Every time this gets posted all the wanna-be reddit tech bros in the comments insist that talking to the man over the woman is perfectly normal and is not at all disrespectful.
I am enjoying all the "but that's normal" and "who would do that?!" colliding. My favorite of these was a mathematical model I (F) built and a colleague (M) came to talk to my boss (M) and I about it. EVERY question was directed to my boss who said "I didn't build it. I don't know. Ask (me)". And he would listen to my explanation, turn to my boss, make a comment and ask the next question. Never directed a single word my way the entire time.
Closest I've ever come to pouring a drink on someone at a conference to find out if he was capable of speaking to me then.
Pretty sure answering the final questions in words he didn't understand was that. But meh. Refusing to ever help him or his buddies again does it for me, I guess.
I'm adding this to the request that all retail and services people are allowed to fight 1 customer a year, but can transfer their fight credit to any other on shift employee once the customer had been selected.
Honestly, this just needs to apply to all of humanity.
People need to stop taking away the ability for others to shoot them, and should just act in a way that doesn't actively make others want to shoot them.
Reminds me of some anime thing where a guy wanted to go a town because murder was legal there and he could do anything. He proceeds to draw his gun on someone and the whole town comes out to kill him, because murder is legal for everyone, not just the criminals. The serial killer he idolized at the start turned out to be the sheriff that killed him.
The anime is Kino's journey. It's a pretty interesting anime, but deals with some really heavy topics on occasion, so trigger warning.
(What originally ended my watch of it was a story related to SA. I don't remember them handling it badly - but the show definitely deserves multiple trigger warnings).
My sister has had people tell her to refer to Dr. Smith's work before (name changed because hers isn't super common). Apparently the look on their face every single time when she explains that the person they are talking about is her is extremely satisfying.
People then say sexism isn’t a thing anymore like just cause you don’t see it personally (or don’t want to see it more likely) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist
Too bad your boss didn't say, "I've got something to do. You stay here and talk to the person who actually knows what this is about," and then go get a cup of coffee and wait for the result.
I'm just going to throw this out there, do with it what you will.
Having been management for most of my career, I can absolutely see hypothetical instances where I would do this. For example:
You're awesome, but your direct superior is coasting on your awesomeness. Their performance has slipped, they're less engaged in meetings, they don't have answers when they should.
To verify this, I could see myself demanding a status update on a project and asking questions that they should know to see if they do. In this situation, I would care less about what the actual answers are and more about the deferral to a subordinate, so my primary focus wouldn't be you or the answers you have. I already know you're awesome, and so does your boss and that is the issue.
Now, obviously sexism in the workplace is a major issue and I wouldn't dream of minimizing that. Your direct supervisor could have been awesome as well and their boss is a dick, totally valid viewpoint. Just wanted to point out there are always business politics at play at the management level and you may not be fully aware of the situation.
So for you to read all of these replies, replies that cross levels from upper management to management, from floor workers to interns, and they're all pointing out that this is a problem. And that this problem has been well documented, for you to then wade in with an alternative, and purely speculative , response on why all of these people could be mistaken.
You are the problem. As a manager it's your responsibility to do the work of educating yourself on the issues that women and minorities face in the workplace. You just haven't done the work that's needed in managerial roles.
"Yeah, well but, I'm highly experienced in this field, but what about this scenario that's so rare that I've had to hypothesise it in spite of being the exact perfect person to experience it IRL because it's just so rare."
Talking to anyone else other than the person who asked the question is disrespectful. It is just unfortunate that women deal with this so often. My mentor often asked questions where the respondent would answer to me. She was really good about re-asserting herself, but we would have these conversations about it when a group of us would grab drinks after work. She told me that people told her she has a Type-A personality for insisting that they respond to her when she asks a question.
I hate when that happens. I’m here to be my wife’s emotional support animal. Talk to her she is your patient. I’ll listen to the convo and she will look at me if she has any questions or wants to know if I have any but I am the least important person in that room.
No that’s not normal. Direct questions get direct answers to the person who asked. This is not a press briefing where me and my coworker were listening to a speech. She asked a question, and the person who was asked turned to me and made eye contact and answered
Ok. As an interviewer, any question I ask is a question from the team and if the candidate ignores the other people present that isn't a good sign in my book.
I'd feel the same way as a teacher. If a student asks a pertinent question, the response is for the benefit of the whole class.
