I’ve been conducting interviews for over a year now at my company. I do the technical interviews where we ask programming and data structure questions. Thus far I have interviewed a total of two women. If you’re curious about the percentage, I don’t know it but it’s low. They were both among my first few interviews, my 4th an 10th respectively, the 10th being my first intern interview. As a result, and I regret this to this day, I didn’t speak out, nor did I even notice these patterns as odd at the time. It lead to them not being hired. I think the reasons given happen a lot more often due to how the recruiters and other interviewers used the reasons.

I would like to do a case study of Candidate 4. She who to this day hope we had hired her and I blame myself for not knowing enough to at the very least say something.

Candidate 4

Candidate 4 was the first good interview I had. She killed it! Not only that but so far there was one other candidate that got close to her performance in that interview. I can’t really express how well she did. There were two reasons given by the other interviewer as to why we shouldn’t hire her and I think they are incredibly generic. One year after and I still think about them and how I regret not saying anything.

She should have been higher level by now

This candidate had over 8 or 10 years experience in the industry according to her CV. By which I mean she was employed for that amount at tech companies. She was not applying for a senior developer position.

Why the interviewer thought this was a valid reason to pass: Tech companies expect you to get promoted, and grow while at the companies. Some even have an up or out policy. Being unable to get promoted to a senior level in over 8 years would be a bad thing at my company and thus the candidate showed a history that would mean we would have to fire her in a few years for not being able to prove growth.

Why this is a very dangerous way to approach things: There are many reasons and those are all, we don’t know this person’s history. And some of these things we’re not allowed to ask, not that they would matter.

  • 8 years does seem like a long time. Unless you had to take say one or more 1 year breaks in the middle… It would still seem like continuous employment… but say she had 3 kids that would can decrease it to 5 years, with breaks in the middle, which suddenly doesn’t seem that long. Now you may say “You don’t know if she is a mother.”, but you haven’t met her. The patience for explaining, her body language and everything screamed “I have some very exhausting children at home, explaining this simple thing is a lot easier.” to me. She may not have been, but it’s a solid possibility.
  • Not all companies boast themselves to be meritocracies or see being promoted as a natural thing. For a lot of companies you need to be a part of the boys club to be promoted. Or to make sacrifices and work long days and weekends (which cannot be done with a family). A company may not even have a growth mindset where they’re happy to keep you doing the same job while you’re doing a good job at it, just do a bit more of it, for maybe a pay raise, but not a promotion.

What the interviewee could have done differently in hindsight: State the length of time instead of the years at the company. Interviewers may care less if the years don’t add up, these fall squarely into things they shouldn’t dig deep as to why. If you only worked for 3 years at the company due to 2 years of things like medical leave, specify the length of time instead of from year to year. If you were quickly promoted from entry level to the next level but then had to take leave due to some medical condition, say that you’ve worked for 1 year as a [title] and then 1 year as a [next position].

As a woman these scenarios are far too common. So don’t judge people without knowing their whole history.

She never really stood up to her manager and always did what she was told

In the people side of the interview there are a lot of questions about scenarios you’ve faced at previous companies and how you dealt with them. Candidate 4 always went with what her manager asked her to do to avoid conflict and not get into trouble. I hope this foreshadows the why this is wrong section.

Why the interviewer thought this was a valid reason to pass: Never standing up to your manager can come off as lacking independent thought and an inability to make well documented decisions for yourself.

Why this is a very dangerous way to approach things: This goes against what women are taught to behave. Either way they go there is no win situation in an interview. They either listen too much to their higher ups or are combative.

  • In the workplace women still are negatively rewarded for speaking out. They can be described as bossy which plays poorly for them. When dealing with a male heavy environment (which tech is) where people actively discriminate against you there’s usually two ways to go about things, neither which are great:
    1. Keep your head down, avoid conflict and accept this is just how things are, which will lead to looking like you’re not as competent;
    2. Fight tooth and nail, refuse anything that is less than your male coworkers and overall accept that you’ll spend more time and energy on getting the same recognition, and may end up with people disliking you.
  • Women are taught that playing subservient plays in their favour. Whether or not they are. So for some companies in the interview this is a good thing. For the others it’s not, but that doesn’t change what we’re being taught to say in interviews. This “I went to my manager to mediate on the disagreement. He made the final decision.” is textbook things that I’ve been told to do as a good behaviour in the workplace.

What the interviewee could have done differently in hindsight: Research the company. What is the culture they claim to be advocating for? Do they seem to advocate for independent thought or more of a follower mentality? Use that to your advantage. Among the people I interviewed and my friends, I’ve always seen men adapt their stories to highlight values they shared with their companies. I’ve rarely seen women do it. I know I haven’t done it. And the reason I don’t do it is it feels dishonest. It isn’t, but it’s something that is imposed on us as girls.

“Well behaved women seldom make history.”, but men can. So the criteria may need to differ… one way or another.

What can we do?

The onus should not be on women to make sure they don’t allow interviewers to misjudge them. Sadly it is. The only thing we can do is make it easier for women to play the interview game. Share stories, experiences and make our experiences available to others so it’s easy for them to find the resources they need to succeed.

Like Caroline Criado Perez finds in her book Invisible Women, in the chapter about why women are not more commonly found on bank notes, while the rules don’t explicitly exclude women, they do make it a lot harder for them to meet all the criteria.