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stellar_muddleHypothetical question...
You are looking at a rather good sounding (long term) job and trying to suss out conditions etc. There is some info on the web, but your main info is though the person answering questions for the job application itself and from the sounds of things, in charge of organising that.
Given this is lible to be a 5 - maybe 10+ year signup (1 year training (lets do honours level stuff again, whoohoo...), 1 year basic internship then ongoing career), you would really like to know things like maternity/parental leave conditions, but statements like:
make you think that such an enquiry is lible to sour your chances or at least taint it slightly. Or it may not but you are really not certain.
Suggestions?
Edit: which also gets you onto the interesting questions:
Would you employ someone who stated they wanted to take time off for pregnancy etc over someone equally qualified whos partner could do that biological stuff for them? Even if they were firmly committed (at that time) to staying in the job and returning to work after (while maintaining a reasonable work/family balance - whatever the definition of that is - you hear about the corporate male one...(another rant for later)).
Biological limitations/imperitives over natural inclination? Not so much never want to have kids - that is your fair call and anyone pressuring you over that should be slapped, but how do you handle if the mental inclination to do the 9-5 thing (or 8 hour shifts on a 24/7 system or whatever gainful paid employment) lies with the one who has to physically do the delivery etc?
And the practical considerations:
How much money do you need?
How essential is two incomes in this day and age?
How happy are you allowed to be in your work?
What are the flow on effects in paid employment taking either parent away from their children and what are the crucial developemental stages when the effects are most/least?
How sane can you stay through all this?
How much do I want to have my cake and eat it too?
Is the answer "Tough shit. Life isn't fair. Deal with it by making choices and sacrifices. You can't have it all."?
In which case, I want at least one chance at redefining the world in my local vicinity and trying to make it work.
You are looking at a rather good sounding (long term) job and trying to suss out conditions etc. There is some info on the web, but your main info is though the person answering questions for the job application itself and from the sounds of things, in charge of organising that.
Given this is lible to be a 5 - maybe 10+ year signup (1 year training (lets do honours level stuff again, whoohoo...), 1 year basic internship then ongoing career), you would really like to know things like maternity/parental leave conditions, but statements like:
Since we invest a lot of time and money in helping you become a productive member of our Company we believe that, once you're trained, you owe us your loyalty.
make you think that such an enquiry is lible to sour your chances or at least taint it slightly. Or it may not but you are really not certain.
Suggestions?
Edit: which also gets you onto the interesting questions:
Would you employ someone who stated they wanted to take time off for pregnancy etc over someone equally qualified whos partner could do that biological stuff for them? Even if they were firmly committed (at that time) to staying in the job and returning to work after (while maintaining a reasonable work/family balance - whatever the definition of that is - you hear about the corporate male one...(another rant for later)).
Biological limitations/imperitives over natural inclination? Not so much never want to have kids - that is your fair call and anyone pressuring you over that should be slapped, but how do you handle if the mental inclination to do the 9-5 thing (or 8 hour shifts on a 24/7 system or whatever gainful paid employment) lies with the one who has to physically do the delivery etc?
And the practical considerations:
How much money do you need?
How essential is two incomes in this day and age?
How happy are you allowed to be in your work?
What are the flow on effects in paid employment taking either parent away from their children and what are the crucial developemental stages when the effects are most/least?
How sane can you stay through all this?
How much do I want to have my cake and eat it too?
Is the answer "Tough shit. Life isn't fair. Deal with it by making choices and sacrifices. You can't have it all."?
In which case, I want at least one chance at redefining the world in my local vicinity and trying to make it work.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-18 07:03 am (UTC)In publishing, I have mostly employed women of a certain age (thought in my current job I don't need to worry about any of this, yay!). To be honest, I won;t knowingly employ someone who is pregnant at the time since it takes too much effort to train more than one person a year. However, I expect a turnover of about one to three years in everyone, whether for reasons of pregnancy, new job or just tedium.
I would never tell anyone that I expect their loyalty, that's up to me to create, but I do ask for a verbal commitment to 18 months, subject to change if things don't work out or go ballistic in their lives. I think that my field is on average twice as fast at turnover as most, so three years is a reasonable expectation for most companies.
Two years of training/internship seems basically mad, unless it's some astonishingly new field that has no one working in it at the moment. Are they being realistic in what they are offering?
If the other people who work there all love it and say that it's great, then it is worth talking the issues through with them. You have a good set of phrases coming together already; if you are looking at 10-15 years then you will possibly be having children through that time, and how they deal with maternity and parental issues will be a part of your decision making process.
As a manager, I have always found that the people who intend to stick with a company are the ones who suss out all the long-term info such as this. If they take it badly, you don't want to be working for them. In addition, I often find mothers to be more motivated and accomplished than others, once they get past the sleep deprived stage. But this is not a universal thing, I think it's just that good employees become better employees when under some productive pressure. The crap ones stay crap.
As to the bigger questions of child rearing in the modern era; there's a reason we have no kids. I think that most women make the decisions that work for them and their kids and there are a lot of different permutations on those. Having been raised by au pairs, nannies and a single father who spent a lot of time either being a hippie or a lawyer, I'm not well qualified to speak on normal.