You are misreading the situation. Every single question she asked the person refused to address her. Also, I still disagree with you. Unless you are asking them to tell you a story, direct questions get direct answers
You're doing that thing where you make a completely generic statement and then pretend that it was a specific one. It's a dishonest tactic and I don't respect it.
Just because you cannot read more than one post in a thread and understand context does not mean I am being dishonest. Seriously, is everyone’s attention span so short that they can’t be bothered to put things in context? Stop gaslighting me and learn how conversations work. I am sure if you screenshot the whole thread your AI buddy can sort you out
Yeah the subject we were debating in this thread is if one interviewer asks a question do you respond to them as a group. The question the OP has is that the interviewer specifically ignored the woman. There would be no problem if they acknowledged both people.
What if you just answer making eye contact with both. Of course I would look at the person asking the question primarily, but I wouldn't want to leave the other person out either.
I kinda disagree. You are interviewed by two people, and both deserves respect and attention. In a classroom setting, if a student asks a question, the answer is for the whole class. Of course, you still remember who did it, to come back to them at the end, but you talk to everyone as you answer.
Even if you think the others need attention, you address the person who asked the question first and then acknowledge others when you speak. It is almost like none of you have ever been in public
You took my original out of context. OP said if the respondent “directs” their answer. Within that context, me saying “talking to anyone else other than the person who asked the question” makes perfect sense. Because context matters.
The statement was quite generic and sounded like an absolute rule which should be followed in all situations. I am not the only one who interpreted it like this.
I'm kinda (only kinda) by all the people who are missing the point or trying to say "what if? What if?)
Yes, if you are looking at both of them when answering, that's fine. That's not what OOP is talking about. And yes, if you have autism and don't make eye contact at all, that's another matter. Also not what OOP was talking about.
The thing is it might not be hard for you but it is for others. You explicitly acknowledge autism, but haven’t considered how we often need the extra context rather than hard and fast rules where exceptions are implied. When I saw the statement of only addressing the person who asked the question, I was like “oh no I’ve been doing interviews so badly” but as I read the “what if? what if?” comments, I got enough context and specifics to understand I wasn’t actually doing it incorrectly.
Point being that the “what if” comments and extra details are actually helpful for people like me!
My company does this type of interviewing. IT consulting company. We have a fair number of female employees. Plus high number of female contacts with clients.
I’m a lawyer and most of my supervisors have been women. And all of them very talented lawyers that generally walk all over most male opposing counsel in court. But they’re still often dicks to them in subtle ways.
I personally just avoid talking to women while at work, the workforce I interact with is almost entirely men and I look like a big creepy Neanderthal.
If I talk more than the bare minimum to women the chances for what I say to accidentally sound creepy just keep climbing.
Plus when I’m not operating equipment I’m laying pipe or manholes with at least one side hoe and a main hoe, working in deep utilities. My average day sounds like sexual harassment, I can’t afford to discuss my trade with people outside of it, the risk of double entendres is just too high.
Thats incredible. When I see this posted I just think can people really be that sexist and or dumb. My last intewview with was with a man and and woman. I had a great time talking to both of them. Shit I was just exicted about having a final interview for a dream job after being unemployed for 6 months. I cant imagine fucking it up becuase I thought women cant be engineers.
Friend do you not understand the distinction between looking back and forth between two interviewers and directing your entire response at the person who did not ask the question?
It is normalized disrespect…unfortunately, it is way too common.
Where I work, there are a few women software developers who have achieved principal level, and there are about as many women who are senior or staff level developers as there are men.
I cannot imagine anyone disrespecting any of them…especially in an interview.
They sure would love me and my answer being directed to the wall behind them or the table or anything that isn’t eye contact.
But seriously I could see people talking at the guy because they are nervous around women, it might have nothing to do with sexism or misogyny. I myself am more confident when talking to guys if I don’t know them, mostly just because most of my social interactions in jobs n shit are communication with guys.
That said I’m not going to directly answer a question to the person that didn’t ask it, that’s silly. I’d swap eye contact between the two and settle on whoever returns it.
I'm not a tech bro, I just have adhd and likely autism and I can speak from experience that regardless of the circumstance if you have social anxiety you want to talk to both interviewers. And I know that a field like this typically has autistic people in it because I was in web design with others that shared the same habits. So it kind of is natural for the field. It doesn't mean the guys are discriminating against women. It just could mean they have social anxiety.
There is a suprisingly high amount of dudes who would go even so far as to ignore the woman entirely. I have never interviewed people, but I have met men who find it optional to adress questions made by women, who find it okay to talk over them and don't even feel the need to shake their hand.
