After reading several posts, I have to butt in with several questions.
Post 1: The thing I get from employers because of my history of cancer is "What if there's a relapse?" I'm not even going to mention it when I apply to become an EMT somewhere. I get asked a lot when interviewing "How old are your children?"
Post 2: I have not had any luck re-entering the paying work force because now employers are terrified I'd actually leave work to have another child.
Post 3: I don't even know what to write into my CV anymore because I don't want to leave out the Child bit but I also don't want to end up not even getting an interview because I'm not married. I'm now writing "in a permanent relationship, one child" ...
It seems to me you are all offering information that prospective employers do not need to know (and in the U.S. cannot ask). Unless the information has a direct bearing on the job in question, why volunteer that you have a history of cancer? Why volunteer your marital status? Why volunteer that you have children or how old they are? Being married or not, and having children or not, rarely affect one's ability to do a job. There's time enough to provide that information, when it is needed, after you are hired.
I think it's difficult, especially when re-entering the (paying) work force, to stop thinking of ourselves primarily as wives and mothers and to start thinking of ourselves as EMTs, secretaries, doctors, cafeteria workers or whatever. But you can do it!
Where this stuff gets revealed is in your job history: Why did you leave your previous position? (To have a child, illness, needed to reduce hours--usually leads to more questions, long-distance move--often to accommodate a spouse or flee an ex) Explain any periods of unemployment. (Stay-at-home parent, long-term illness) List any names you previously used in employment. (Name change usually occurs because of marriage or divorce) The name change also shows up if you have to submit educational transcripts or copies of professional licenses.
There are legitimate reasons for asking these questions and they are standard questions on job applications or in interviews.
You could lie about these things if you want. Of course if you do get hired and your employer finds out you lied, no matter how insignificant, you can be terminated on the spot. On a written (or electronic) application you could also try to leave these items blank although that means the employer might just throw out your application.
If an applicant is asked any "illegal" questi> After reading several posts, I have to butt in with several questions. >
If you are prepared for these things, you can often come up with some other answers that aren't actually lies, but don't offer up as much fodder. You can pursue other interests. You can have family obligations which you do not expect to recur in the future. You chose to move to a different area, but you plan to stay were you are now for the forseeable future. If you get the vibe that they're fishing for that sort of thing, you can be very up front with them and say, "I do not expect anything in my personal life to be an impediment to my performance in this position." That usually lets them know that you know they're fishing inappropriately, but also provides them with reassurance that you understand their concerns.
Well, I'm in germany and I don't know wether this information needs to be in my CV or not, but generally you do write down your marital status, I mean how does my age make any difference to my ability to do the job? I still need to write down my birthdate. Same with school. I've finished school nearly 10 years ago, what kind of difference does that make, I still put it in.... I really need to get more information about what is actually required to be in a CV, and what's generally expected to be in one. In germany it's rather hard to find a job at all right now, single mother or not, because the economy is so bad, so I feel I need to really make an outstanding kind of impression on a possible employer, so leaving things out others do put in doesn't seem like such a great idea, if you know what I mean. It's not really a law to put a job application into a nice plastic folder, and deliver it unbent and without stains, but that's still expected, and if I was working hiring people I would sort by appearance first. If I got a creased bit of paper with coffee stains all over it I wouldn't care how well this person did in school or whatever, because I'd probably have 100 more people who really want this job and did take the time to deliver a job application that's complete and "nice". And if someone voluntered that yeah I have a kid and yeah he's in daycare all day and yeah there's also grandma living nextdoor and my husband of 15 years works from home; I'd probably be much more inclined to get that woman in for an interview than some girl who didn't tell me a birthdate, no marital status,... So I try to write that yes, I do have a child and that because of this child I had to quit university (no daycare there, parents 400km north, childs father kicked me all the way thru the appartment,...) because there was no way I could have handled a newborn and studying alone at the same time. But that he's now old enough to go to daycare/Kindergarten all day and therefore I won't be taking days off all the time because my son needs me. I feel that omitting my child from my CV means omitting nearly 5 years of "work experience" from my CV because I have spent 24/7 with him and I now can handle stressfull situations much better than I did 5 years ago, and a whole lot of other things I probably wouldn't be able to do as well without having my son.
