What’s the difference between Dante’s Inferno and the hiring process? The Inferno only had nine circles of hell.
Dehumanizing hiring processes, swoop-and-poop bosses, and maybe the biggest question of all: does my design work even matter if I don’t care about propping up capitalism? This week, Sara and Jen answer dilemmas about pushing back against exploitative requests, working around a faux-inclusive boss, and managing disillusionment with design. And through it all, a theme emerges: How do you handle the tension between two conflicting truths?
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Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:00 It is not your responsibility to make people change and organizations change when they have decided not to.
Jen Dionisio 0:18 Hey Sara! How are you doing today?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:20 Jen, this humidity is going to break me.
Jen Dionisio 0:24 I wouldn't know because I've been hiding inside of my house for the past week.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:30 I tell you what, humidity is absolutely my arch nemesis. I feel so just gross and sweaty the whole time, but I'm gonna make it through the summer. Make it through the summer.
Jen Dionisio 0:41 We're halfway there. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Per My Last Email—the show about what to do when work gets weird. I'm Jen Dionisio.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:50 And I am Sara Wachter-Boettcher. And Jen, what are we talking about today?
Jen Dionisio 0:55 So today, we have some dilemmas around how to fight for what's right in the workplace, and whether that's even possible.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:04 Mm hmm. So we get to talk about capitalism, right?
Jen Dionisio 1:07 We sure do. Let's jump into it. Because these ones are really, really meaty today. Our first question is from someone who is currently on the job hunt.
EJ 1:22 I'm currently looking for work after being laid off back in January. The job market has been really competitive and challenging lately. What I'm struggling with, though, is the wild hoops and requirements that companies expect candidates to jump through. For example, I was invited to do a 90-minute skills assessment as a first interview! I was shocked that free labor was on the table before we even discussed mutual interest in the role. Another company wanted me to do a three-hour "virtual onsite" with three consecutive interviews with different teams before even meeting the hiring manager. I did five rounds of interviews with a company, only to be ghosted and see the job reposted on LinkedIn.
It's so frustrating and disheartening. I'm trying to stay pragmatic and tell myself that I should take a longer time to find a better fit, but I only have so long until my unemployment benefits run out. I'm decent at rejecting roles that require ableist things like cognitive or personality tests, but there's so much to deal with as a job seeker these days I'm having trouble navigating it all. How do I stay motivated to apply and interview for roles, while pushing back against shitty interviewing and hiring practices?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 2:34 Oh, my gosh, Jen, I am exhausted just reading about all of these hoops this person has had to jump through.
Jen Dionisio 2:40 Yeah. It is a lot, especially when it keeps happening again and again and again, in all of these different companies.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 2:48 Yes, it's like these companies are forgetting that you're not just doing that with them. You might be doing that with 10 different organizations, if you're lucky enough to get interviews, to hopefully have those turned into one offer in this market. Like, come on.
Jen Dionisio 3:02 Sara, have you ever had to do this kind of homework before?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 3:05 You know, thankfully, not really. But it's been a long time since I have been on the job market, right? I've worked for myself for a long time. So when I had to do this sort of thing, I generally felt like it was pretty reasonable. Like I would do things like do a 30-minute writing or editing assignment in the office. They would send you to a little private room and be like, do this for half an hour, and we'll look at your work. And I tended to find that kind of thing valuable, because I think it is important to assess people's skills in some ways, and to make sure you can get a sense of how they actually work. But I also think that there are limits on what's appropriate and when, and clearly, companies are asking for way too much way too often. And so yeah, Jen, has this happened to you?
Jen Dionisio 3:46 Yeah, I'm in a similar boat where most of the time any requests I've gotten have felt reasonable, except for this one time, during my last job search where, you know, I had to put together a whole presentation and proposal for this like, hypothetical situation. I think it was like, imagine a driverless car, and you know, what that experience would be. And it was really kind of hard to tie that to content strategy. And that was something when I presented it at my interview they mentioned and I remember feeling really frustrated because I was like, well, this silly scenario has nothing to do with what I would work on for you at work.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 4:28 Yeah like, are they a driverless car company?
