Applying for a new job while pregnant

[Traveller3367]

7 months pregnant
Saw a job that I thought I would be good at
Applied without mentioning I was pregnant
Been offered the role and have informed employer I am pregnant and due to go on mat leave soon
They will see if they can get cover but I have offered to decline the position if they cannot.
My question is was I being unreasonable in applying in the first place?
(Ps I wasn't hiding my pregnancy. I didn't know when was best to mention it. Didn't want employer to think I was using it against them if they declined me. Also I valued the chance to network and get some interview practice. Was not expecting to get the role as a big jump for me career wise)

It's a slippery slope to go from "won't employ someone 7 months pregnant" to "won't employ someone trying to conceive" to "prefer not to employ someone female"

That slippery slope often ends with “prefer to employ older woman”. My friends and I all noted that we became way more employable as we got older. Now that may be due to years of experience and superior skills and knowledge but we reckon “won’t be going on maternity leave or have childcare issues” played a pretty big part in it.

Sciurus83

You can be nearly missed the point where I said of a woman of childbearing age.

I'm not discriminate against the op I think that women should have the right to do this but I think shes taking advantage of a system that she's clearly privileged by because she's upper middle class whereas women don't normally get these rights when they are working class and therefore I think it's immoral for her to do this

This isn't the model that most women are allowed to shape their lives to, and its sets a really bad impression that affects working class women who are no less deserving of rights because they work in a shop.

Yanbu OP.

sticktomygun I think your logic is completely flawed and you are wrong, but I have to go to work now so good luck to you lass!

Maybe this is harder in small organisations

It's a nightmare for smaller organisations which why most will avoid hiring a pregnant woman. It's not fair and flies in the face of equality laws but if an employer has two equally qualified candidates to choose from and one of them will only be in the office two months before going on maternity leave for several months the non pregnant person will get the nod 95% of the time.

'lass'

Sorry I haven’t RTFT but I was going to say there’s such a shortage of staff in my profession that anywhere would way rather know they were guaranteed a skilled committed person to fill the role in 11 months time than keep trying to continue recruiting less able candidates or just plain have a continuing gap.

@GeorgiaMcGraw
Really?
Pregnant women and pregnant people are not mutually exclusive terms. It depends on how the individual views themselves
And I haven't insulted middle class Caucasian man. It's a fact in My field. One that's trying to be addressed actively by increasing awareness of equality and diversity. Sadly the shop floor is not represented at management level in terms of diversity and gender and age

YANBU and I think we need use it or lose it paternity leave (as well as the current maternity and shared leave provisions) of at least 3 months for men because then there might not be the same discrimination towards women of childbearing age.

And to the PP who said employers can refuse shared leave, if you meet the criteria and give the 8 weeks notice they can’t. A father could take 50 weeks of shared leave if the mother only takes the minimum 2 weeks of maternity leave. Just in practice this doesn’t happen often.

@sticktomygun
she's clearly privileged by because she's upper middle class whereas women don't normally get these rights when they are working class

Hmm so how would your theory fare if I add that I'm actually working class having grown up in various council estates and coming from immigrant parents who can still barely speak English fluently.
My life trajectory was to have an arranged marriage at 16 to a relative but my parents were forward minded enough to break the trend and not let our cultural background hold us back.
I've worked bloody hard to get where I am, encouraged by my family to make the most of the education and opportunities this country affords people and not sit there feeling sorry for myself as if the world is against me!
So if I could break those barriers to get where I am then how dare anyone tell me I shouldn't work up due to pregnancy?
Any guilt I felt has been truly extinguished by the discrimination on this thread
As a PP said, there's enough discrimination out there so don't discriminate against yourself

@sticktomygun
its funny that that you're justifying this by saying you're (eventually) going to be having an impact on people and making the industry more open.
The whole role is about widening recruitment LOL
I'll be in charge of creating hundreds if not thousands of roles including supporting schemes for those on maternity leave
So again your prejudice is unfounded as hopefully I'll have an almost immediate impact. And not only that I hope to lead by example on flexible working

@kikisparks
Totally agree re the use it or lose it leave

@Droite
Haha YES
Clearly they feel I will add value even in those short weeks
I am sorry if you have not been in the position of feeling that level of value at work.

I used to think it was men held women back so when I watched programs like the handmaids tale, I used to think what are these women doing.

But actually it's a pretty good rule of thumb, men at at the top but it's the women who do the most of the holding other women back. Look at the comments here 😵‍💫

It's so depressing to see women be so aggressively negative about this issue. Unfortunately there needs to be a top down change in culture in companies.

Having women like OP go through this process successfully and excel in their role when they return is exactly how to reduce the stigma around hiring women who are of childbearing age. Especially as OP will be directly involved in her company's hiring process.

I understand it's frustrating for women who this hasn't been possible for, but nothing will change on a wider scale without it changing in big corporations first where the model can be tried, tested and proven.

Good on you OP

feel entitled to take up the position in place of someone else

you're definitely taking up one of limited roles in the organisation that supports women

These viewpoints are bizarre. Firstly, the OP is entitled to take up the role – because it was offered to her.

Secondly, she’s not taking it away from someone else – it’s her job now, fair and square. She was judged to be the best candidate. There’s nothing to say that another candidate would have been offered it – if she hadn’t been in the running, the company may well have kept recruitment open rather than hiring someone not good enough.

It reminds me of male attitudes to jobs, where men think positive discrimination has resulted in “their” job being given to someone else – assuming that jobs are theirs by default, and have been stolen. Similarly, the role OP has won was no one else’s by default – not even the straw women candidates being created in this thread, who are simultaneously poor discriminated-against shop-workers yet also highly qualified for this specialist role, and will apparently NEVER get pregnant themselves until they’ve spent such time in the role as is judged reasonable by the mad unreasonable people on this thread.

