Job hunting while pregnant - disclose or not?

[dutchmummy1]

I was made redundant at the end of last year, just before I was ready to announce my pregnancy to the world.

I have been trying really really hard to find a job - difficult since I cannot do fulltime due to childcare restrictions.

Now (20 weeks pregnant) in the interviewing process for three jobs. I am not really showing - especially when dressing smartly - and have not yet disclosed to anyone I am pregnant. But I feel quite bad about it!

One of them is quite a physical job and the other two are office based. I will be out in June for maternity leave and potentially sooner for the first job due to the physicality.

One one hand, I really want a job and especially the office based ones are perfect for me. Like a few times in a lifetime kind of perfect! I know employers are not allowed to discriminate but if its between me and somebody else I am willing to bet all the money on it that they take the other person. And I would too in their place.

On the other hand it feels like a 'bad' start to get hired and pretty immediately say: hey I'll be out in a few months.

Has anyone been in the same boat? Any advice? I'm leaning towards maybe telling the physical job before signing anything as I feel like it has much more impact.

Have you read the post? I understand your looking at from a legal perspective and I'm not disputing the fact she lied on the form and how dangerous that is in some non office jobs. It also mentions illness and attendance which shouldn't really be relevant should it? If they are pregnancy related. Maybe they should? I'm not a HR expert. As I say my interpretation be it right or wrong.

There's a reason there's no legal requirement to disclose pregnancy. Just think about why that would be and why pregnant women need that protection

I would disclose?

I found out I was pregnant between interview and offer and the company/bank were very keen to offer me some sort of package so that when I took maternity leave 6m later I would be supported. I didn’t actually take the job in the end as I really didn’t want all the commuting/childcare costs associated with working in London and raising a baby in Kent (and more importantly I didn’t think I’d be able to leave the baby for those sorts of hours while she was so young).

I know not all employers are like this, though.

I think your legal rights are very clear ….there is NO compulsion to disclose when job seeking but once you start a job you a. should disclose to protect your and your babies health (and if the workplace poses specific risks to pregnancy it’s a no brainier that the employers would be very unhappy if you didn’t tell them) and b. To qualify for mat leave you MUST disclose by the end of the 15th week before the week your baby is due . it’s perhaps more to do with how you navigate the process of joining a company at this time of your pregnancy and what that may feel like….I imagine some workplaces / industries are far more accommodating and understanding than others!

Women not disclosing to prospective employers are the reason why some employers are reluctant to employ women of childbearing age, it really fucks them up going through the process of interviewing and hiring, only for the woman to say "oh by the way.....".

I was in this situation, just relocated to a different part of the country with DH's job and was actively job hunting then found out I was pregnant.

In terms of the job I got I knew at the time of interview I was pregnant but was only 6 weeks and hadn't told anyone except our families so certainly didn't want to disclose to total strangers at interview. I debated telling them when they offered the job but instead decided to wait until my first day by which time I was nearly 12 weeks which was nerve racking but I didn't want to risk them trying to wriggle out of the offer if I told them before I'd started.

In actual fact it was fine, my boss was a bit gutted as he was new in role too but he took it on the chin and we had a good working relationship whilst I was there. In fact they utilised my pregnant status in several training courses where I role played a pregnant service user.

I was originally intending to return after 12 weeks of maternity but DH's job changed again a couple of months before DS1 was born meaning he would be away all week and I decided not to rush back so ended up recruiting my replacement just before I left.

I think the law is there to protect you in this situation and unfortunately you still can't 100% rely on companies treating you fairly due to pregnancy so you have to do what works best for you as long as you stay within the law.

No, the reason some employers are reluctant to hire women of childbearing age is because they're misogynist (applies to both male and female employers) and are showing a compete lack of understanding. That would apply whether the candidates were disclosing if they were or weren't pregnant or not. So, as a pregnant prospective employee you should do the best for yourself - which is not disclosing. If they don't react well, well do you really think they would have been more understanding at the interview stage? And if they treat you badly after this well who cares if they're not happy as you'll be looking for a new employer after maternity leave anyway really

I would imagine if you are a SME then the reluctance to hire women of childbearing age is mostly driven by it being a business decision due to the cost and disruption such a hire would represent rather then flat out misogny. It is shite either way.

Like not performing, maybe? While you can’t be dismissed for being pregnant, you can’t use it as a shield if you’re not able to fulfil the duties of your role.

Gosh I did not expect so many replies. Thanks for so much good advice!

Would never lie, especially not on forms, and if people would ask me I would obviously be honest.
I don't have the job offers yet and will take some more time to think about it but as it stands I will be going through the interviewing process for now. If I don't get any job offers I've totally worried about nothing and I wasn't the right fit anyway.