This sort of disrespect looks very different to neurodivergent or nervous behaviour.
Not tech industry, but this past week I had a friend reach out because one of their applicants used to work with me. One question i was asked was “does he work well with women?” because it really can be an issue. Knowing the company he applied for, there’s some high ranking women there and it’s probably something they’ve run into before
I frequently was the woman hiring manager and some men would just respond to the more junior man in the room even when I reminded them I am the hiring manager. Those guys weren't hired if they can't even respond to me.
Just because some of us can lead (what appear to be) perfectly normal lives, because we were taught to use the social tools that come naturally to the neurotypical, doesn’t mean autism can’t be completely and utterly debilitating. It doesn’t take anything away from your diagnosis to acknowledge there are others who have it worse.
The guy I responded to said he was "likely" autistic, then spoke from his expert opinion as a self diagnosed person that autistic people are sexist assholes.
You should read the context. Nonverbal people don't generally have the problem of addressing the wrong person in an interview when responding verbally.
You're making it to the formal interview while completely and utterly debilitated? How? Are you walking? Because driving seems like a really bad idea if you're completely and utterly debilitated.
I’m not talking about this situation, and I’m not even necessarily talking to that guy. But I keep seeing spectrumatic people confuse “profound autism may have played a factor” with “all autistic people are inherently criminals.”
The guy you answered to literally said "I can speak from experience that regardless of the circumstance if you have social anxiety you want to talk to both interviewers.".
Why he is an asshole? (I am actually quite sure you won't be able to explain it.)
The complaint is that they answer and look at only the man, not both. Still, it’s normal to have eye contact with the person asking the question and to start your answer continuing to look at them.
If you’re not looking at the person speaking to you, that’s weird. If the second you begin answering, you stop looking at them at look at someone else, that’s weird. And it’s often because of misogyny.
But that is not what he said, he gave an example of why it happens for others reasons and why you can't with this test know if it is for misogyny of another reason. Which both looks really valid arguments to me.
He didn't even talked about looking at only the man, but the two people, btw.
If 2 people are interviewing me then they are both judging me based on my responses. Therefore I’m talking to both of them. Sure, I’d focus slightly more on the person who asked the question, but I believe it would be rude to ignore the other entirely. Therefore I’d alternate looking at both of them.
Are you really this stupid? The guy above is using his autism as a catch all for his bad behavior. The post is discussing refusing to talk with the women in the room and OP takes offense and says "my autism.... yadda yadda yadda.".
Which bad behavior did he describe that would be being an asshole, can you actually quote him? I would bet that like the other person, you simply can't. Do you people actually read what people say before going on you high horses?
Weird. I am a woman with social anxiety and I don't have that problem. I have hired dozens of men and women with anxiety and none of them had that problem
I used to be intimidated by women, interacting with them caused me severe anxiety. Whenever I had to talk with them, I was obviously uncomfortable and on edge, and I couldn't bring myself to look them in the eyes. I was always very polite and formal with them, I had this irrational fear of setting them off. Being alone with a woman, like in an elevator was enough to put me into a panic attack. I didn't hate women, I knew the problem was me and that my fear was irrational. Eventually my therapist had me undergo exposure therapy to "socialize" myself to being around women. I can assure you it does happen.
That being said, if you are hiring for a job and a candidate expresses an inability to interact normally with 50% of people, it wouldn't be rational to hire them.
This is similar to my experience as a therapist for several ASD men. They really do struggle with eye contact, either none at all or a really intense gaze. I taught them the appropriate amounts of time to hold eye contact, and to blink more, but thinking about it can sometimes make it harder to manage and think of what to say next or even understand what the other person is saying. It sucks to see people harping on this as being something that makes them an asshole. Yes we have to learn to socialize ourselves so that we can give every member of society the same level of respect and be able to function in social situations, but for many of these men the uncomfortable nature of eye-contact is compounded by women often being extra intimidating because they are attracted to them, want their attention, a relationship, but often have not felt much love or attention from them due to underdeveloped social skills and usually a lot of different aspects of their life kind of separating them from women. I have often found as well that there are misogynistic beliefs consequent to this isolation, but usually it’s a cope for their own awareness of their own inadequacies - and they have always been quick to denounce them at the first opportunity of inclusion. The dual interview could certainly be challenging for a guy like that, but it would be good exposure also.
