What Women Want
Part 4 of a 4-part series on The Job Hunt.
“On Friday you’ll be meeting with Mark, Jeff, Aaron and James. Apologies for the male-heavy panel — we normally try to have more balance, but schedules are a bit manic this week.”
It hadn’t actually occurred to me that there was anything strange about being interviewed by four men. But once she mentioned it, I took a minute to look back at all of my interview notes from the previous eight weeks. Of the 45 people I have spoken to on the phone or met in person, seven were women. (One being Claire.) Of those seven, zero were bosses or in a position to evaluate me. They were either offering general advice, conducting a phone screen or pulled in to the meeting to “talk about their experience” working at the company.
Over pints with two of my friends from the MBA (both male and gay), I got the Pep Talk about how women and gay men tend to undersell themselves and how it was OK to exaggerate a little in interviews.
For one job, I completed a self assessment — a star rating of my competency with a laundry list of various software programs. There were three programs that I had never even heard of and, fighting my instinct to give myself zero stars, I gave myself one star for each of those three.
In the interview, the two men on the panel told me told me I should have given myself a higher rating. The conversation was essentially:
“Do you know how to do X?”
“I haven’t done it before, but I’m confident I could learn quickly!”
“Psst — next time just say yes.”
They were trying to be nice, helpful. Their winks and smiles wanted to say: “Don’t worry, that advice is free. We won’t hold it against you.” But all I could hear was: “Aw, honey, you’re going to need to develop a much higher fluency in Bullshit to succeed in life, OK?”
The headlines and “science” love to report on women’s lack of self confidence and how they underestimate their intelligence and are “crippled” by self-doubt and don’t ask for pay rises. And the advice is: Lean In! Power stance! Project your voice! In other words: think and act like an overconfident man. That worked out well for Elizabeth Holmes, didn’t it?
I’ve got nothing against pulling your shoulders back and asking for more money. I’ve read enough Entrepreneur-lore to believe that a dose of delusional arrogance is important to create new things. But where is the upper limit?
I just wonder how many more Theranoses, Fyre Festivals, financial crises and Donald Trumps it will take before people in positions of power start prizing attributes other than extreme self-assuredness. When the book Lean Back: Men, Humility and The Will To Compromise becomes a best-seller. When a realistic one-star rating on a self-assessment is praised for its integrity. When men are told in interviews to act a little more like women.
