Job offer withdrawn

Thùy* applied for a senior role with a company as its director of communications and engagement. Thùy was verbally offered the role through the employer’s recruiter.

At this time, Thùy thought it best to tell them that she was pregnant. The recruiter said that she would ask the employer about its policy on maternity leave.

A few days later, the recruiter contacted Thùy and apologised, saying that the employer had withdrawn the offer of employment. When pressed for a reason, the recruiter explained that it was related to a social media post Thùy had made. 

This didn’t seem right to Thùy, so she lodged a complaint of sex (pregnancy) discrimination with ADNSW. ADNSW investigated the matter by getting information from each party. 

The employer said that Thùy’s pregnancy was not the reason they withdraw the offer of employment. They said that after the offer was made, they had reviewed Thùy‘s public social media profile as part of their normal recruitment process. This had raised several flags with them, as in their view, some of her posts expressed negative opinions about their client group. They said that this, in combination with what they considered to be Thùy’s lack of foresight in not sanitising her public social media footprint, led them to deciding that she was not suitable for the job.

Thùy was unconvinced by the employer’s explanation due to the timing of the decision and the innocuous nature of the social media post. 

The matter was resolved at a conciliation conference via MS teams when Thùy and the employer agreed on a monetary payment to settle the complaint.

* Name has been changed to protect the privacy of the individual