I have to get to bed, this last paragraph so doesn't make any sense to me now that I've read it tree times, but I have no idea how to write it better...
I know that these things vary from region to region, so I can't say what would be expected in Germany. I know that in my field in the US, when I see resumes or CVs with personal information like that on them, it makes a poor impression because *I* know that it's not appropriate to ask those questions, and thus someone who includes that information probably isn't even aware of that. I want people who are a bit more savvy than that. It is also information that is irrelevant to the job. I want to see a resume that is well-tuned to the position offered. I want all the irrelevant stuff trimmed off. If you've got advanced degrees and 20 years of experience, I do *not* want to see your high school information in your education section, nor do I want to see the internship you did in college in your employment history. I want to see the education and experience that are relevant to the offered position, and ideally I want to see it on one, or at most two, pages (without resorting to teeny tiny fonts or miniscule margins). For an academic position, I would expect it to be longer, but mostly just to include a list of publications. (For a corporate position, if relevant, I wouldn't mind an appendix with a list of relevant publications or patents.)
You might think so, but it's really dangerous waters. There are many folks who will think the worse of you no matter what you put down in that area. Have kids? Obviously, you're going to miss work. Don't have kids? You'll probably get pregnant as soon as you've gotten trained up on the job. Single? You're probably just taking the job to find a husband. Married? You'll probably get pregnant or quit as soon as your husband's earning power is sufficient for you to get by on one income.
I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. I wouldn't say a word of it. If asked, I would say nothing more than that I did not expect anything in my personal life to unduly interfere with my job performance. I might also say (in answer to the usual goals question) that five years hence, my career goals would be to (X, Y, and Z) at this particular company, indicating a long- term commitment to the company.
Yeah, *you* know that as a mom, but an awful lot of employers won't buy it. Don't go there. Don't even go there with women interviewers who seem sympathetic.
This is why you ALWAYS do something else during a period of unemployment. Whether, like my neighbor, it's taking the occasional class, or "working on a book" (a large percentage of books written don't get published, so there's no need for you to produce a copy of the actual book), or "starting my own business", or _______.
If/when I'm able to return to the normal work world, I've had fingers in enough pies the last five years that "needed to reduce my work hours" will look like I couldn't handle a 40-hour workweek PLUS all these business ventures.
I have thought about that, but I'm really bad a shipping myself around hot topics and if the interviewer were to ask me "And where did you do that?" I'd probably say "At home." or something equally stupid... I'm just really very nervous before interviews at least I used to be when I got them ;-)
But I really like your other ideas in your previous post for filling out "blanks". I did spend a large amout of time painting and drawing (ok, so it was mostly with Sam, but I love painting on canvas and did that, too), I did spend a lot of time improving my cooking skills (I want to get an aprenticeship to become a cook), I did spend a great deal of time doing research (ok, so that was to find out what was wrong with Sam, it's still research, right?) in different areas.
Well, there you have it. "While I was off work, I spent a lot of time improving my cooking skills and learning new things, which I think will benefit me in this apprenticeship."
You of all people should know that isn't always possible. If someone is unemployed for health reasons they may not have the energy or ability to do these things. I know this to be true for persons I know who have lupus and some who have had cancer. And for people who have never had any desire to do those things, saying them would be outright lies.