Go on, all you who think OP is unreasonable: how long are women allowed to be in a job before getting pregnant? How long must we stay in roles we’re unhappy with, waiting to get pregnant and putting our career moves on hold just in case we’re successful in conceiving?

I'd question 'working class' now if you can afford to move jobs without being concerned about being paid for a year.

It think its reductive to say these are straw women, my point is that although the job was no-one by default, I think it's wrong to apply for a job you're only going to do for a few months when that opportunity could go to someone else. This sounds like a standard management role.

Fair enough if op doesn't agree but there it is. I don't think it will be fair to claim you've worked somewhere and have x experience when you've only worked there for 3 months, barely past probation.

Also, I don't think its very nice to sneer at the 'poor little' shop workers or people that are in the service industry. There's a massive difference in how women are treated in difference sectors and i think its worth discussing even if you don't.

Professionally I would feel the same if a man did it which as people have pointed out on this thread is entirely possible with our current laws.

Also, no-one said anything about waiting to get pregnant, op is already 7 months pregnant ... that was the question.

OP if you're happy doing what you're doing then good luck to you - like i said you're clearly driven.

Having an opposite view doesn't make me mad, thank you.

[quote Traveller3367]@sticktomygun
its funny that that you're justifying this by saying you're (eventually) going to be having an impact on people and making the industry more open.
The whole role is about widening recruitment LOL
I'll be in charge of creating hundreds if not thousands of roles including supporting schemes for those on maternity leave
So again your prejudice is unfounded as hopefully I'll have an almost immediate impact. And not only that I hope to lead by example on flexible working[/quote]
So you’re in sales. That explains a lot.

YABU but only because you posted in AIBU despite being convinced you're not being unreasonable.

I also don't believe that you told your other employer you want loads more babies ASAP and conveniently they said they didn't mind that at all. It's just such an improbable thing for someone to do in real life, unless they need a good anecdote for a mumsnet forum.

On the actual issue itself, YANBU, and I work in a public sector role where maternity leaves happen frequently and there's never any cover.

@AudacityBaby
Absolutely is a true story re the babies asap haha
It's a sad reflection of the dire recruitment crisis in my field. There's a saying that anyone with the qualification and a pulse will do. I have spoken to women who were offered full mat pay for a year if they agreed to join after that.
Secondly I have better things to do than make up stories for MUMSnet haha
Also I posted in AIBU as I genuinely AT THE TIME questioned myself. Since I've been slung with mud and discrimination, my resolve to b successful despite being pregnant has made me realise I was not being unreasonable and the working world needs more people to stand up to discrimination

So what is this super niche field you work in?

@burritofan

feel entitled to take up the position in place of someone else

you're definitely taking up one of limited roles in the organisation that supports women

These viewpoints are bizarre. Firstly, the OP is entitled to take up the role – because it was offered to her.

Secondly, she’s not taking it away from someone else – it’s her job now, fair and square. She was judged to be the best candidate. There’s nothing to say that another candidate would have been offered it – if she hadn’t been in the running, the company may well have kept recruitment open rather than hiring someone not good enough.

It reminds me of male attitudes to jobs, where men think positive discrimination has resulted in “their” job being given to someone else – assuming that jobs are theirs by default, and have been stolen. Similarly, the role OP has won was no one else’s by default – not even the straw women candidates being created in this thread, who are simultaneously poor discriminated-against shop-workers yet also highly qualified for this specialist role, and will apparently NEVER get pregnant themselves until they’ve spent such time in the role as is judged reasonable by the mad unreasonable people on this thread.

Go on, all you who think OP is unreasonable: how long are women allowed to be in a job before getting pregnant? How long must we stay in roles we’re unhappy with, waiting to get pregnant and putting our career moves on hold just in case we’re successful in conceiving?

While certain posters have quite bizarre view on the rights of pregnant women to apply for roles - it's true that it's a 'skilled job' (and hence mostly middle class) privilege. If you're clearly the best candidate then as you said it's worth waiting a year for them to be productive. Being TTC is irrelevant because getting pregnant in-role means months of warning - which is very different to a couple of months or even weeks.

However for many roles there's no clear 'best' candidate. It's come down to the last few, all of whom could reasonably do the job. The hiring manager has to come up with reasons to pick one/reject the rest, but they're slight edges and wouldn't make much long-run difference.
Or for some low-level roles there are hundreds of applications with little differentiation (like an admin assistant).
In these cases there isn't any benefit in hiring a heavily pregnant woman/man about to go on paternity. There are downsides. So what's the solution?

@Traveller3367 you're in some sort of tech role aren't you?

[quote Traveller3367]@AudacityBaby
Absolutely is a true story re the babies asap haha
It's a sad reflection of the dire recruitment crisis in my field. There's a saying that anyone with the qualification and a pulse will do. I have spoken to women who were offered full mat pay for a year if they agreed to join after that.
Secondly I have better things to do than make up stories for MUMSnet haha
Also I posted in AIBU as I genuinely AT THE TIME questioned myself. Since I've been slung with mud and discrimination, my resolve to b successful despite being pregnant has made me realise I was not being unreasonable and the working world needs more people to stand up to discrimination[/quote]
If it's so niche that they'd take anyone with a pulse and were absolutely desperate for you such that they'd take you even if you went on to have 10 maternity leaves back to back, then I've no idea why you'd have any concerns about taking the job in the first place. The whole thread is just weird.

YANBU at all. Mat leave is only 9-12 mths anyway.