AIBU?
to think that when I drop everything to turn up for a job interview with 45 minutes bloody notice
colditz · 27/11/2007 19:52
that the interviewer should not proceed to interigate me for 20 minutes about childcare?
I stated very pleasantly that should I be successful in getting the job, I would engage a child minder.
He wanted to know how soon I could engage a child minder, how reliable that child minder would be, how often she would be sick, I would be sick, the children would be sick .... etc.
Eventually I said "I'm afraid I can't answer in any more detail, as obviously until I have a job I don't have a child minder, so I don't know her, so I don't know how reliable she will be. Sorry!"
he didn't look very pleased but I rally didn't know what else to say, the situation is as the situation is, and it was splattered all over the application form that I have small children and would be engaging a child minder - quite what else he wanted me to say I really don't know!
He had no interest in anything else about me!
funnypeculiar · 27/11/2007 19:56
Is it technically legal to question someone about their childcare provision (just thinking about that siralan thing on The Apprentice with katie... sure there were threads on here saying it came close to sex discrimiation...
NB What he wanted you to say is 'I will arrange for a backup plan so that, if at all possible, in the event of any sickness, I would hope still to be able to work' or something similar.
JenT · 27/11/2007 19:58
Sorry it is long - just found this on a site about good interviewing practice.
Discriminatory: questions about childcare, domestic and personal circumstances and health e.g. ?Do you have childcare responsibilities??
Such questions tend to be viewed as discriminatory because they assume that childcare and other family commitments may have a negative impact on a woman's motivation, commitment to the job, attendance or availability to work overtime. Because such discriminatory assumptions would not be likely to be made about male candidates, questions of this nature are viewed as discriminatory on the grounds of sex.
If, for example, the position includes the requirement to work weekends and/or evenings explain this to all candidates and ask whether this would be a problem.
IntergalacticWalrus · 27/11/2007 19:58
He sounds like a nobbo
Do you rea;ly want to work fore someone like that?
Entirely reasonable to ask what they are planning to do with the chiddlers while you work (presumably to make sutre you aren'y locking them up in the coalshed) but that level of questioning is wrong a pointless.
Youi should have asked him how often he goes for a shit each day, and how that affectys his productivitiy (if you'll pardon the pun)
Asking how often a child or anyone else is going to be ill isn;t a questiion you can give a quantifiable ansmer to anyway
colditz · 27/11/2007 20:25
Thing is, I need a job. The KFC one has been put off until January (nobs!), and this one is school hours, Monday to Friday.
I have heard bad things about the place anyway, like them not paying the legal minimum wage to teenagers etc, but i figured I am savvy enough to make sure I am treated legally, if not well.
He was nobbish about it though. It was all he seemed able to focus on.
mummytheresa · 28/11/2007 07:37
You reminded me that some years ago I went for an interview in a jewellery manufacturing place, as a clerk only, no manual handling.
I was about 20 and the boss quizzed me incessantly about getting married and starting a family!
Being the sort of obnoxious and right on girl that I used to be I took it for a while then told him unless he was proposing that it had nothing to do with him.
I then refused the job as though it had been offered to me - even though it was not and complained about him to the agency that had sent me.
I dont think I could be so brash now though
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