Overcoming Obstacles of Job Hunting While Pregnant

Job hunting is one of the most difficult and challenging tasks of our time because of the large number of people who are currently unemployed. The current unemployment rate for the United States is around four percent. Many positions have hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants that are fighting for the same spot. Hunting for a job while a woman is pregnant has to be one of the most difficult positions ever. The following are five obstacles that pregnant applicants have to tackle, and some tips on overcoming those job hunting challenges:

Prospective Employers Will Worry About Premature Labor

Pregnancy can be such an obstacle during a job search that some women fail to tell prospective employers that they are expecting during the interview. Many women receive interview calls while they are not yet showing enough for a prospective employer to notice. The choice to disclose or withhold the information is each woman’s personal choice. One concern that prospective employers may have if they hire a pregnant woman is premature labor. The employer may worry that the woman will go into labor too soon and leave the employer lacking someone to work a specific shift. The pregnant woman can diffuse that obstacle by showing a clean bill of health from the obstetrician.

Prospective Employers Will Worry About Liabilities

Liabilities are another thing that employers worry about when it comes to hiring a pregnant woman. The employer may worry that the pregnant woman will hurt her back or strain herself to the point of miscarrying her child. That could be a liability for the company. One way around that obstacle is for the women to eliminate jobs that have much physical labor. Office jobs are the best jobs for a woman to have while she is carrying a child. She has increased possibility of receiving a job offer on such jobs as well.

Prospective Employers Will Worry About Medical Leave

Prospective employers always think about the future when they consider hiring pregnant women. The medical leave is one thing that concerns them. The women will eventually have to go through labor and delivery. The employer will consider that they will lose the expecting mother for at least six weeks. Some women decide to stay home with their newborns longer. The only way around that objection is for the women to bargain with the prospective employer so that she will come back after six weeks. It would be up to the employer whether to believe her promise or not.

Prospective Employers Will Anticipate Callouts

Pregnant women do not always have smooth pregnancies, and prospective employers are aware of that. They know that women sometimes suffer problems such as nausea, back pain and fatigue. They think twice before they hire someone who may have to call out from the job frequently. Again, the woman could have a frank conversation with the employer and then show the person a clean bill of health. Many pregnant women go through the entire nine months of pregnancy without having any issues of any kind. In fact, some women prefer to work until the day they go into labor.

Prospective Employers Worry About the Return Date

“Will she return?” is often a question that a prospective employer has in mind when he or she hires a pregnant female. The interviewer automatically thinks that the pregnant woman will have her baby and then go AWOL. The pregnant female can counteract this by developing a plan to show the potential employer. The plan can be in the form of a presentation. In fact, bringing something extra to the interview may be quite impressive.

The Right Attitude

Pregnant women do still get hired even when they have their baby bumps showing sometimes. A prospective employer will be delighted to hire anyone who has a positive attitude, an amazing smile, and a plan for the future that does good for the company and the individual. The pregnancy glow has a way of lighting up a woman’s smile anyway. Babies do not have to be obstacles to landing a great job. The woman just has to know how to work the situation to her advantage.