‘What experience do you have in project management?’ Plan B teased me when I told him about my latest freelance work, managing a hosiery shoot. ‘How on earth did you get that job?’ he wanted to know.
Admittedly, I have been passing questions from one person to the next during this project. When I met the hosiery buyer, she said she thought I would have looked different, but before I could ask in what way (wiser, more stylish) she asked how I knew those I was working with (translation: how did you get this job? Answer: through my mates).
‘Did you organise this night?’ a ticket buyer wanted to know as I greeted her at the door. It was the launch of a new cultural and literary event, Off The Shelf – an idea I’d developed from attending similar events in London. I often feel like I’m blagging my way through work and life. I put people in touch with each other, pass queries around and, with some luck, it comes together.
I start a new full-time job in April. ‘I wouldn’t have hired you if I were your new employers,’ Hot Danish admitted. ‘The fact that you’ve moved country for a guy would make me think that you would soon be having kids and travel would be the last thing on your mind.’ During the interview, my soon-to-be-employers asked my age and whether my boyf would mind me travelling.
Afterwards, I emailed them a link to a recent travel review and mentioned that I wasn’t planning on having children. It’s a hot topic at the moment: should/shouldn’t women mention the ‘c’ word at work? I have a friend who took her engagement ring off for recent interviews; another who believes her single status might put off potential employers because she may be viewed as desperate to find someone and have kids.
In the UK, we generally do not include our date of birth on our CVs, but in other European countries it is often the norm and one recruitment agency warned me that leaving it off would lead companies to believe I’m hiding something (surely they can work out your age from the other dates anyway).
Some women feel that they fall off their career ladder as soon as they decide to have children, while on Valentine’s evening I met a French woman who decided to have children because she couldn’t find work following her high achieving husband around the world.
Perhaps it’s best to keep passing on the questions (it turned out that one of my future employers doesn’t like to travel because he doesn’t want to be apart from his wife) and, with a little luck, it will generally come together – whatever ‘it’ may be.
