Problems at work? Need advice? Our agony uncle – and readers – have the answers
**Should I reveal that a hole in my CV was when I had IVF?**
*I have worked in a number of IT/analysis jobs for the past 15 years. For six-and-a-half years of that time I have been trying to conceive a baby, through unsuccessful IVF treatments.*
*Last year my husband and I were offered voluntary redundancy, and with the package were able to relocate from the north to the south as well as afford the latest, fourth, IVF treatment. I took VR in April, my husband found a new job in July, we moved in August and treatment started in October. Sadly, it was unsuccessful.*
*It is unlikely we will try again so I am now considering both contract and permanent work, but am worried about explaining the gap in my CV. One part of me is content to tell the truth, the other thinks it might be off-putting and I should merely say I've been relocating and settling in. I do voluntary unpaid website work as a hobby and have been helping out with a charity website since September (though this has been on hold due to treatment).*
*I have no concerns about proving my worth as an employee – I am hard working with a successful track record. I'm just concerned about explaining the gap, particularly since the reasons and emotions are still quite raw. Should I mention it?*
*Jeremy says*
I can quite understand your reluctance to tell prospective employers the full reasons for your time off work. But you offer two slightly different explanations for that reluctance. You feel it might be off-putting; and your emotions are still quite raw. The first concerns the possible effect on the potential employer and the latter concerns your own feelings.
I think it very unlikely that any worthwhile employer is going to find your story off-putting: it's the simple truth. You're not asking for sympathy, you're not expecting out-of-the-ordinary consideration. Indeed, it would obviously suit you best to keep your account to the necessary factual minimum. No interviewer is going to ask you to enlarge or elaborate.
As for your own feelings, however difficult you may find it I urge you to overcome them. By my reckoning, by the time your new CV is received, you'll have been out of the workplace for up to a year. That's a long time to spend "relocating and settling in".
Remember that when there are multiple well-qualified applicants for the same job the most trivial doubt about a candidate may be all that is needed for that candidate's application to end up on the wrong pile. At the very least there could be a suspicion that you're not committed to working, or that you're hiding something. At an interview, you'd have to explain the gap anyway. Far better to play it dead straight from the beginning.
*Readers say*
• I think you should explain the gap as being to do with moving rather than telling people about the IVF. Not because I think employers would judge you, but for your own peace of mind – it will enable work to be a space that is just work, rather than you having to share the raw details of your treatment with people you don't necessarily want to confide in – people can be insensitive even when they don't mean to be. You always have the option of confiding at a later stage. *room32*
• You already have a truthful explanation if you wish to give one – you took VR, relocated with your husband's new job, and have been doing voluntary work since then. *Mudmaid*
• When people get VR they do a variety of things, from travelling, doing up their house, starting a business, to doing nothing and having a rest. So you focussed hard on IVF and did other things as well. It is your story and unlikely the interviewer will even mention it, let alone dwell on it. *ExBrightonBelle*
**I'm overloaded and my skills are not valued in mundane office job**
*I recently left a secretarial position and took up a similar role in a legal department, believing it couldn't be worse than what I was doing. But it is. The job doesn't seem to involve secretarial work at all. I spend my time filing and preparing bundles for court. I am left to do this on my own, and spend much of my time standing by a photocopier, punching holes, indexing and paginating.*
*Sometimes I am only given a few hours to do this and I can't meet the deadlines. I have to sort through folders looking for documents and this takes ages. I don't see how the work can be done unless I put in overtime. I am used to doing a lot more and feel that this role is a clerical role. You don't actually need any skills.*
*There is zero creativity and the work is soul-destroying. I think my boss is a bit concerned that I might leave. He recently told me that he hoped I wasn't bored and that this role was "different". If anything, the workload is making me look incompetent. I feel like the girl on work experience who is given the tasks that nobody else wants. I just want to walk out, but I'm afraid I won't get another job.*
*Jeremy says*
I think you've got two options and you need to explore them both quite quickly because, as you've quite correctly identified, being overloaded with soul-destroying and repetitive work can all too easily grind you down, make you appear incompetent, and have a lasting and damaging effect on your self-confidence. Taking positive action, which you need to do, demands energy and determination. Act while you've still got them.
Decide now that you can't go on with this work. Your boss seems concerned that you might leave: either he likes you and thinks you're good, or he dreads the thought of having to find someone else to do the drudgery. You need to know which.
Tell him you'd like to stay with the company but only if you can transfer to a role that uses your secretarial skills. You'll know immediately from his response whether that's a possibility. Be on the lookout for fudge and delay – unless he sounds positive, assume there's nothing doing and look immediately for something else. There are jobs around: you got one yourself only recently, remember?
