Red Flags In Job Interviews
Navigating Bias, Disability, and Culture.
I’ve been reading on LinkedIn that finding a new job is tough, for hirers and applicants. There are hundreds of applicants, the competition is real, not just in quantity but quality too. I feel that! I have been applying for roles in the Netherlands or remote only in Europe for most of this year. I realized when I came back from my sabbatical that my new goal was to grow my experience working with international nonprofits and develop more experience closer to home. Ideally, it would be lovely to have a role where I could actually meet my teammates in real life. I’m not too fussy about what this future role is, be it freelance, employee, part-time or full-time. My main goal has been a nonprofit working internationally with bonus points for hybrid and smaller organizations.
First, I wasn’t getting any bites on my applications and that felt really frustrating. Then I had a consultation with a recruitment specialist and she looked over my CV and gave me fantastic tips on how to personalize / customize my CV for roles based on my consulting experience. Her insights made a big difference and after that I started to get more invites for interviews. However, even still, for every 5 applications I get 1 maybe 2 interviews, it’s still tough.
Each interview has mostly felt promising, I get really excited and start imagining my future self in the role and all the opportunities I think are going to come from it. I told The Sailor, it’s like when people imagine they’re going to win the lottery, I get very enthusiastic with my imagination. And then I fall hard when it doesn’t happen. I have a very sad sorry day to myself. Interviewing in another country is tough, I used to rock interviews for the most part in Canada. I’m outgoing, confident, and personable. But in a country that’s not as warm in their interactions, I’m starting to wonder if I’m being “too much.” Too much of whatever part of my personality is not very Dutch. I came close in a couple interviews, where the hiring team mentioned I was there second choice, or more specifically that it was between me and another person and they chose the other.
I’ve had enough interviews from Dutch organizations now, that I’ve started to realize what the newest red flag is here. I have a few red flags from over the years when it comes to job interviews and some of them I’ve come to learn would be considered microaggressions, while others are downright discrimination.
“Microaggressions are defined as the everyday, subtle, intentional — and oftentimes unintentional — interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups. The difference between microaggressions and overt discrimination or macroaggressions, is that people who commit microaggressions might not even be aware of them.” - Kevin Nadal, Microaggressions are a big deal: How to talk them out and when to walk away, NPR, June 9, 2020
I have mostly come to terms with them and personally think most of the following instances are related to lack of proper training, it’s often with smaller organizations (business or nonprofit) where the person interviewing me is not an HR professional because the organization is not big enough to have an HR person or department. That doesn’t excuse the behaviour and I hope that more smaller organizations take the time to learn proper interview etiquette because my experiences started very early on.
THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED
When I was 15 or thereabouts, I participated in a job shadow at a local newspaper for two days, I shared that experience in my previous blog How to write a Press Release. After that experience, I was even more motivated to become a journalist and being the ambitious person I am, I decided I would pitch the idea of a Teen Column. The newspaper I did my job shadow at didn’t seem like the right fit, they were serious news and didn’t have much column type articles. One of the smaller papers in town called the Lakeshore News, had multiple columns and the Editor/Owner basically had her own gossip column that took up one page in each issue (it was a weekly paper). This seemed like the best fit for my idea. I called the paper and I pitched my idea of being a teen journalist writing each week about the topics that teens in the community cared about. They invited me to come to the office for an interview and to discuss the idea further. I had an interview with the Editor and Owner herself.
I printed out my resume (it didn’t have much but it showed I had been a newspaper delivery person for this same newspaper, a couple years earlier and for two years or so) and it had three references. I dressed appropriately and wore my hair nicely for the interview. I was nervous, this was my second real job interview, the first being for the newspaper delivery role. The Owner welcomed me into her office, I sat at a chair diagonally across from her, she was in her office chair turned away from her desk. There wasn’t any furniture between us, it felt like a friendly atmosphere, and in hindsight it wasn’t formal with a desk or table between us.
