My Story: I Wasn’t Hired Because I am a Mom

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It’s too much of a change for you right now.

These were the words that I heard after being rejected from a recent job opportunity. Never in my life did I think I would hear someone in the professional world making such a bold statement about my life. Especially when what they know about me is only small pieces gathered from a series of interviews.

Let’s rewind for a second. I was happily chugging along at my current position when I was approached by a recruiter. I took the time to speak with her and was intrigued at what she had to offer, so I chose to move forward in the interview process. After several phone interviews, the company flew me to an on-location interview for the day to finally meet who would be my new manager in person – should I decide to take the position if it was offered.

Working MomThe in-person interview started off pretty well. Then the side comments and questions started being mixed together. First, came the standard questions, such as why are you interested in this position – to which I answered that I wanted to be as successful as possible. The next comment out of my interviewer’s mouth was…

What about your children?

I should mention that I never willingly bring up my children during any sort of interview, but with Google, it’s not hard to discover that I do in fact, have young children. Needless to say, I was shocked that a professional person, who just happened to be male, would bring up my children in the middle of an interview. I took it in stride and replied that I wanted to be a great role model for them as well.

I wish I could say that that was his only comment, but unfortunately, they just kept coming. He asked how I would deal with being a working mom (keep in mind I already AM a working mom!), how my husband would feel if I was the bread winner, how would I deal with being busy at work with small children, and even… if I feel guilty being away from my children during the work day. With each comment and question, I tried to respond as professionally as possible and explain how I would handle myself, citing my many years of work experience, qualification and accomplishments as evidence that I would do just fine at balancing motherhood and working.

After discussing what seemed to be too much of my personal life and not enough of my professional experience during the interview, I was relieved when it was over and I was on my way back home.

The next day, my phone rang. It was the recruiter. She informed me that after speaking with the interviewer, he told her that “it would be too big of a change for me right now, with my children being so little”. She then went on to say that he was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to push myself because I would have to be home with kids and I simply wouldn’t have the time for this type of change because of my children.

While she was talking, I choked back tears. Not tears of disappointment for the position that I wouldn’t be getting, but tears of anger that a woman could sit on the other line of this phone and actually say these things to me. After it became evident that I had nothing further to add to the conversation, the recruiter then asked if I would be open to speaking with the company in the future. The answer was most definitely a “No.”

Once the phone call was over, I was upset. Upset with the fact that even after being in the professional world for so many years, my ability to act as a professional was being called into question with absolutely no merit. Upset that there has to be so many working mothers that have dealt with similar situations. Upset that our professional male counterparts would not be questioned about balancing young children with work. Upset that this sort of unfairness even exists in our world today. Most importantly, I was upset because I was overly qualified for this position, but yet, because of my choice to be a working mother, I wasn’t even given the chance.

My experience has shown me just how much our society has yet to grow as a whole to accept working mothers. We have to try to level this playing field more to give our children a fair shot in the professional world. Whether you have sons or daughters, it is so important to teach the fact that qualifications, hard work and motivation are what make an employee wonderful, not if they have children to pick up from daycare. Our sons need to be taught that a woman is just as able as a male to do the job. Our daughters need to be shown that women can do things equally as well as men.

I walked away from this experience a little jaded, but even more determined to show that I am just as capable of doing a job well as anyone else. I hope that society echoes my mindset and keeps striving to make the playing field equal for everyone.


 

Cincinnati Moms Blog offers a special thank you to today’s guest blogger.

 

 

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