CV Question - mentioning maternity leave?

[lynniep]

I don't mean that literally - should I mention maternity leave? I'm not going to in my CV of course.

However my DH was just checking my CV summary, and said my dates don't add up with my total experience. He's right, cos I took off time I wasnt working when I was on maternity leave.

As an example - I worked for my last company for 2.5 years ( I give the dates in the section of my CV for that particular job eg March 2008 to Nov 2010) I was not working for approx 1 year of that time as I was on maternity.

Therefore I summarised my experience in a specific role (software tester) as 1.5 years - as I thought well thats what I have in that role, not what I have at that company. Then if the prospective employer asks about the discrepancy, I will tell them I spent a year on maternity leave.

What I dont want is it to look like a did a particular job for longer ( or shorter for that matter ) than I actually did.

For the summary section, I want exactly that, I summary of the actual amount of time I have spent in specific roles, not at specific companies - since that is shown later in the CV.

At least thats what I thought I should have. Now Im not sure.

Anyone? Flowery? help :)

Would never occur to me tbh. I have worked at my current place for 11 years. The fact that 13 months of that I was off on mat leave wouldn't enter my head.

I wouldn't mention it, no.
Although you were not "working" you were employed. Put the total dates you were employed, not the time you were not on leave. That's the norm afaik (and it works for me!)

but if you did different roles at that place - so for 2 years you were doing A and 2 you were doing B and had maternity leave whilst doing B - then you moved to a different company for 2 years just doing B - would you say then you had 4 years doing B? Am assuming yes from what you say.

I'm asking because I dont want to look like I've spent more time doing, well, B than I actually have, when I summarise my different roles.

I'd put:

Start date 2006: Company X
Job title [from date to date]
Responsibilites:
New job title role from [date], Responsibilities: [insert]

Start date 2010: Company Y
Job title:
Responsibilities:

Does that make sense? It wouldn't be clear from that lot that I had had mat leave, but then if I had been off sick for 6 months I wouldn't put that on my CV either.

I would ignore mat leaves personally - you are still employed by the company in the role that you were in when you went on mat leave, it's not a "gap".

Agree with haliborange basically.

D'you want to bung it over in an email? flowery dot beanbag at ntlworld dot com

Don't leave a discrepancy on your cv. I would assume foul play, or that the person couldn't get their cb right or couldn't be bothered to check it. Put "x years yyy, (z mintha if which on mat leave) or just the full employment time. No need to put length of experience as well as time in employment... They can work out length of experience from employment dates.

Sorry for typos am on phone

Yes, CVs that don't add up often go straight in the bin. You need to change something.

Personally, I would just count the whole time, on a CV, I would say I had X years of experience as a lawyer, not (X - time on maternity leave).