Quandary Considered: Pregnant, With a Job Interview S. is two months pregnant with her second child, and six months into a period of freelancing that's left her and her husband juggling to make ends meet. This week - today, in fact - she has a job interview for a steady, at-home, part-time job at a small company. So, she asked, should she tell her potential employer that she's expecting? Most readers shouted a resounding "No!" KAS put it simply: "Do not tell during the interview. When they make you an offer, then you can tell. AMN offered support from the other side of the interview table: I just found myself on the other end of this quandary. We hired a woman and essentially minutes after accepting the job she told me she was pregnant. We are a pretty small group (about 15 people) and her maternity leave will end up coming at a crucial time for us this year (she works in a small team of three people). My initial reaction was a little like being slapped/punched (literally I felt pain - and I tried not to show it as I just had a kid in September and totally understand where she is coming from). Now I'm really glad she didn't tell us. We hired the right person for the right reasons - I hate to think that this would/could have clouded our judgment but you never know.... I say don't tell. This should not have an impact on how they evaluate you. It's a short-term problem - but you are not a short-term employee, right? And KateNonymous (who, just as an aside, gets bonus points for having one of my favorite commenter monikers) had a sad reason for keeping the news of a pregnancy to yourself under these circumstances: shortly after deciding not to tell a job interviewer that she was pregnant during the interview process, she lost that pregnancy. KateNonymous, I have been there, with an early stillbirth and a miscarriage, and I am sorry. "As it turns out," she wrote, "I didn't get the job. But I know it wasn't because I was pregnant. And I'm glad I didn't have to wonder about that, because I've been dealing with enough. I particularly liked MDS's rallying cry: "Let's USE this law that is supposed to protect us against discrimination!" But Jaybee had an important point, one I missed: "In most states (all, except CA, TN and RI according to my Google search) any employer with less than 15 employees is not required to follow the Pregnancy Discrimination Act." Depending on where S. is, her rights, and her potential employer's rights, will differ. There were dissenting voices. Eleanor's stepdaughter was recently hired, with relocation expenses and a signing bonus, at seven months pregnant (a moment when not telling would rarely be an option). This turned out to be a happy situation for all concerned. The lesson is, I believe, that no relationship that starts out with an untruth can ever be really a healthy one. And, I say that as someone whose decades-long career was in Human Resources, where I faced this situation many times. What I found perhaps most interesting about this quandary is that not one of the few men who commented, and not one of the men I asked privately, supported the idea that openness was more important than looking out for number one. "Don't tell until an offer is accepted," wrote Andrew. While it's great that you would like to start the relationship on trust, I know of several mothers who would not hire a pregnant woman unless they absolutely had no other person available. You need to protect yourself first. Women, on the other hand, worried. Even as many of us encouraged S. to keep her news to herself, we were more likely to acknowledge the fears that go along with that decision - that we'll be thought to have "tricked" the employer, or be resented, or considered to have broken an unspoken rule of trust. When I was in this situation, earlier in my career, I told all, to the dismay of both my husband and my father. I was hired, but laid off shortly after my son was born, mostly because I made a truly awful "Director of Business Development." In retrospect, I shouldn't have told, both because it's not expected in the business world, and because it actually, as Anon said, creates a potentially difficult situation. If I were an employer I would not WANT to know in advance. I would want to feel perfectly free to reject any candidate I did not like without fear that she would come back with accusations that I had discriminated against her because of a pregnancy. S., whose job interview is this very afternoon, tells me she's now decided "to not talk about my pregnancy until an offer is on the table. "If an official offer is made," she said, "I'll disclose that I'm about two months along before accepting." "I can't thank you enough," she writes. Readers helped me think through the matter not just from an applicant's perspective, but also through the lens of H.R. She's ready, she's comfortable with the decision, and on behalf of all of us, I've already wished her good luck.