Maternity cover | Employee asked to be on interview panel…for job they want to apply for

In the workplace, it isn’t uncommon for internal job opportunities to crop up from time to time, whether this is for a position in a different department or to temporarily cover a colleague going on maternity leave for example.

Yet, in a recent post on Mumsnet, one user – writing under the name of Thickhead – explained that they had been asked to sit on the interview panel for a role that they wanted to apply for themselves.

The user wrote: “My line manager is going on maternity leave soon, and I was thinking of having a crack at applying for her cover. There are only 3 of us in my department – my big boss, my line manager and me.

“My big boss has said we can advertise for my line manager’s cover now, and that we need to decide who will be on the interview panel. He said that he wants it to be the three of us in the team.