Job hunting while pregnant

I was in this situation. I was laid off very early in my pregnancy. Things are stickier here because we have a year for Mat leave - no one wants to hire and train someone to have them take off for a year.

I temped long enough to qualify for benefits then went on my mat leave.

If you are looking for a permanent job don’t tell them about the pregnancy - you will be one those women that “didn’t know” until later.

It seems like this is the most popular opinion.

As an employer, I think it stinks for someone to look for a job while knowing they are filling a position that they intend to leave fairly soon for a minimum of six weeks. I hire long term for someone to do a job. I do not want to go through the expense of training someone only to have to either replace them or pay a temp to cover for them within the year.

Would I be bitter against her? Yes. I would always think her sneaky for taking the position without informing me that she will need this chunk of time off. My job is deciding what is best for my company. I need to be fully informed of any reason a person is unable to fulfill the obligations of the position. Informing is the right and honest thing to do.

I have had many women become pregnant while they worked for me. It is always a wonderful and fun experience for all of us. However, that is because they are already part of my working “family”. I do hold jobs even though being a small company, I am not legally obligated to do so.

If you need to work, please take a job that you are easily replaced and not one that costs your potential employer time and money to train you. You can look for that kind of job when you are free to commit to working a year before needing significant time off.

Well, the world of working is an adversarial one in North America, so as an employer, you are doing as employers do, Foxy, and hiding the pregnancy is what employees do. If Mouse needs to work for six months before delivering, she needs to work, and needs to go into job interviews not giving employers reasons to not hire her (not that they’d ever tell her that was why she wasn’t hired). Legislation to protect her against discrimination is all well and good, but it doesn’t buy shoes for the kids.

So Foxy40, I should have looked for a non-skilled job and killed my career rather than inconvenience an employer for a few months?
Not to mention any job you seem to think suitable for a pregnant woman to hold would not have fed my family. My husband cannot work. I have to.

Dangerosa, I love this advice.

And that is precisely why she shouldn’t reveal her pregnancy. If she were to tell a prospective employer that she is pregnant, most wouldn’t even consider her for the position, whether or not she was the most qualified.

And her job (drum roll, please) is to do what’s best for her. If that means not revealing a pregnancy so that she can get her foot in the door, then that’s what it means. Or would you rather that she sit in a rocking chair and knit during the last 6 months of her pregnancy? If a woman’s decision to maintain a career while also bearing children makes you embittered, then you need to get over it.

I have a friend who changed jobs mid-pregnancy and found out the OB visits, delivery, and etc. would not be covered by her new insurance/employer (pre-existing condition). Big, big mistake on her part not making sure she’d be covered. It ended up costing her an arm and a leg.

You do understand that if you were to make a decision based on these criteria, you would be breaking the (US) law, yes? You may not discriminate based on her pregnancy, which is what you’re basically implying you’d do in the first paragraph.

This is why “don’t tell” is the best policy, for both employer and employee.

I understand why Foxy40feels that way, and I really sympathize, while at the same time sympathizing with pregnant job-seekers. It’s just a sucky situation all around.

**featherlou **says, “You could also be a thief, or incompetent, or get injured on the job soon after taking it, or any number of other things that the employer won’t like.” That’s true, but a pregnant mom is more-or-less guaranteed to be a “problem” employee, and she knows that going in. It’d more analogous, IMHO, to me taking a job and not mentioning that I’m moving out of state in six months than to the bad luck that your new employee gets hit by a bus. I know what the law says about pregnancy and why, but I have to say that this is one place I just don’t agree with it. That’s probably better suited for Great Debates, though.

Given the world the way it really is, I think Dangerosa’s advice is the most ethical, even though it may cost you some offers. If you really can’t afford to be out of work and have no husband, nest egg or state services to fall back on, then take the second most ethical route (IMHO) and keep your trap shut.

When I was in graduate school, foreign grad students had to take the insurance chosen by the university (in theory you could take a different one, in reality, I only knew one person whose request to use different insurance was accepted). They changed it every year.

We became experts at fighting that particular dragon, the preexisting condition.

Another reason not to tell is depressing. Not all pregnancies go full term. Telling employers – whether current or prospective – about such things can lead to your being unemployed as well as bereaved if the worst happens.

I was about 3 months along when I was hired for a particularly crappy job (which is another story altogether) and I fretted about how I’d break the news to my boss. Lucky for me, I had a coworker who was a gossip, so I kinda, sorta let it slip to her, and next thing I knew, my boss was asking me about it.

