To be worried about having taken a long period of sick leave

[santasicerink]

I’ve had 7 weeks off work. I started this job just a couple of weeks before the first lockdown, and although we were WHF throughout it and therefore on full pay it wasn’t anything like a ‘normal’ day at work. Obviously not my fault, but still. I then found out I was pregnant.

We went back at the start of September. After a couple of weeks the environment was awful. I ended up calling in sick after an awful, bullying meeting. Because of when my baby is due my maternity leave kicked in automatically yesterday, and I won’t be returning to that post so basically I only really worked there for five weeks.

Will this impact on future roles, or will it be an anomaly? I’ve never been signed off before.

I’ve no intention of lying, I’m not really sure why you think this? As I’ve said, I recognise having seven weeks off isn’t brilliant, on the other hand it was the least-worst option. It’s public sector if that makes a difference.

Out of interest OP, did you have jobs before this one that will supply references? I'm sensing an undercurrent that you yourself don't think you did a good job in this role.
As someone who has interviewed a lot of people, I'd easily pick up on that in discussing your experience.
It might be best to keep leading discussion back to previous roles during your interview and [mentally] write this one off as a 2020 Covid aberration.

I don’t think I did do a very good job, but I didn’t really have a chance to - I was only physically present for six weeks out of an ‘employed’ nine months!

I’ve worked in other places yes. I need to focus on them more. It’s surprisingly knocked my confidence a lot.

If there was no issues with your lockdown work then you can’t get a bad reference. They can just comment saying you did the job. Anything else (either positive or negative) is just speculation which you can’t do for a reference