A talented former colleague recently turned down a great opportunity to reignite her career after five years of motherhood. She was keen to return to full-time work. Her twins started school this year and it had taken six months to find a suitable role for her experience and salary expectation. I was asked to provide a reference and it was clear the company was extremely keen.
So I was surprised when she phoned to say she’d turned the role down.
When she was formally offered the position during the third meeting and final stage of the recruitment process, her potential manager casually mentioned there could be a few late meetings that she’d need to be available for. This was new information so she asked if she could speak to the woman she was replacing. It turned out that rather than just a few meetings every now and then (as was suggested) there were often two or three late night meetings per week.
Her twins had just turned 5. Her husband travelled a lot for work and her elderly parents were not in a position to fill in as carers. There really wasn’t enough money in it to then go ahead and hire a nanny and she felt that would be too disruptive for them in their first year of adjusting to school anyway.
This is a classic example of the shame of rigid working arrangements. The organisation has had to settle for second best and my former colleague has missed the opportunity to return to her career due to a needs-gap. Her needs do not meet theirs. It’s lose-lose.
As I was contacted by the organisation to provide a reference for this woman who had worked with me on a number of occasions in my career, I was privy to the fact that she was the number one choice “by a long shot”. So the company was forced to hire the person with significantly less suitability for the role because they didn’t bother taking her needs into account. She made it clear to them in the initial interview that she had young children and would need to be home at a certain time for them. She knew she couldn’t hide that fact and wanted to be able to leave the office each afternoon guilt-free.
I asked her if there was anything the company could have done differently to have secured her employment. She listed honesty as the main ingredient she felt was missing. If they had been upfront with her about the late meetings from the very beginning she might have workshopped ways to arrange care for her twins or she my have been able to convince them to let her skype in from home. But as it was only mentioned at the point of offer she instead got her back up and became suspicious of them. Never a great way to start any kind of relationship. And if she had accepted the job under false presences then how long would she have hung around?
This isn’t the first time I have been told of a tale like this. As the needs of working women change due to lifestage, the needs-gap will only increase if companies do not align structures and processes to suit.
Have you declined a great career opportunity due to a needs-gap?