Jen Dionisio 4:30 No, no. They make websites.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 4:33 Yeah, sure. Okay.
Jen Dionisio 4:34 And then they made fun of my design because it was not very beautiful. To which I was like, Yeah, you're not hiring me to be a visual designer. So glad we cleared that one up, right.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 4:45 Like I put some boxes on the page. What are you looking for?
Jen Dionisio 4:47 Yeah, I'll be honest, I tried really hard. So that one kind of hurt. I tried to make it as as beautiful as possible. But yeah, that was a whole lot of hours and actually that wasn't even our full time job. That was for contract position. So I remember really feeling like, "never doing that again."
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 5:09 Yeah. Oh, I love that sentiment. I think that's really hard in this market right now, though.
Jen Dionisio 5:13 It really is. So, Sara, let's talk about the dilemma we have. And I'm going to call this listener EJ for “Exploited Job Seeker.” So if EJ was your client, where would you start?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 5:28 So I think the first thing here is that I would really want to affirm to EJ that they are not wrong. And they're not alone, that this is a real thing. And obviously, it's taking a big toll on them. And that is meaningful, no matter what, no matter what anybody else's experiences. But also, I know that this is coming up for a lot of people. I was recently working on this big content design and UX writing survey helping my friend Jane Rufino assess the data and look what people are saying. And this exact thing came up over and over again, people talking about doing like six or seven rounds of interviews.
And I'm also hearing it on LinkedIn: people complaining about being ghosted after, like, meeting the team and the hiring manager and the director, and having, like, two rounds of onsites or whatever, right? And I just look at that and I think, gosh, that is really inhumane and disrespectful. And it feels to me like companies and hiring managers might be feeling a little emboldened right now. Like, the tables have turned and it's no more Great Resignation. Now it's like, "we can ask anything and everything of you." And I just feel really disappointed by that. Just because there's a lot of people who are laid off doesn't mean that those people don't deserve to be treated like humans.
Jen Dionisio 6:42 Yeah, I think you're right, too. I mean, it's such whiplash from how it was, let me think, like a year and a half ago, where I feel like we were just throwing money at people. They had like one interview, because it was such a mad dash to grab people before another company picked them up. And, you know, that wasn't actually necessarily healthy either. But there's got to be some middle ground.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 7:04 Right? Well, I think, ultimately, both ends of that spectrum treat people just like resources, right? So like, grab them when you need them. And then also, like, oh, there's lots of resources, we can afford to be choosy. Which is, is true in one sense, right? Like, if there's lots of options, there's lots of people who've applied, yeah, I get that you're going to be choosy. But they are still humans. Like how do you treat them in a way that is kind in that process of being choosy? And it feels like that gets forgotten, because when you treat people like resources, you're not treating them as humans.
All of that to say, EJ, first of all, if you are frustrated, and disheartened, I hear that and you are allowed to feel those things. And that is actually the first thing I would recommend, is really creating some space to name and feel those feelings. Because the more that you can get clear on what specifically is hurting here—like, what are the specific things that happen that violate your values or your boundaries, that feel harmful to you—that's going to really help you. It's going to help you as you move forward when it comes to making some of those choices and tradeoffs around what you're willing to tolerate and what you're not willing to tolerate. Because those things that are the most egregious, that you find the most personally hurtful, are probably the things that you're going to be the most likely to push back against.
And there may be some other spaces where you're like, "This isn't right. I don't feel awesome about it. But I can accept it in service of getting a job." Because you need a job, and I hear that, and that is also totally real.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 8:35 And so I think that the way I might frame this conversation today is really like, how do you find the tradeoffs you can live with? Because there's going to be tradeoffs. And that means that there'll be some tradeoffs between, like, immediate practical needs and your values and sort of your greater beliefs. It's okay to make tradeoffs. And I think this is really finding the tradeoffs that won't drain you too dry, that won't make you feel terrible about the world. Tradeoffs you can live with.