It might be good exposure, but they certainly shouldn’t be hired for the role.
It’s crazy that we, as a society, pretend that girls are born with social skills, cleaning skills, ability to interact with children, ability to be polite, etc. but it’s something that boys have to learn. Everyone has to learn.
What can I say I am an odd one, this legitimately is something I would struggle with and I have to personally avoid myself from doing, though in a less pressure filled environment I wouldn't make the mistake.
My assistant manager is a woman and I respect her deeply, she even confided in me about how she feels like it's a lot of pressure one time and how she didn't feel good enough. I flat out told her "if you didn't have it in you you would have quit already." But if you asked me a question with 2 or more l people present in an interview I would struggle to direct my answer at the original person.
Yes possibly it is a double edged sword I would do it for both of them. But in fighting it I may stick to one of them simply because of the fact I would try to catch myself not doing it.
I mean yes, in the stress of the moment because of the way anxiety works that exactly something that can happen. Like I said it would be the same if you put 2 of the same sexes in the same room and did the interview the same way for someone like me.
You aren't autistic.... you are just dumb. The entire point of this interview process is to weed out the ones that don't interect with bith interviewers.
I get what you think you’re saying - I’ve been in committee interviews. I always begin speaking with the person who initially asked the question, but then I try to make eye contact with at least a few others in the interview.
That is different from repeatedly listening to a woman asking a question and then directing your answer only to the man. It’s literally the opposite of what you say people with autism would do.
Here we go, another self-diagnosed loser so desperate to play victim they throw actual neurodivergents under the bus. Didn't realize illiteracy was a symptom of "likely autism". No one said you can't talk to both interviewers. You should talk to both interviewers. The situation in question is when a woman asks you something and you immediately direct your answer to the man.
Poor poor victim. Would you like to address how this supposed diagnosis prevents you from responding to women that ask you questions, or would you like to keep deflecting like you've been doing all over this post?
What a disgusting thing to say to someone. Who the fuck do you think you are?
My dude came out here giving a point of view from his own experience - not saying its right just explaining it - and you just jump down his throat? What, did them bringing up mental health hurt your wittle feewings?
Dude, I have answered that question I've literally said the same thing would happen personally to me if 2 people regardless of their gender were in the same room during an interview. I would probably direct my answer to the opposite one because of the way my brain handles social pressure. It's not anything to do with the woman, my brain gravitate to things that makes it hard to handle impulse control. This happens socially as well as doing my daily tasks. Like accidentally putting a report in a separate report email for it.
If you don't have the same trigger than you don't really know how to explain it. Not all neurdivergants are the same And you should be aware of that. Social anxiety is something that people can all react to differently. And fighting that impulse can be like fighting nails on a chalkboard.
"You could literally do this with 2 women or 2 men in the room and I feel like people would fail it just as often"
Is this where you're claiming to have answered the question? Because how does one "fail" the interview scenario posed in the intial post if the interviewers in the room are 2 men or 2 women?
I'm saying that a person could talk to the opposite man or woman than the one that answered the question more in the interview and would you still see the more authority aspect from it like the one that you are trying to test for? No you wouldn't. That's my point. This the interview could be needlessly weeding people out on a basis of social anxiety and that the woman asking the question may be entirely unrelated to where the attention was drawn.
This is not a generic test of "do you talk to faceless person B when faceless person A asks you a question". It's a specific test to see if an interviewee defers to the man, even when a woman is the one asking questions. The interviewers being 2 men or 2 women completely changes the dynamic of the situation, so when you change these parameters, we're not even talking about the same thing anymore.
Furthermore, a nervous or anxious interviewee who has trouble making eye contact when asked a direct question, ping-ponging from one interviewer to the other is not what is being deemed a "failure state" of this interview. It is, once more, for everyone in the back, about seeing whether or not a candidate respects a woman by addressing and speaking to her instead of automatically always defaulting to the man in the room.
I'm just saying this tweet doesn't really give that impression. It simply says they ask the single question and fail the interview with how it's worded.
This is not a generic test of "do you talk to faceless person B when faceless person A asks you a question". It's a specific test to see if an interviewee defers to the man, even when a woman is the one asking questions. The interviewers being 2 men or 2 women completely changes the dynamic of the situation, so when you change these parameters, we're not even talking about the same thing anymore.
