LinkedIn Makes "Stay-at-Home Mom" Official Job Title
LinkedIn has introduced new job titles such as "stay-at-home mom" and "stay-at-home-dad" to help parents and caregivers explain job gaps on their profiles. It has also removed a requirement that job titles be linked to a company or employer.
According to reports, the social networking website made the changes after a blog that criticized its lack of profile options went viral. The blog was published for Better Marketing on Medium by Heather Bolen on March 8.
Bolen noticed the issue when updating her LinkedIn profile to look for work after taking time off to raise her children. She pointed out that LinkedIn had no pre-populated options for different types of leave, including parental and sick leave.
The only pre-populated option she found for stay-at-home parents was "homemaker," which she points out hasn't been commonly used for 50 years.
Instead, Bolen said some users had made up jobs, choosing titles like "Director of Operations" or "Chief Home Officer" to explain the time they spent as parents or caregivers. Bolen herself chose "Family Chief Operating Officer," but called the need to use such titles a "gimmick."
She explained that people shouldn't feel ashamed about taking time off and wanting to come back to work. "That's even more the case with the pandemic, and all the women leaving the workforce," she added.
LinkedIn's director of engineering, Bef Ayenew, told Fortune that he agreed the company should make employment gaps a normal part of profiles. The changes that have already been made are just a start, Ayenew added.
LinkedIn plans to include more profile options over the coming months to provide more flexibility for people, including those who want to explain why they have taken time away from work.
The changes come when they are perhaps most needed. Unemployment rates have increased significantly around the world because of the pandemic, and women especially have been affected.