I don’t remember much about the lead up questions. I remember pitching my idea again and her listening and seeming interested. Then I remember her asking me -
“What Native band are you from?”
This wasn’t the first time I had been mistaken for being First Nations and it won’t be the last. I had already experienced this from teachers at school.
I replied, “I’m not Native.”
“It’s okay you can tell me, I know many native people and my daughter in law is from the Shuswap band.”
“I’m not Native, I’m half Mexican.”
“OH, is your mother Rosa?”
Dear reader who might not be from Salmon Arm. Rosa is the Hispanic woman (I’m not sure if she’s Mexican) who owned the Mexican Food Truck in town. This interviewer just asked me if I was related to the one potentially Mexican person in town after assuming I was First Nations. I am not related to Rosa, my Mexican family is still very much in Mexico. I said no.
At that point my hackles were up and I no longer liked this woman interviewing me.
We wrapped up at some point where she told me they were going to be having a writing contest and that the winner would basically win my idea of being the voice of the local youth. That I should submit a writing sample as part of that contest. I never did. I was no longer interested in working for this woman.
In hindsight, I think she stole my idea and made it a contest. I kept an eye on the results of the contest and a teen maybe a year or two older than me won, someone white (I don’t know if being white made a difference but it didn’t surprise me). That winner only wrote two columns for the paper.
WHERE ARE YOU FROM? REALLY FROM?
The interview above can take two forms, sometimes the interviewer is blunt and straight to the point like the newspaper owner, she thinks she’s framing it friendly and with general curiosity. In Canada, it’s actually illegal for an interviewer to ask a candidate their ethnicity, so this would be very obvious discriminatory questioning.
The more subtle approach happens more often in interviews, this would be a microaggression because I know what the interviewer really wants to know and they sometimes press on but overall they’ll make their assumptions from my answer. It usually goes something like this;
“It’s nice to meet you Michelle. [does a quick scan of my resume] Oh, where are you from?”
“I grew up in Salmon Arm”
[head nod of confirmation]
And before you think this is general small talk, it’s not. There’s always a head nod of confirmation more to themselves than me. I recognize this nod to be something to the effect of them saying to themselves, “I thought so, she is First Nations, that small town has a strong First Nations population.”
OR if they press on they’ll ask one of the following questions -
“No, where are you really from?”
“Are you from the Native band around Salmon Arm?”
When they press on then it’s more obvious that what they really want to know, is my ethnicity.
Recently, I’ve learned there is a Dutch version of this playing out in interviews. The first time, the question came up I laughed, it was a one off, I was sure. But it has since happened in nearly all of my Dutch interviews and now I know it’s a pattern.
BERGSMA IS A DUTCH NAME
This is the worst version of this type of interview questioning. It completely threw me off guard and inspired this blog after I let the experience settle. A couple weeks ago, I had a series of interviews with a social good company located in Delft, they are doing some exciting things for climate change, and my interviews were with the two founding partners. The first partner interview went very well, he didn’t ask anything inappropriate but he did say THE line, the thing that comes up in all my Dutch interviews…
“Oh, I thought you would be Dutch, your last name is very Dutch.”
I explained that I took my husbands last name when we got married and the interview continued.
When I met with the second founding partner, he also stopped and said,
“Oh, Bergsma is a very Dutch last name, I thought you would be Dutch.”
I explained taking my husbands last name.
And then he asked, “What was your last name before you were married?”
And that caught me off guard. Why did he need to know that? Why did that matter? I responded with my very Mexican maiden name. And now my ethnicity was revealed.
I should caveat here - in Dutch culture, you can’t legally change your name to your partner’s name after you get married. You can adopt their name and basically ask the government to also call you by your married name. My Dutch passport and ID’s all use my maiden name and then have a line that translates to “aka Bergsma / also known as Bergsma.” While in Canada, my ID says Michelle Bergsma, no maiden name mentioned. So I do partially suspect that this might be why it seems strange that I have a Dutch last name when I don’t look Dutch. Because they ask this question within the first 5 minutes of meeting. So it’s really because I don’t look Dutch to them. I am a Dutch Citizen though.