These days people call references and check credentials. I would expect someone who called themself a "therapist" would have specialized training with the paper to back it up (here it is required), and "caregivers" other than in family situations are, where I live, most often licensed and vetted by various government departments. (A licensed in home day care provider, for example, has passed inspection by the Health department, Fire Inspector, a crminal records check, and a review by Child Services.) So, someone could easily be called on a title like that. I think appearing to mis-state job titles is treading on very thin ice. I am not understating the value of being at home with a child--I think women in particular need to dermand that experience be acknowledged, without trying to make it sound like something it isn't. What is it should be recognized. Dawne
There's no reason to do these things 40 hours a week. You can spend 2 minutes a week writing notes or tossing newspaper clippings into a box and it qualifies as "working on a book" if you have in mind to get the book written eventually. Lardbutt spent six months just thinking about a title ... didn't write a word (didn't actually come up with a title, either), but he was "working on a book".
I'm now designing needlework. Other than the first burst of photo conversions to get some patterns up quickly, I've spent less than an hour a week on it for precisely the reason that I don't have a lot of energy to spare. The key is that in a job interview, I could say "I was a needlework designer for TyWolfeDesigns" to explain away my time away from the real work world, and if they assume this was a full-time job, that's fine with me.
If you started your own business, it's very simple to put fears to rest with the statement that you are seeking a real job now because you're closing the business. 80%+ of new businesses fail, so "I tried it, I found out how hard it was to make a profit, I'm not interested in doing it again because I need the security of a steady paycheck" is something that the majority of entrepreneurs will eventually say in a job interview.
I took a two-hour needlework class five years ago, a four-hour editing class four years ago, and attended a three-hour pain management class last month. As long as no one asks for details, "while I was off work, I took some classes" sounds like you were doing something productive, and most people will assume they were full-semester classes.
If you can't manage to take a class (either financially or logistically), then borrow a bunch of library books on the same subject. "I was studying Macroeconomics in that time." If they ask which school, "it was independent learning; I'm hoping to get my MBA from Stanford." Again, if they want to read into that that you were doing a course through Stanford right now, let them assume anything they want. Or, in Nicole's case, "I was researching early childhood learning disabilities and doing intensive hands-on therapies with a disabled child, but, quite frankly, I've decided that's not the career I could be happy with, and so I have decided to pursue a career in cooking, which I very much enjoy. When I realized that I didn't want to be a researcher, alone with scholarly books, I worked on improving my cooking skills and was much happier doing that."
Actually, I am still working at editing/proofreading, which is why I only have an hour a week of my limited energies to put toward designing. I'm not going to turn away guaranteed payment to play around with something that may or may not sell.
However, since it's the opinion of the expert rheumatologist that I am not likely to ever recuperate much beyond where I am now (2-3 good hours a day, which must be interspersed with rest periods), the odds of my going on a job interview at any future time are slim and none. That 2-3 hours has to include all the household chores, commute, etc., and it's simply not likely that I will find a "real job" working only 1 hour a day (or 2 hours within a couple blocks of home). So, I run my own business at home where I'm not wasting my precious energy on a commute, and where I can multi-task, by running a load of laundry or dishes
*while* I'm working.
I'm not gaming the system; I'm doing as much paid work as I can manage and fitting things like designing and writing my book into the spots where there's no paid work coming in.
When I find that cooking is too much to cope with -- and this does happen at times that I am essentially bedridden -- I eat cereal bars.
Frankly, you'd be surprised how many work projects I have done while I was essentially bedridden. I'm about as far from a slacker as you can get and I don't appreciate your implication that I am. I worked full-time for 12 years after receiving the diagnosis, including many many months where the only way to continue working was to spend all non-working hours in bed. Unfortunately, companies have an odd notion that they only want to employ people who contribute to the bottom line, and someone who's spending half the day being sick isn't making them any money.
Besides, every bit of advice I gave is precisely what you would get from a placement counselor working with the disabled and mothers returning to work after a long absence. Do not lie, but let the interviewer assume anything they want to about how many hours a week you did whatever it was that you were doing while you were out of the work force.
