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!

Yabu if she was external you wouldn't know and it is a depressing driver I imagine for the gender pay gap.

Windy this entire thread is irrelevant. You are a terrible manager who has made the decision before you enter the room. I imagine you have a like minded, similarly bullying candidate in mind who kissed your ass in advance

Hack attack you need to add 'and is the owner of a penis'

Hack really? I am neither a bully nor a bad manager.

I think it's a fair question to ask - if a person isn't working over a year, whether you can count that as experience gained.

And BTW it is 80% female in my team so I don't show a preference to the 'owners of penises...'

Yabu - it's only because she works there that you even know she's been on mat leave. You need to act as if she has three years experience, to penalise her for having been on mat leave is discrimination.

You sound like a douche and I hope you don't give her the job because working for you would be a repetitive nightmare based on your replies, like bashing your head against a wall.
From the way you've described your issue with her (over and over and over again) it really does sound like you personally dislike her and the cheek of her having written that her maternity leave counts as part of her employment/experience.

You are being unreasonable.

No it's not a fair question. You're using inside knowledge about one candidate to discriminate against her for having a baby. Will you at least acknowledge that this is what you are doing, recognise your own bias and step away from this recruitment exercise?

I think it's a fair question to ask - if a person isn't working over a year, whether you can count that as experience gained.

Its interesting because being on maternity leave and going back is actually its own experience and in some ways is a lot more challenging than just ticking along. In a recent (internal) interview I had I actually made quite a lot of the random stuff that was dumped on me when I got back that I had to sort/ find solutions to.

Will you at least acknowledge that this is what you are doing, recognise your own bias and step away from this recruitment exercise?

If the OP recognises her bias why would she need to step away? We ALL have biases whether we like it or not.

If the OP recognises her bias why would she need to step away? We ALL have biases whether we like it or not.

Yes I'm aware of that. But in this case the OP seems to struggle to recognise hers. And even if she did her bias seems to me to go beyond the norm. She clearly doesn't like this poor woman who is daring to try and get on in her career.

As I said up thread, I've been on the receiving end and it did huge damage to my career and my self esteem. It's taken years to get back to where I deserved to be. It makes me angry to see women being treated this way.

You obviously don't want to employ her so looking for an excuse

I'm not looking for an excuse and my colleagues don't think I'm a douche. It was legitimate question to ask.

What I've learned from this thread is that most think it's fine to count a year of mat leave as work experience gained but someone going on sabbatical for a year or a leave of absence wouldn't be seen in the same way. Why?

Jesus it's like a stuck record.

I'm not sure it would be seen more negatively. A sabbatical experience would be presented as a positive, whereas becoming a mother is seen as having no value at all in the workplace.... .

But you have clearly made your mind up so it's all pretty pointless.

What @Nottheboreworms said. You're a nightmare.

What you need to learn is that if you wouldn't know the same about external candidates,you can hold this information against her.

She has been in that time employed in the company, has she not. If someone asked me how many years I have been doing my job, I would say 8- because that's how many years it has been since I have been employed in my company, despite taking 11 months of maternity leave. I still did some training etc during those 11 months, and I did not come back to work knowing any less than before I left.

Anyways, for many tasks, how many bloody experience do you need? Is lets say 5 years writing emails that big of a difference from doing it for 4 years? I think you are biased, regardless of what you seem to be telling yourself, and you are upset as a seeming injustice that someone who has been away seems to value the experience they have.

I know I know. Just keeping the thread going.

Just ask questions about specific experiences, tasks and complexity that can fairly be asked of all candidates.

This can include asking about length of project managed and specific tasks undertaken during that project.

This should allow you ways of comparing everyone's actual expertise without having to ask about maternity leave for any applicant.

Then I guess the whole issue of mat leave can result in slightly misleading cvs. Someone in post for 4 yrs could have been on mat leave for more than 3 of those 4 yrs

You don't know if anyone worked part time, did 3 hours a day overtime or spent 1/2 maternity / sabbatical leave planning a process that would change the project and keeping up to date with the business.

You also don't know if someone with 10 years experience relied heavily on others and had a 3 hour lunch every day.

I see where you are coming from BUT I have to agree with other posters that if she had been external you wouldn’t know about her maternity leave.

I also agree just because someone has been at a job for x number of years that doesn’t mean they are experienced. I was employed by my office for three years, one year being mat leave. I was the main person in charge of my department but was not the lead person by title, said person had a medical condition that could have him out for weeks/months at a time and then when he returned three months before I went on mat leave he was put on something entirely different but was still considered lead. I was essentially doing a two person job on my own from the first few weeks I was promoted to it. He may have been there longer than me on paper, but he wouldn’t have had the amount of experience I had doing it and managing on my own in his absence.

3 bouts of 6 month sick leave would be treated the same too - so you wouldn't know about other candidates. Someone else could have been employed for 3 years in one particular role but never actually worked over a key period like year end due to regular illness. Someone could have held a job title for 3 years but only worked 2 days a week in that role, with someone else doing the bulk of the work.

That's the point - you only know how long someone was employed with a job title - that doesn't show the reality of their experience. In this case at least you know she's had 2 soild years of experience. You have not a clue about any other candidates.

Perhaps the fact that most people think you are slightly odd for thinking it's an issue might be a clue that this is perfectly normal.

Time for a rethink about what experience you really need to ask for.

Oh come on! Very few places would keep someone on if they had been off sick for 1.5 years in 3 years. Everywhere I have ever worked would have got rid of you long before then,