Job Hunting In a Family Way

Kristian Denny Todd found out she was pregnant with her first child in the fall of 2003 -- about the same time she was interviewing for a new job.

Todd was facing a dilemma many women face: how to navigate a job search when motherhood, complete with a need for maternity leave, is imminent.

What further complicated Todd's situation was that her prospective job was with a political consulting firm, and her baby was due in May 2004, just as the presidential election would be heating up. Todd decided the fair thing to do was to be upfront about the pregnancy. "It was going to be a big year for them. I thought I should be very honest about the time I needed for leave," she said.

Her strategy worked out well. When she felt a job offer was probable -- she was on her third or fourth round of interviews -- she prepared a little speech and told the interviewers that she was pregnant, when she was due, what sort of leave she hoped for and that she would be around for most of the "crunch time." She was hired a week later, and the organization accepted her terms -- seven weeks of maternity leave.

A headhunting firm Todd was interviewing with at the same time had not been as understanding. People with that firm told her they were more interested in someone who was "able to hit the ground running," Todd said. Don't gasp. She wasn't shocked. "Most women are not unrealistic when it comes to that," she said.

Although it is illegal to discriminate against a woman based on pregnancy, there are still many cases of women fired or not hired for positions because of pending motherhood. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 4,649 charges of pregnancy-based discrimination in fiscal 2003. The commission resolved 4,847 charges and recovered $12.4 million in monetary benefits for the charging parties that year.

"For highly skilled women, it is changing," said Jodi Grant, director of work and family programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families, formerly the Women's Legal Defense Fund. "But for a lot of women, there is still discrimination out there."

The Family and Medical Leave Act allows employees who have been with an employer of 50 or more people for at least a year to have 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Some states, however, have more generous laws that trump the federal law.

Peter Storandt, director of institutional relations at the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, says things have improved. Perhaps that is because of his own reaction to a great job candidate when he worked at a law school a few years ago. The woman told Storandt and two other people in the room that she was a few months pregnant and that if she were offered a job she would need time off. The three interviewers reacted immediately with congratulations. "It was so natural, such a clear byproduct of our principles in hiring," Storandt said. "We wanted to be fair, open-minded and [hire based on] skills and strengths."

Several years ago, Maria Cameron discovered she was pregnant the same day she learned she would have an interview with the Commerce Department. The pregnancy was so new, she wanted to wait before she told anyone, let alone a prospective employer. But once she started work, she did not want to wait any longer.