How can I subtly get them to advertise my job without letting on that I'm up the duff?

[fisil]

There are other reasons why a new appointment would be good, but without telling them I'm pg I can only justify half a post. So what could I say to convince them to advertise a full post?

Why would they be advertising half your job anyway?

sorry, not clear. If we get in a whole job it would help out with my maternity leave. They would then cobble together my other half from existing staff iyswim.

Sorry I don't understand. Is there half a job going at your place anyway and you don't want them to know you're pg yet

Why don't you want to tell them you're pg? Maybe just tell the one person who is the decision maker.

OK this is all too complicated. I have personal reasons for not wanting to tell them, especially the decision makers! There is not an obvious half job going, instead there are several factors which means I would like to advertise for a new member of staff. One factor is me being pg, which I don't want to say. But the other factors just don't add up to a full vacancy.

Tough one fio. I can see why you want to sort this out but unless someone can come up with a bright idea I wouldn't worry too much. Are you part of a small organisation? do you have an HR department, could you talk to somebody there? It might be possible to advertise 'Part-time (hours to be negotiated)' or something like that? Then you can legitimately ask them in the interview what is the maximum and minimum hours they can/would like to do. Not that you'd appoint based on that, but it would mean that you would know whether the appointee would be happy to take on more hours at the time or whether someone else in the team could take on the cover.

If you have to advertise part-time and the person appointed wants to work only pt hours, maybe you could find a junior colleague who'd be interested in your job and start inducting them in bits and pieces as part of career development? maybe talk to managers re who wants to advance based on appraisals?

this is all based on my own public sector experience so if you're in a small business might be much tougher but hth

that's useful, thanks acnebride. I talked to my line manager this evening. It was really tempting to blurt out "and me and me!" But I managed to restrain myself. She asked me to put my request into a memo because she supports it and wants to take it higher!