The funny thing is, this feels like it starts off as positive discrimination, is my application being picked out because of my Dutch last name? Do these interviewers feel hoodwinked once they meet me? I don’t feel bad for them, I actually write in my cover letter that I’m a Canadian with Dutch Citizenship and have no work restrictions. So they know I’m not born and raised Dutch…. if they paid close enough attention to the details. I checked and it’s also illegal in The Netherlands to ask someone their ethnicity. However, every time an interviewer highlights my very Dutch adopted last name, it’s a pointed remark on who am I really?
IT GETS WORSE WHEN YOU HAVE A DISABILITY
Initially, the prevalent theme in bad interviews has always been about trying to gain clarity in my ambiguous ethnicity. I have had a couple one offs that went even further, like the Funeral Home owner who asked me if I was Catholic because he had a predominantly Catholic clientele. Or the company that assumed that I would probably take maternity leave in a year or two because I was newly married.
When I lost my hearing, I took time off to adjust to my disability and give myself the space to come to terms with the mental health toll that came with it. It was very sudden when I lost my hearing and with that came grief and emotional conflict. I want to say even a certain level of trauma. When I was ready and needed to return to work, I landed a customer service role at a tech company where I could respond to help inquiries by email. I landed that role because I knew the manager of the customer service department. That role was my first step back into working and it was terrible.
It slaughtered my self-esteem. I needed assistive devices to help me in that job but that manager told me they wouldn’t provide them because I was on a temp contract. In Canada that’s actually not legal. I was told over and over to announce that I was deaf to the very big customer service team. I wasn’t ready to talk about my disability so openly yet. I was ostracized from the group, with my desk put in a dark corner where no one else was (on the pretense that it would be quieter for me). I eventually, went to the HR department crying because I needed support, I needed a manager to listen to my needs. The HR department is trained and knows the laws and they stepped up in an incredible way.
When my temp job was coming to a close, the manager offered me a permanent role (it was clear that all the temps were getting hired at this point) but when I said that I could do it but needed the next 6 weeks off for my wedding and honeymoon which that manager and her supervisor knew about from my initial interview. The manager said that the company wouldn’t approve of that and so it was the job or my wedding plans. I’m pretty sure if I went to my managers supervisor, it would have been approved, that supervisor interviewed me and knew about the time off from the start. However, I could read the writing on the wall, this manager was always going to be a problem, I couldn’t get them to understand what I needed as an employee with a disability and what was legally within my rights. So I didn’t accept the job, I chose getting married and a 6 week honeymoon.
That experience, though, it scarred me and scared me. So when I returned from backpacking and feeling mostly healed from that terrible job, I started applying for a new job. I started working as an administrative temp through an agency. I did all my tried and true job hunting steps. Yet, this ended up being the hardest and longest employment gap I have had. When I had interviews, I decided it was better to disclose I have a disability and would need assistive devices, I hoped that this would prevent another terrible manager. What I didn’t realize is that interviewers would get so stuck on my disability, as if I had just diagnosed them with deafness. The following really sums up how this type of interview often unfolded -
I interviewed for an Administrative Assistant position with the Police Union. I met with the CEO, a former Police Officer, and the Administrative Assistant going on maternity leave. The role would require reception duties, specifically answering and redirecting calls. The CEO asked how this would work if I can’t hear and I mentioned that there are Phone Amplifiers that make it so I could better hear the caller.
