To have done a job interview at 20 weeks pregnant and not disclosed

It certainly is when Karen is referenced. I think you should keep your own doorstep clean before you start accusing other people of misogyny.

Bore off Karen FFS. She'll be able to do it after MAT leave, company can survive without her. Do you honestly think companies care about you? They'd make you redundant or replace you in a heartbeat.

She deserves to advance in her career even if she's pregnant. My God. She has more money and more flexible hours. She deserved to do what was right by her and her baby.

Honestly the internalised mysogny on mumsnet is wild.

Yes they did for planning purposes especially as they also had another pregnant colleague and that needs thinking about and organising. Not to make anyone suffer any detriment (immoral and illegal) but purely to be able to provide continuity of service to their customers and stability for the team.

Not surprised. You did nothing illegal but behaved in an underhand way. Cleverly concealed the pregnancy. Didnt reveal it when you should have. In other words you've wasted their time.

This is why I always steal a couple of things at Tesco self check out.

That's shite though and should be deemed as discrimination

Op, I had a role for a business manager a few years ago. I was clear with HR and recruiters I needed someone in April (ad went out in Dec as it would have taken that long to recruit) found the candidate - male. Asked the same question. Made the formal interview mid jan with a view to starting 01 April. He accepted the verbal offer on the Friday, I instructed HR to sort the details. On Monday morning I opened my inbox to an email from him thanking me for the opportunity (large global corporate that we all know/use) saying he has handed in his registration and will be working his notice to join us in April however he had x and x and x booked etc so effectively he could only join end of June! I had a piece of work that needed doing hence the timelines… relationship never felt right. I had to get a contractor I , he started in July and he was gone by the end of the year…I should never have hired him. You seem very hot on your rights but cold on your morals.

IMO the failure to declare relevant facts which affect the business, that is, they will need to recruit someone else to cover mat leave for two employees with greater costs to the business which management will have to account for to senior management, will be viewed as misrepresentation, no matter what employment law says.

The needs of the business take priority, particularly if it is an American owned enterprise.

I wouldn’t bank on a long career in your new position……

It’s actually very good advice. Treating people detrimentally for disclosing they are pregnant is potentially unlawful. OP has a right to find out what they should and shouldn’t be doing. Creating an intimidating and/or hostile is prohibited conduct. It can be very costly to employers so hope they knock it on the head. OP Maternity Action helpline and website are excellent.

No you didn’t do anything wrong. As you have already said you don’t think they would have given you the job otherwise, which of course by law they aren’t allowed to do. I wonder if people would be so outraged if a man hadn’t disclosed his partner was expecting a baby at the interview?

This. Because it is not truthful.

I fully supported her right to do it. It was a promotion for her which led to higher maternity pay. Everyone has to do what ever it takes IMO.

But I was also within my rights to be disappointed that she didn't let us know she was pregnant till her first day so we didn't have time to put any mitigations in place. There was three months between her accepting the post and starting it. The post was only for one year, it wasn't permanent.

Call them for what? She got the job. Is she really going to ring them and say….i got the job but they aren’t chatting much to me??
This is terrible advice.

And that was in the NHS, literally the biggest employer in the UK. But people seem to think it’s ok to do that if it’s a “big” company……

Call Maternity Action on Monday. As soon as you disclose your pregnancy under the Equality Act (2010) you’re in your protected period. If people didn’t have children there would be no workers or tax payers in the future. You have done nothing wrong OP and them being ‘off’ is potentially unlawful. Write a timeline to date and keep a diary going forward. Contemporaneous notes can be accepted as evidence.

Who would have thought a department with a vacancy to fill is unhappy when the new candidate discloses, after being offered the job, they will be sauntering off on maternity leave in a couple of months? How dare they!!

I did the exact same thing, I was also 20 weeks pregnant at the time. I told them once my contract was signed. But I knew it was the perfect job for me, 5 years on I’m still in the role, had a promotion and a really high performer and it’s long been forgotten despite knowing it was a pain finding my mat leave cover. I also work for a huge global company and survived 3 rounds of redundancies and restructuring.

I know some people will say it’s untrustworthy but if the team are ‘off’ with you now, that tells me they’re the type of people who potentially may subconsciously have discriminated if they knew - because that’s exactly what they’re doing now. In life, you do really have to put yourself first when it comes to jobs, careers, income etc.

well done for not discriminating against yourself, you did the right thing x

If they wanted someone to cover the other persons maternity leave they should have disclosed that!

Wow do you imagine stuff all the time?

No one said you should lose your AL

But id be checking how much time someone's off sick before employing them. 2 months of sick and 3 weeks on AL means you couldn't have actually been present much in the past few months

Example you was off from 6 weeks to14/15 weeks then maybe work 8/10 weeks max before off on annual leave

Legally you’ve don’t nothing wrong.

However, you will be perceived as untrustworthy which is nothing to do with you being pregnant but everything about the delay in telling them and not being honest. My friend started at a new company 6 months pregnant, she was upfront about it and they still hired her because they thought she was the right person for the job. I’ve never known anyone that has behaved in the way you have to have a lot of success in the same company as word will get round you caused them problems and weren’t honest.

I wanted to be considered on an even keel to other candidates

To be "on an even keel" means to be steady, balanced, and progressing smoothly without any sudden changes or disruptions. It's not a synonym for equally.

Exactly this. While in legal terms you have done nothing wrong. Yes they have to look after you and treat you the same as other employees but they legally don't have to be your friend and include you in anything other than work related situations.

I once spent 18 months securing funding for a role in health services that was a trial of a new type of role and would be used in a paper, and one that would be hugely beneficial to the patients. The role was only funded for 12 months, but if it was a success funding would hopefully be provided long term.

None of the candidates blew out socks off, but one spoke really passionately about why the role was important to her, so we decided take a chance even though her experience wasn't quite what we wanted.

Being NHS it took three months to sort it all out. On her first day she told us she would be leaving for 12 months maternity leave in 6 weeks.

Yes. Perfectly legal and she was 100% within her rights. But I was gutted as it was 18 months work down the drain and meant we couldn't prove the benefit of the role to secure additional funding. And at the end of the day, it was the patients who suffered.