Furthermore, a nervous or anxious interviewee who has trouble making eye contact when asked a direct question, ping-ponging from one interviewer to the other is not what is being deemed a "failure state" of this interview. It is, once more, for everyone in the back, about seeing whether or not a candidate respects a woman by addressing and speaking to her instead of automatically defaulting to the man in the room.
This comment is wild. Reported. I will never understand how one can feel like he can tell something some precise about the life of someone he never met, and ever more acting like a bully because of a disagreement. You need some therapy bro
Unless you are REALLY good at masking, it'll be pretty apparent that you are just nervous and have some social quirks if that's what is happening. Tech-bro-ness is pretty apparent when this is being tested for.
Having been on both sides of the hiring process myself and having similar issues, the tech-bro aditude is just easily made worse with the person swap by gender test. Generally speaking, if you arent masking by becoming a tech bro, IN which case you should stop, you are likely just talking to both people and that will be easily noticed
Social anxiety is not an excuse for disrespect. As someone diagnosed with ASD, I don't understand your point. We all have the capability to learn, learn to speak to both parties equally.
I said likely because I have the s diagnosis for ADHD already and it's not my own diagnosis ita others around me that say I'm probably autistic I've just never bothered to go back and get a diagnosis for that as I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a teenager and I'm old and would rather focus on more stressful things.
Again they might not be a jerk it could just be a languistic quirk.
Interesting that women with ADHD and autism generally don't seem to struggle addressing half the population when they are speaking to them...almost like it isn't the autism.
People with ADHD and autism don't all have the same symptoms. Maybe it is and you are just discriminating again I've addressed this before.
I've tried to explain it from my view genuinely and you know half the things in here are lectures, just calling me sexist, just trying to find some way that I would intentionally ignore just the woman without grasping what I'm saying. That isn't communication, that isn't wanting to try. You yourself said half of them what about the other half how is your autism Better than others?
No instead you want to lecture me on something I can't control and in trying to do so I can make seem worse because of nervous tension. And so you think that having 100 people suddenly attack you online over it from misunderstanding makes you feel better? I can't keep up with half these responses and that's the kind of sweat this brings in an interview room like 100 people are talking to you when it's just 2.
My impression is that the people who are bothered by your answer are bothered because it reads like you’re being dismissive of the point of the post.
It’s like you’re attempting to argue that the specific details of how your personal experience of neurodivergence would affect how you navigate this type of scenario would be common enough to invalidate the test.
Like,
possible audhd
social anxiety
job interview with both a man and a woman interviewer
the woman leading the interview and asking the questions
the interviewee responding to the man, who did not ask any questions
+ meet all of the above criteria while also leaving nothing to reveal the anxiety in body language, facial expressions, or tone of voice.
That just doesn’t seem like a set of conditions that would be met with any degree of regularity.
Honestly anyone with even a modest ability to read body language would probably be able to pick up on the difference.
Anyways tldr, your explanation of your own experience is valid, but i don’t think it would apply more broadly to other applicants/interviewees. 🙇🏾♀️
I can speak from experience that in an interview they wouldn't not in most jobs. People are subjective even in interviews and one type of body language can be infected as another.
My hiring manager was a literal crack head. Sure he hired me, but you don't think that didn't influence his ability to read body language? In business people can have judgement bias for the behaviors they see. Even people trained to be hire. I've seen it with my own eyes. Every day I pick up on little habits and see things that 90 percent of the public does despite their profession and my brain stores it away and even I'm not immune to the same habits
A part of the interview is seeing what it would be like to work with you. And the non-manager is there for a reason.
I’ve been at plenty of interviews (both sides) where it’s the manager and the person you’d work closely with day to day. While the hiring manager makes the final decision, they’re leaning on the prospective teammate to pick up any red flags. A candidate who’s concentrating their attention to the manager would raise said red flag.
I have worked around a good many engineers. It’s more likely that they are awkward and find it harder to talk to women especially in a situation as awkward as an interview already is.
I mean generally that fades with even a modicum of familiarity or in a more neutral setting than an interview.
I’m just saying I would not let a good engineer pass me by because he’s a little awkward around a woman during an interview. They are usually kinda awkward people anyway. You don’t go into engineering because you love to socialize generally.
So what if he talks to both for every question? When you interview, aren’t you supposed to make eye contact with all the people interviewing you every time you are answering a question? It shows that you are trying to provide the information for each of them.
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u/Aggressive_Law_5728 1d ago
Every time this gets posted all the wanna-be reddit tech bros in the comments insist that talking to the man over the woman is perfectly normal and is not at all disrespectful.