He then started sharing with me how his father (who is probably 70 or 80 years old) wears hearing aids and has the tv on really loud and uses the phone really loud and still can’t seem to hear. And the image of a stereotypical old deaf man starts to form, you know the one that is too stubborn to really adapt to his age related hearing loss, he may or may not wear his hearing aids. The type of old man who says, “WHAT?” all the time. That old guy was this mans father. And now, he felt that I would be just like his father. What would it look like as his father acting as reception? He proceeded to tell me that I couldn’t be loud while talking on the phone because it would disrupt the whole office. Nevermind the fact that while I was in this interview, I wasn’t speaking louder than them or even asking him to repeat himself. I spent most of that interview convincing this CEO that I could do the job but not because of my skills, no in spite of my disability.
After a few interviews like that, I stopped self disclosing. I understood why people with hidden disabilities do their best to fake it till they land the signed contract. Then disclose after the fact. It’s the only way to ensure that employers abide by the laws.
THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE OUT THERE
Nowadays, I’m much more vocal about my disability and I have my confidence back from that experience. I have it back because after all those horrible interviews where my disability affected how people perceived my abilities. I finally had an interview with a company where in the first interview, I faked it and it was awkward.
I was meeting with one of the Founding Partners and the Finance Manager for an Executive Assistant role. The Finance Manager was sitting across from me, perfect for speech reading, and the Founding Partner was sitting next to me where my fully deaf ear with no hearing aid is. Not a great setup. Today, I would ask that both interviewers sit across from me. But I was faking it, so I sat down and hoped for the best. I remember at one point the Founding Partner asked me a question and I couldn’t make out what she asked. So I asked her to repeat herself, and she did. And I was still pretty clueless. Asking a third time would look bad, so I just answered something I thought she might have asked. It was awkward but they moved on and I tried my best for the rest. Apparently, there was another moment where I completely didn’t hear the Founding Partner ask a question and thus didn’t answer it.
Even with those awkward moments, I was asked for a second interview and this time it would be with all three partners. I had met one of the other partners randomly at a cafe and in that random meeting where I didn’t know I would be sitting in a job interview with this person in the future, I had disclosed my hearing loss. So here I was in a job interview and I knew I had to tell them all. I was ready for it all to end terribly. They asked a few questions about the assistive devices (in Canada your employer is responsible for getting them). I mentioned there was a nonprofit that could help with subsidies especially as this was a small company. I left that interview, hoping my disability had not just ruined my chances at another great job.
As I walked to the elevator, the Partner who I had interviewed with the first time, she caught up with me.
She said, “I want you to know that we appreciate you telling us about your hearing loss. We will not use this information in our decision process.”
I left feeling more reassured and relieved.
I got hired.
I also nominated them for a disability and inclusion award. They won. They hilariously think I won. Maybe we both did.
That first elevator comment was a sign of how much the partners would try to accommodate my disability. We were all in new territory. I organized the assistive technology and they got the subsidy and I had the tools I needed to do my job better.
Working for that team gave me my confidence back, it helped me move past my disability in the workplace and go back to focusing on my skills.
IT’S OKAY TO MAKE MISTAKES
As I said before, I believe most of these terrible interviews happened with people that were not properly trained in hiring practices. If you’re a small team and your leadership team is doing the hiring, it would be better that they have some training first. At the very least, to understand what questions are acceptable (even legal) and which questions are not. It’s not only to find the best candidate for your team but also for your organization's reputation.
That funeral home owner, they sponsored an event for a client of mine once, and the whole time I hated promoting them. It was years later and yet, I still had such a bad feeling about that company. I would never recommend them as a business. Your brand experience and reputation are equally important during the hiring process.
It's okay to make mistakes but please take the time to learn from them.
I know right now, I’m also learning from my own interview blunders. I’m pretty sure, I need to be more business formal when I interview with Dutch organizations. I suspect my charming witticisms might also be seen as less serious. Although, I did have one interviewer say in her rejection email -
“I really loved your bubbly energy!”
So maybe I need to hold out for another organization that also loves my bubbly energy, even if it means a few more tough interviews in the meantime.