OK. She can give the father's name and phone number as a reference for her work with his son for the past five years. He needn't mention that this is her son, too, or that what he paid her was court-ordered child support rather than salary.
It's really no different from a friend of mine who worked in the family business as a teenager listing his own parents as a reference after graduation. His employer really was Dad, and his Personnel Manager really was Mom; he didn't have anyone else to put down on the application. They'd done everything on the up-and-up, and had all the required tax forms, timecards, etc., proving that he had been a legitimate employee with the same responsibilities as other employees with the same job title.
I have some experience in this area of Human Resources, nicole. I will try to be cosmopolitan Also. Freely given, as in absolutely no obligation - of any kind, implied or otherwise. Call it, my contribution to GPL
Treat your presented CV as an advertisement. Minimum content for maximum impact. Think on structure as leaving the impression you get when flashed with a well presented billboard on the highway. You want to leave plenty for the "hard sell", IF you get an interview. IOW, flash 'em and leave 'em wanting more - follow what you did on your first date, metaphorically speaking
Rule of thumb. If you even have the slightest thought that the reader may well construe something you do not wish them to 'assume' from your CV, do not put it in. If you believe a comment/info line may "dress up" your CV, do not put it in.
A wise person only submits CV with position apps for jobs *they_want*. An employee has equal right to assess an employer just as much as is the reverse. Many find that concept difficult to grasp - on both sides. Your CV will help you to "test the water" - so to speak. The structure consists of a 'standard' base with a well stocked cupboard of "plug ins". Contrary to what many believe you do need a new approach with each position. Remember this is a job *_you_want*.
Too wide a scope to fit in one post, I address only the paragraph quoted from your post. Often we focus too much on negativity, if only subtly. To take your statement of domesticity, I read you have some concerns as to the pros and cons of presenting your domesticity - albeit put very positively. Choose your target. There may well be a prospective employer offering a promising position who sees those attributes as bringing elements of what
*they_want* to the table. a.) willing b.) committed c.) stable ..to mention just a very few I could read from your statement.
Always avoid the temptation to "mass mail" a CV, the act may well come back to bite you on the arse. And, never, never publish a CV on the NET unless it is a 'bare-bones' CV for an IT job. We have just had good example of this here [.au] with a certain 'Doctor' Jayant Patel. In this case the uploaded CV had no bearing on the guy getting the job buut it was how he was "discovered" by a journalist - a good thing IMO.
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close industry bases and with an "Employers Marketplace" you would besurprised just who talks to whom, and how readily people will pass over yourdetails *without* your permission. The magic words "HR Manager" open many doors, believe. Present clear succinct information. On first pass, a neat, tidy - but not 'flashy' - CV, gets a tick. Your CV is seen for maybe 5 seconds. On second pass the vital details get a tick. Your CV is seen for maybe 25 seconds. On third pass an overview is made against criteria for the position. This is usually done with a 'checklist' - fill in the box type operation. Your CV is seen for maybe 2 minutes - for a complex position descriptor.
*None* of these checks are made by an observer that is associated with the judiciary supervising the employee selection.
When the CV finally hits the desk of a Recruiter it will be examined and a decision made. This is the *only* time up until *all* interviews are conducted that your CV will be reviewed closely. IF, after interviews are completed, their happens to be a choice in final selection, your CV may well get dragged out again to be used as a 'persuader' in discussion with the decision makers. You need to remember that when you are at interview so as to use your presentation, at interview, to underline your *factual* attributes. Funnily enough, you can say all you like at interview but IF there is disagreement between selectors *they* will always go to the written presentation to prove their argument, just as they do when the successful applicant proves inefficient in the position and that recruiter is asked to explain their decision.
Bottom line? Never attempt to make the whole process an emulation of the Sharon Stone flash. We will all look - who would not - but for hard nosed calculating stoneless people purveyors as moi, it will not be *you* warbling when the fat lady sings. And, you would not want to work for someone unlike moi :-)
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