The president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, has been let off the hook in testifying in a sex bias case involving librarian Desiree Goodwin who says she was denied promotion because she was “too sexy,” according to this piece in the Boston Herald.
Both sides are battling over whether Goodwin can introduce evidence of Summers’ recent controversial questions about women’s ability to perform in science and math.
And for those of you going up for promotion, remember not to share the fact that you are perfect, even if you are:
In court papers, Harvard’s attorneys list eight promotions which Goodwin lost, arguing in detail that winning candidates were more qualified. They said Goodwin lost one spot when interviewers asked her to reveal an “important mistake” and she said she doubted she had made any.
female supervisor
According to the Boston Herald, the plaintiff “…said in court documents that her female supervisor told her in December 2001 that her ‘sexy outfits,’ `tight clothing’ and `low cut blouses,’ coupled with an alleged bad reputation, were holding her back…”
I think a supervisor would be failing her job if she didn’t suggest opportunities for improvement. These days, you’d really have to be way, way over appropriate dress standards to find a way to look too freaky or too sexy. Like if drool from the lip stud drips on the patron, or something.
mistakes
I’ve also given low scores to interview candidates who can’t name mistakes they’ve made. I don’t know how much it applies in librarianship, but in tech, if you haven’t made a mistake, you’re not doing the job. Good sysadmins and programmers experiment, and experiments sometimes fail. The charges, after you’ve made a major mistake while logged in with administrator privileges once, will you be more careful about having no privileges next time you experiment?
rm -rf .*
In librarianship I think it’s less true.
Re:mistakes
I understand the point your making but I’m not sure its comparable. I can go either way on the issue but I’ve come across a number of different job interview sources that say you’re never supposed to say anything negative about yourself.
Re:mistakes
In external interviews I’d agree but when they are internal the people wil/might know you and indeed have evidence of any problems that might have occured.
Surely you could point out mistakes as long as you can explain what you’ve done since to stop similar things happening again. Learning from your mistakes is bound to be something interviewers would see in an interviewee.
Admitting mistakes
“Have you ever made any mistakes?” is a question sometimes asked in job interviews. Actually, this is an older form of job interviewing (so last millenium, Dude!) that is good method of playing games, but that is of limited value in reading people’s job skills. It is right up there with seeing if the applicant puts salt on their food before tasting it; what they do when they come into the office for the interview and you have removed all the chairs; and other such interview games. After all, President Bush can’t remember any mistakes he made. Why are you holding this person to a higher standard than you hold the president to?
Besides, it actually tells the person being interviewed that they are in the presence of someone who will play games and deliberately inflict stress, embarrasement and humiliation on their staff, “to see how they react.” This is really good cover for a sadist and one who knows how to wield power, but who is probably guilty of poor judgement and even poorer people skills. If I was the interviewer’s supervisor and heard the interviewer was doing this kind of nonsense, I would certainly question their judgement, and thier fitness to have a position with authority over others.
Finally, I have yet to see written down how this sort of question matches in weight to professional qualifiacations, subject knowledge, etc. Is some one who is easily flustered less qualified than an idiot who can bombast through any situation? How would you compare the two people, one who was slick, less qualified and possibly dishonest, versus some one better qualified, honest and discreet, but who doesn’t trust others at their first meeting with personal details unrelated to the job?
I’m not sure if this lady hasa case or not on discrimination, but she certainly has a case for management game playing at work, and for supervisors interviewing with personal agendas to fill rather than interviewing for the best professional. You end up with librarians who all think alike, and of course, they usually end up with the librarians all looking alike, speaking alike, and all having the same background, except for the technicians. And God forbid if one of them should ever try to raise up out of their assigned place! “Please tell me all your mistakes that you’ve ever done, Honey. I won’t hold your honesty against you. I promise. (Giggle, giggle, snort, snort)”
Re:Admitting mistakes
I’m glad you wrote this, Lee. While I’ve done less than a dozen interviews in my career, this question comes up every single time and I’ve been told by everyone whose opinion I value to not answer it honestly. It usually comes up as “What are your weaknesses?” Gee, where do I start? My standard answer is, “Well, like all librarians, I tend to take on too much,” so that they know what a hard, committed worker I am. It always sounds so canned and dopey, but I’ve never been able to give it straight.
Re:Admitting mistakes
I had a boss that loved to ask entry level librarian applicants “Why should you be the successful applicant?”
I always thought this was unfair since, essentially, the answer always boils down to “I *really* need/want this job!”
And…
For anyone who reads and follows the policies, who researches problems ahead of time, asks for advice from peers, who tests on things that aren’t critical before doing changes to existing systems, or presents questionable decisions being forced upon them to their supervisors, and thus doesn’t make a mistake – they’re guilty.
Hey, as long as I know what I’m suppossed to do: ‘Just get the job done’, I guess devil take the consequences.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL
Re:And… :THINK: it’s an interview!
The point seems to be lost that this is a VERY standard (to the point of being outmoded, one would think) interview question designed to get the interviewee to demonstrate critical thinking skills, self-assessment capability, and (originally) candor. You don’t have to denigrate yourself — you talk about how much you learned from some outcome that wasn’t what was anticipated. Even better if you can segue to talking about how the next time, in a similar situation, you achieved a different outcome. This woman clearly was not prepared and seems to project a sense of entitlement (something I’ve encountered from others associated with the world’s richest university — whether warranted or not). Frankly, I think it is HARDER to cross the paraprofessional-to-MLS border within an institution than it is to apply (successfully) for an MLS job OUTSIDE your institution. At the former, you do have to overcome your history — not just the way you dress, but the very work (that is, nonprofessional work) that you did. In the latter, a hiring committee would *expect* you to be seeking their (professional) position.
I believe I read that she was given this advice. What I don’t understand is why anyone would want to stay employed at Harvard, when they could easily do better elsewhere.