Message from headhunters – forget babies if you want to get to the top

A new survey of Britain's top headhunters has revealed that 53% of those recruiting for top jobs (with a salary of £150,000 and above) think that women should not take a career break to have children if they want to get the best executive positions.

The report was compiled by InterExec, the confidential agent for top salaried executives, and asked 100 of the UK's leading headhunters for their views on working women. It showed that, while 51% of headhunters believed there would be more women in top positions in the future, 45% thought the situation would not change, and 5% said they thought there would be fewer women in senior executive jobs than now.

Kit Scott Brown, chief executive of InterExec, said there was no suggestion that people were against seeing women in top jobs. "Many of the top headhunters were keen to see more women in senior executive positions, but at the same time believed that, in order to reach those top positions, many of them would unfortunately have to give up any career break, whether it be for health reasons, to travel or, in particular, to have children," he said.

Well, it's not as if we didn't know but now we have it from the horse's mouth, as it were. So until Britain's bosses are persuaded that work should revolve around people, rather than the other way around, nothing very much is going to change for women. 

The full story is in the Observer.