If I do, I think I'll be frank and see if we can work something out. I am a very honest person and it's still a battle between what I think is kind to others or good (and kind) to me and my family.

Again, thanks so much for all the advice. It has made me even madder about the situations we find ourselves in as mothers! And how we feel like we have to put others in shitty situations to be able to work in a job that we like!

I think it is very unfair to take a job knowing full well you will be out for a decent spell shortly after joining. It also means they may need to leave your post open leaving them back at square -1 with no worker and no open post

I deliberately didn't job hunt when TTC, (previous job had come to an end and also moved to a different area). Didn't feel honest to apply for jobs knowing I was planning for a child. Worked out for the best as was incredibly unwell in the early months, but wasn't letting anyone down......
Personally I would go for temp jobs and hopefully that will lead to something later on.....

I applied for & was offered a new job while on maternity leave. No mention of it until the end of the interview when they mentioned they’d like the successful candidate to start in July (ready for the busiest period at work) at which point I said I can’t start until November.

They offered me the job but in the interim they hired another interviewee who had little experience as it ticked the box for both of us; was able to get some experience under his belt & I could finish my mat leave & with annual leave tagged on. I could also hit the ground running as I’d been doing the role elsewhere for a few years so worked out well.

Women in the workplace can take up to a years maternity leave regardless of how long they've worked there. So hiring a mat cover for someone who has worked there three years or three months is still the same. A female employee taking her allocated leave to have a baby. Length of service is irrelevant.

100% of employees can take sick leave. Most big companies offer 6m full lay sick leave. So any man or woman can, at any time, get signed off sick and the employers have to suck it up.

Yet you never hear people saying "we shouldn't hire humans, because they could go on 6m full paid sick leave".

Why is it women who shouldn't be hired? Who should be judged for doing the exact thing that was needed for you to even exist?

Or they cover it the same way they cover any woman going on mat leave - with a temp.

Is this indicative of how you see women in the workplace?
A little hobby job that can be just covered by a temp.
We take months and months to find a suitable candidate qualified for the role.

Not at all. What I am saying is that however they would cover a woman on mat leave who had been there for years is exactly how they could cover a new recruit on mat leave.

How dare you put words like "little hobby job" into my mouth.

If the roles women have at your work place take multiple months to recruit for, which is not uncommon, how does your workplace cover women who take mat leave?

The OP still has 3 months before her own mat leave would start. So 3 months in which to train both her and her temp cover together. She then takes the leave. Then takes back over from the temp cover when she returns.

Quite. My consultancy specialises in very niche offshore and subsea engineering services. Finding permanent new hires is exceptionally difficult let alone a temp one.

I can imagine it is. And I can imagine finding temp cover for a woman on mat leave is hard too - but my point is that however long a woman has worked for you, you still need to cover that role somehow, so how is it relavent how long the woman has worked there?

I didn't say women shouldn't be hired but I understand why some employers are wary. I know some SMEs who have hired women who it turned out were pregnant during the interview and were going to be taking maternity leave imminently, causing a great deal of upheaval for the business who have to start the interview process again to hire a temporary person whom they have to train then start again when the mat-leave person returns needing more training.

Yes, and had more than one employer tell me they really like me and my experience, but to contact them after I'd had the baby and was ready to return to work as they wouldn't hire a pregnant woman. So based purely on my own experience I would say no, don't disclose that information.

OP, you absolutely do not need to disclose your pregnancy at this stage, and employment law means that they also should not be asking you the question.

This is something that employers just have to deal with.

As a PP said, there's a reason why there are anti-discrimination laws in place. Pregnancy is a protected characteristic.

In your position I would go for interviews, take the job I wanted, and I would not disclose until I had a signed contract in my hand and had started the job.

There is simply no reason to.

And this is exactly why pregnancy has been classed as a protected characteristic.

Yes, it's a pain for employers and no one is disputing that.

But in order to not be discriminatory, it's a pain that they simply have to grit their teeth and deal with.

It's not OP's responsibility to disclose it before interview or to do anything to alleviate it for the employer. Unfortunately, this is life, people get pregnant and businesses have to deal with it.

If the woman is going on mat leave "immediately" then she's past the 25 week point of needing to notify the employer, so her rights to mat leave are different.

And if you hire someone and they need to go on immediate maternity leave, you presumably have at least one other person who was interviewed for the same position who could be then offered a temp contract (obvs they may decline, but you should have a pool of applicants for the woman's role who've just been through the process?)