouldn't know if she was external. Unfortunately, you would be discriminating to dismiss it because you would be using inside information to do so.

Whether you are right or wrong isn't actually relevant here, the fact is it's illegal and you can't do it.

Has she demonstrated the skills needed in her track record, or not? Years of experience are totally irrelevant. We all know people with 20 years experience of being shit at their jobs. Stop being hung up on this aspect.

she lied on her CV but agree with many others that everyone does do it.

No she didn't, her CV shows she was employed by the company for three years. She has not done anything wrong here.

I think you winkle out outright lies at interview, don't you? If there was a specific aspect of a project that would give the sort of experience that would makea difference, then you ask about it f2f.

Hi OP

You are kind of ignoring the fact that IT IS ILLEGAL to discriminate against someone ie treat them differently, because they have been on maternity leave. It doesn't really matter whether you or anyone else think it is reasonable or not because IT IS THE LAW

If you would treat her differently than another woman who had worked the same years but was child free, just because she was on maternity leave within that time, then that is clearly treating her differently.

There is always a case for business needs for example if someone had gone on maternity leave immediately after a promotion and was going for another promotion on their return that required experience then that would be a different matter. But I doubt the argument of '3 years experience is fine, 2 years experience is not enough' would hold up in court.

You mention the case of a pilot or doctor who need to have done a certain number of flights or operations or pass exams before getting promoted. This is different as it's not discriminating against anyone - everyone has the same chance to do those things, and it's usually to do with qualifications rather than employment (the qualifications being separate e.g. gaining pilots licence and maintaining pilots licence) which can then lead to promotions at work. In a lot of professions with safety at risk people returning from absence have to undergo tests or cpd training to make sure they are technically competent then they are given the same chances as anyone else.

Anyway I digress, the law on maternity discrimination at work is very clear and different to the law on qualifications (and actually as an employer you have to give pregnant employees or employees on maternity leave the same training and professional development opportunities as if they were in work anyway)

Lastly you have said it would be hard to suss out if external candidates had been on mat leave as well. This shouldn't be crossing your mind, as again IT IS ILLEGAL to try and find out at interview if people have children or how long they took maternity leave for or how many times.