Why I Refused a Job Interview for a Role I Wanted
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Tech, Work, Careers, Feminism, Self

Applying to jobs is frustrating.

I have been on the job hunt during the second most inconvenient time in my life. The first was, of course, the 2009 recession. Amid the pandemic, very few companies are hiring. It’s frustrating that they keep re-posting their “open” positions to several job boards despite this.

As a career changer, I’m also in the unique position of applying to jobs I don’t have much professional background in. As I make my way through second-round interviews, I try to avoid working from a scarcity mindset. Frankly, that mindset is quite strongly supported by the state of the economy and the government’s refusal to help Americans sustainably.

Still, at this stage in my personal and professional life, I am done “wearing all the hats” and thinking “no job is too small.” These phrases are commonly used by disorganized companies with no regard for boundaries. I’m looking for a role that will allow me to actually use my brain instead of being a glorified secretary with a managerial title.

Learning how to make space for myself professionally isn’t easy. It’s an added chore that women must do, while the same space is naturally provided to men.

A rushed opportunity came along.

Recently, I received an email from a large healthcare organization that I was quite interested in working for. The company contact’s initial message seemed brusque and frantic. She wanted to know my proficiency in a few programming languages. This is clearly listed in my cover letter and resume, but I sent her back a response anyway.

She also misspelled my name. I really dislike that, but I let it go.

The next day, I received another email asking for my availability for a phone interview. The first thing I noticed was that she had again misspelled my name. I usually try to be understanding about this because my name’s spelling is uncommon. However, lately, I’ve been wondering if my politeness is driven by the need to make myself small and acceptable. I think it is more often than I care to admit.

In truth, constant misspellings of my name bug me. I think people identify strongly with their names (obviously), so we want others to get them right. Again, this email seemed quite hastily written. I responded and included this last line:

“Also, my name only has one ‘c’.”

In her next response, she misspelled my name for the third time. I reminded her a second time and responded to the question she asked. Just a couple of minutes later, she “email-texted” me with yet another brusque email saying that she needed to reschedule. In her defense, she did finally get my name right, but her style of sending short, frantic emails was not working for me.

By this point, there was starting to be what my partner likes to call “a smell of unprofessionalism.”

I felt that I had already gone so far out of my zone of comfort into impoliteness when I corrected her about my name. A part of me thought I should go along with it, but then I asked myself where I was working from.

Did I really want to get involved with a company whose interview process was this messy?

Saying “no” was both difficult and necessary.

I realized that I do not allow myself to notice “a smell.” I always feel the pressure to ignore it. This is how I continue to work from a place of scarcity.

Of course, I wasn’t always in a situation to choose. At this point, I am. I tell myself that I have permission to act like it. So, I typed out my refusal to proceed with an interview. As an exercise in speaking (read: typing) my mind, I wrote a direct email stating that this wouldn’t work. Hopefully, the recruiter uses my feedback.

Honestly, it took a lot out of me. While I listened to my inner voice, my anxiety still kicked in because I had stepped out of my familiar behavior pattern. I think women often use niceness as a shield to deflect further problems. I have found that this is no way to live. Politeness driven by the wrong reasons feels like a tight garb that I need to shed.

While I don’t have any interest in being rude, I do want to feel like I can express my thoughts without cushioning them with the seemingly requisite please’s, thank you’s, and sorry’s that women are supposed to use.

Learning how to make space for myself professionally isn’t easy. It’s an added chore that women must do, while the same space is naturally provided to men. This should change, but I have a feeling that we women will have to give ourselves permission to be honest and straightforward for that change to happen on a cultural level.