Because of personal and financial circumstances, I was only able to take 3 weeks of maternity leave, after working right up to the day she was born, so I wasn’t away from the office very long. Then 2 months later I quit, having found a job that paid better and allowed me to use my engineering degree. Interestingly enough, it was the husband of another coworker who introduced me to the man who gave me the better job - I was hugely pregnant at the time, but he knew the wheels of HR moved slowly, so he wouldn’t get me till well after the baby was born.

I appreciate everyone’s input. Hopefully, my job will last until the Mouseling is born, but there are no guarantees.

Right now, I’m looking at options. It’s amazing how a child changes your outlook on things. My best friend has a 10 year old son. She has told me how hard it is to find an employer that is willing to work with a parent. Kids don’t keep a regular schedule, but businesses do. Sadly, that these challenges are very common.

Luckily, I’m on Mouse_Spouse’s health insurance. The biggest loss from a job change would be paid maternity leave. :frowning: Also, we’re looking into tightening our budget and sending me back to school after the kid is born.

I don’t know how parents do it. This is very difficult.

Yep, and it gets harder.

But I’ve found my employers are really willing and eagar to work with people with kids - if the people add enough value to make it worth their while. I take time off for conferences and school events, work from home when the kids are sick, take phone calls from my kids teachers - and still get stellar reviews and raises. But I’m good at my job (apparently, there are days I’m convinced I’m a huge fraud) - good enough that they seem to be willing to overlook “the kids are sick” or “I have to leave early to make gingerbread houses with the kids at school.” It does help that I have a really flexible job where no one has to “cover” for me on any timetable - and I have been known to be in meetings at 11:00 at night - fairly regularly at times.

Embittered? That’s funny as I worked up to birth with my both my children and have been a career woman since I graduated 20 years ago.

The point isn’t keeping an employee on that is pregnant, it is not disclosing that fact before you accept a position. It is a simple right and wrong. I don’t think there are too many that can argue against it being the right thing to do to be honest, only that to do so will make getting hired for a desirable long term position more difficult.

Given that most US employers provide no benefits whatsoever for pregnant employees, I have no sympathy whatsoever for complaints when they unknowingly hire pregnant women. Most employees are lucky to get three months UNPAID leave, let alone paid maternity leave or convenient daycare.

Again good luck. Do what you have to do. You are under no obligation to mention your pregnancy to anyone who doesn’t need to know about it.

Not sure when this happened to your friend, but HIPAA has made it much harder to exclude preexisting conditions, especially pregnancy, from group health insurance. It may still be possible in some situations, but probably is not the norm.

And folks upthread were working on an analogy. The legally analogous situation is someone who knows they will be going out on medical leave for surgery. For example, if you know you have back surgery scheduled in a few months and will be out for 6 weeks, would you tell the potential employer? Note that the employer doesn’t have to hold the job for this person, either, though. (Nitpick - If the surgery were for an ADA qualifying disability the analogy wouldn’t hold).

Were you looking for a job at the time you were pregnant? If not, how long had you worked for your employer before you became pregnant? When did you tell your employer you were pregnant. It seems to me that unless you were in the same position as the OP, your anecdotal story is irrelevant to her specific concerns raised here.

You are correct. It is a simple matter of right and wrong. You cannot make a hiring decision based on whether a woman is pregnant, or not, whether she may become pregnant, or not, etc.

And if a pregnant potential employee were not to be hired, woe be that potential employer who did not have their ducks in a row. Regardless of the facts of the case, the eventual publicity of such a discrimination case would have an affect upon the employer’s reputation in the community.

Oh, explain in plain language why it is not right for a pregnant woman to keep her condition to herself when job hunting. It is illegal for her condition to be used as a factor in whether or not to hire her. Just how is her withholding informationyhat is illegal for her employer to use in a decision to hire her wrong? Pray tell what other conditions should be likewise revealed?

For anyone who says “a pregnant woman should disclose her pregnancy to a potential employer,” I have three questions:

  1. If she is not pregnant but is actively attempting to become pregnant, is she morally obligated to reveal that?

  2. If a man is job hunting and his wife/SO will give birth shortly after he will be hired, is he morally obligated to reveal that?

  3. If a job candidate, male or female, expects to finalize an adoption shortly after s/he will be hired, is s/he obligated to reveal that?

Sorry, Mouse, if it seems like I’m hijacking here a little bit. I think the answers could provide some insights into your situation, by seeing what people have to say when the parameters are slightly modified.