The Employer Who Asked to Look Inside a Job Candidate’s Purse

an article by Alison Green published in SLATE

How the weird power dynamics of job interviews can brainwash you into putting up with outrageous behavior.

Few people are as knee-deep in our work-related anxieties and sticky office politics as Alison Green, who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website Ask a Manager. In Direct Report, she spotlights themes from her inbox that help explain the modern workplace and how we could be navigating it better.

One of the weirdest and most stressful parts about looking for a new job is figuring out how to navigate the power dynamics that exist between employers and job candidates. I’ve been writing the workplace advice column Ask a Manager for 10 years now, answering questions about everything from how to ask for a raise to what to do if you’re allergic to your boss’s perfume. One of the most frequent themes in my inbox has been rude and power-tripping behavior from prospective employers during the interview process. In letter after letter, people have written about feeling obligated to suck it up and deal with it because they think their interviewers hold all the cards.

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Alison has been writing her advice blog for 10 years, and I have been reading it for about the same length of time.
BUT
I rarely share onto my blog because many of the issues discussed are specific to the USA where the employment laws are very different from those in the UK.
Job interviews are, however, universal.
Good luck!

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