*Readers say*
• 1. Don't speak to your boss before you have a few more job offers. 2. Use evenings to plot your future career plans and/or work on a business, depending on what you want to do. 3. Once you have another job offer, talk to your boss sensitively. What you are doing IS important, because if the right papers don't make it to court or chambers they will directly affect someone's life or money or anything else – so, it matters. But maybe they can get an intern or hire someone else to help you, as deadlines are always last minute in law firms; or get your boss to agree to give you more interesting work, not just more work. *lookingforrocks*
*For Jeremy's and readers' advice on a work issue, send a brief email to **dear.jeremy@guardian.co.uk**. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or reply personally.* Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
**Should I reveal that a hole in my CV was when I had IVF?**
*I have worked in a number of IT/analysis jobs for the past 15 years. For six-and-a-half years of that time I have been trying to conceive a baby, through unsuccessful IVF treatments.*
*Last year my husband and I were offered voluntary redundancy, and with the package were able to relocate from the north to the south as well as afford the latest, fourth, IVF treatment. I took VR in April, my husband found a new job in July, we moved in August and treatment started in October. Sadly, it was unsuccessful.*
*It is unlikely we will try again so I am now considering both contract and permanent work, but am worried about explaining the gap in my CV. One part of me is content to tell the truth, the other thinks it might be off-putting and I should merely say I've been relocating and settling in. I do voluntary unpaid website work as a hobby and have been helping out with a charity website since September (though this has been on hold due to treatment).*
*I have no concerns about proving my worth as an employee – I am hard working with a successful track record. I'm just concerned about explaining the gap, particularly since the reasons and emotions are still quite raw. Should I mention it?*
*Jeremy says*
I can quite understand your reluctance to tell prospective employers the full reasons for your time off work. But you offer two slightly different explanations for that reluctance. You feel it might be off-putting; and your emotions are still quite raw. The first concerns the possible effect on the potential employer and the latter concerns your own feelings.
I think it very unlikely that any worthwhile employer is going to find your story off-putting: it's the simple truth. You're not asking for sympathy, you're not expecting out-of-the-ordinary consideration. Indeed, it would obviously suit you best to keep your account to the necessary factual minimum. No interviewer is going to ask you to enlarge or elaborate.
As for your own feelings, however difficult you may find it I urge you to overcome them. By my reckoning, by the time your new CV is received, you'll have been out of the workplace for up to a year. That's a long time to spend "relocating and settling in".
Remember that when there are multiple well-qualified applicants for the same job the most trivial doubt about a candidate may be all that is needed for that candidate's application to end up on the wrong pile. At the very least there could be a suspicion that you're not committed to working, or that you're hiding something. At an interview, you'd have to explain the gap anyway. Far better to play it dead straight from the beginning.
*Readers say*
• I think you should explain the gap as being to do with moving rather than telling people about the IVF. Not because I think employers would judge you, but for your own peace of mind – it will enable work to be a space that is just work, rather than you having to share the raw details of your treatment with people you don't necessarily want to confide in – people can be insensitive even when they don't mean to be. You always have the option of confiding at a later stage. *room32*
• You already have a truthful explanation if you wish to give one – you took VR, relocated with your husband's new job, and have been doing voluntary work since then. *Mudmaid*
• When people get VR they do a variety of things, from travelling, doing up their house, starting a business, to doing nothing and having a rest. So you focussed hard on IVF and did other things as well. It is your story and unlikely the interviewer will even mention it, let alone dwell on it. *ExBrightonBelle*
**I'm overloaded and my skills are not valued in mundane office job**
*I recently left a secretarial position and took up a similar role in a legal department, believing it couldn't be worse than what I was doing. But it is. The job doesn't seem to involve secretarial work at all. I spend my time filing and preparing bundles for court. I am left to do this on my own, and spend much of my time standing by a photocopier, punching holes, indexing and paginating.*
*Sometimes I am only given a few hours to do this and I can't meet the deadlines. I have to sort through folders looking for documents and this takes ages. I don't see how the work can be done unless I put in overtime. I am used to doing a lot more and feel that this role is a clerical role. You don't actually need any skills.*
*There is zero creativity and the work is soul-destroying. I think my boss is a bit concerned that I might leave. He recently told me that he hoped I wasn't bored and that this role was "different". If anything, the workload is making me look incompetent. I feel like the girl on work experience who is given the tasks that nobody else wants. I just want to walk out, but I'm afraid I won't get another job.*
*Jeremy says*
I think you've got two options and you need to explore them both quite quickly because, as you've quite correctly identified, being overloaded with soul-destroying and repetitive work can all too easily grind you down, make you appear incompetent, and have a lasting and damaging effect on your self-confidence. Taking positive action, which you need to do, demands energy and determination. Act while you've still got them.
Decide now that you can't go on with this work. Your boss seems concerned that you might leave: either he likes you and thinks you're good, or he dreads the thought of having to find someone else to do the drudgery. You need to know which.
Tell him you'd like to stay with the company but only if you can transfer to a role that uses your secretarial skills. You'll know immediately from his response whether that's a possibility. Be on the lookout for fudge and delay – unless he sounds positive, assume there's nothing doing and look immediately for something else. There are jobs around: you got one yourself only recently, remember?
*Readers say*
• 1. Don't speak to your boss before you have a few more job offers. 2. Use evenings to plot your future career plans and/or work on a business, depending on what you want to do. 3. Once you have another job offer, talk to your boss sensitively. What you are doing IS important, because if the right papers don't make it to court or chambers they will directly affect someone's life or money or anything else – so, it matters. But maybe they can get an intern or hire someone else to help you, as deadlines are always last minute in law firms; or get your boss to agree to give you more interesting work, not just more work. *lookingforrocks*
*For Jeremy's and readers' advice on a work issue, send a brief email to **dear.jeremy@guardian.co.uk**. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or reply personally.* Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.