Women in Tech Blog #1

"You have too much personality to work in tech..."

Last week, I was told this during an phone interview for a front-end developer position.

This person let me introduce myself and talk about my projects before saying anything. They claimed to have done a deep dive on the internet and follow all my links to research me to find that I was "Outgoing" and Charismatic. That's fine, that is the persona I give out online.

They used the term "Culture fit" to explain that my personality wouldn't fit in and I would be unhappy working with that team long term. 'Culture fit' feels like a cop-out to say that we want all the same kinds of people and differences make them uncomfortable.

Maybe this was a polite way of saying something much worse but after over a year of job searching, how do you not take that personally?

How do you determine if that 1 piece of feedback is a valid reason for not getting hired?

How do you unlearn a personality?

Are Developers robots?

Who a person is online is not normally their authentic work-self (except Madison Butler (she/her) 🏳️‍🌈🦄 probably) but a brighter, hopeful version for the world to see.

What am I getting wrong here?

#interview #recruitment #tech #work #jobsearch #developer #culture #womenintech #blackintech #diversityintech