By Lily Garcia
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, October 23, 2008 12:00 AM

I have a dilemma and I'm hoping you can give me some advice. I switched jobs less than 3 months ago, and already I know this place isn't a good fit for me. I want to find another company that is more flexible and closer to home, but the problem is I'm 3 months pregnant. I'm afraid some potential employer will think badly of me for leaving after only 3 months, not to mention the fact that I'll need to have maternity leave in about 7 months into the job. My question is: Should I grit my teeth and stay at this job for a year? What are my chances of finding a new employer that would overlook all the factors I mentioned above if I look now? I really want to look for something else. It's that bad around here.

I have been searching for a job for a while now. At the beginning of my search my husband and I found out we were expecting our second child. I made the decision that if I got an interview I would be upfront and disclose my pregnancy. Some were OK with it, and interviewed me anyway, others were not and I did not get an interview. I have been on a dozen or more interviews, and twice I have been called back for a second interview and then been turned down. Why can't I land a job, and why would I be asked to come in for a second interview when they are not going to hire me anyway? Please help because I need a job ASAP.

The two questions above were posed to me last week. Because they are so closely related, I will answer them together.

Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, it is illegal for an employer to refuse to interview or hire you because you are pregnant. And, although pregnancy is not considered to be a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), pregnancy-related complications are. So, for example, if you volunteer during the application process that you are suffering from preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, it would be illegal under the ADA for an employer to make a hiring decision on that basis, and they would need to provide you with a reasonable accommodation of your condition during the application process and after hire. If, however, you cannot perform the requirements of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation, then you are not "qualified" and an employer may decline to hire you without violating the ADA.

These laws exist for a reason, but I would not assume that any employer that does not want to hire you is basing their decision on the fact that you are pregnant. Nevertheless, it would be naïve to think that their decision is completely bias-free. A prospective employer evaluating a set of qualified candidates will try to envision how each person would perform in the available job. How would he or she meet the current challenges of the position? What strengths would he or she bring to ongoing projects? Despite an employer's most earnest efforts to leave pregnancy out of it, it would be hard for the obvious need for maternity leave not to enter into its analysis, if only a little.

That does not mean that needing maternity leave should or will take you out of the running for jobs. In my experience, employers do their best to leave extraneous factors like pregnancy out of hiring decisions not just for legal and moral reasons, but chiefly because it makes good business sense. They struggle to find competent, loyal employees, and they understand that you must be accommodating, sometimes to an extreme, to secure the best talent. If you really are the best qualified for a particular job, you will probably get hired regardless of being pregnant. But the world is not yet rid of hiring managers who, when it comes down to you and another candidate, will think twice about giving you the job because they want to avoid having to give you maternity leave and theoretical scheduling concessions.

Most pregnant women do not obviously look the part until their fifth or sixth month. So, if they wanted to, they would be able to conceal their pregnancy from interviewers for quite some time. Unless your pregnancy would interfere with your ability to fulfill basic requirements of the job for which you are applying (like frequent air travel, for example), I would not make a habit of disclosing it. It might assuage your guilt about not revealing your pregnancy if you think of it as just another piece of personal information that has nothing to do with your qualifications for the job. If you show your hand, you will get credit for honesty, but you might lose out on some opportunities. Then again, you might not be happy working for an employer that would rule you out based upon pregnancy anyway. This could be an indication of general unfriendliness toward people with family obligations, which would ultimately make such an employer a bad fit for you. If you believe that you have been excluded from consideration for a job because you are pregnant, contact your Equal Employment Opportunity Commission field office for further guidance.

If you are pregnant and miserable in your job, what have you got to lose by looking for other opportunities? In the worst case, you are unable to secure a new job before delivery and you resume your job search later. In the best case, you start a new job that makes you (and your baby) happier. You will need to be prepared to explain why you are leaving your job so soon, and you should do so without disparaging your current employer or portraying yourself as a malcontent. You also need to make sure that you ask prospective employers whether they have a maternity leave policy and at what point in an employee's tenure it becomes effective. Ask, as well, about the terms of their short-term disability policy. If you switch jobs now, you will not have been employed long enough before the birth to qualify for Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, nor will you have accrued much sick leave or vacation. And you need to make sure that you will have an adequate amount of time off available to you post partum.

Join Lily Garcia on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 11 a.m. ET for How to Deal Live.

Lily Garcia has offered employment law and human resources advice to companies of all sizes for more than 10 years. To submit a question, e-mail HRadvice@washingtonpost.com. We reserve the right to edit submitted questions for length and clarity and cannot guarantee that all questions will be answered.