Jen Dionisio 9:03 I feel like when I'm talking to clients, there can be a lot of stuckness around kind of figuring out what you can let go of and what you really need to hold firm on. So Sara, how would you help EJ determine what those tradeoffs are?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 9:18 So the way I see it, EJ is really holding two conflicting truths right now. The first one is that the existing system is broken. And if we all keep participating in it, it won't change. And I think that's true, right? Like, if nobody ever says, "Hey, this isn't OK," then the system continues doing what it's doing. But the second truth is this: The existing system is how EJ can get their basic needs met. And that is also real and true, right? Like, this is somebody who has bills to pay and who has basic needs, and they deserve to have those needs met.
And so a lot of times when we're faced with two conflicting truths, our brains want to decide which one to believe. So they're trying to pick: Do I push back against the system? Or do I just focus on getting a job? It's very either/or. The problem is that that creates this kind of like ping-pong for us. So we'll go to one into the spectrum. And that'll feel bad because there's all this dissonance there. And so we'll go to the other end of the spectrum, which also feels bad, because there's so much dissonance there. So instead, what I'm really suggesting is that we can kind of hold up both of those truths side by side and acknowledge that they are both real, and that they both have something to tell us here, but that neither one of them is going to give us one pure, simple answer.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 10:33 Let's look at them one by one. The first one is, the system is broken. So EJ, you seem to be somebody who really wants to and cares about pushing back against the status quo. Like you've said that you won't do ableist stuff like personality tests, or IQ tests. And so I want to applaud that, because I think it's really important that people speak up against these things. And that is how things change, right? When people say, "hey, it's ableist to demand a personality test or an IQ test," that can sow a seed of people starting to recognize some things they maybe assumed were fine are problematic. That's great.
So what I might ask here, in the "the system is broken" category, is: What else beyond those tests feels particularly exploitative or inhumane to you, EJ? And this is why I suggested naming your feelings at the beginning and really looking at like what aspects of the process are triggering those feelings? Because those are the places where your values are most violated, and where it might be most important to you to push back. For example, is it the free labor component? How much free labor? When it starts being more than an hour, more than a couple hours? What is the boundary there that starts to feel harmful to you or unfair to you?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 11:45 Or maybe that part of it is actually less important to you. And it's really about your sense that there's no transparency in the process. That, like, you're on step six of n, right? Like, you don't really know how many more steps there might be. And feeling like that inequality of information is the thing that is really most exploitative, or most unfair to you as a job seeker. I might suggest starting to kind of rank these things a little bit. It doesn't have to be a formal process, but just kind of trying to prioritize them loosely. So that you can get a better sense of what stuff is really going to hurt you if you continue doing it.
Think about like in past interviews, what are the moments that really got you? That made you feel the worst? What stuck with you? Those are good cues for where your boundaries are being most violated. So that would be part one, is really looking at, what are the aspects of the broken system that cause you the most pain to tolerate? But then we need to also look at the other side of the equation, which is: the existing system is how you get your needs met. And so the idea of pushing back against everything is probably really terrifying. And I think that's also important to acknowledge here. Everybody deserves stability. Everybody deserves to be able to, you know, pay their bills. And it's okay to feel scared of making yourself too difficult in this process.
Jen Dionisio 13:04 Yeah, I mean, I think that would be my first worry. "Oh, my gosh, are they going to cut me from this process if I start speaking up?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 13:12 Right. And I think that's a valid fear. But also, it's not necessarily going to happen. And there's different ways to approach it. So before we get to how we might approach that though, what I would dig into a little bit is, let's look at your real financial picture. Because that's what's putting pressure on you to not ask too many questions or push back against too many things. So let's look at that. And let's say, okay, when I really take a look at my financial picture—I look at my unemployment, and look at severance, and look at savings, and look at reductions that I can make in my expenses that would be manageable, livable, would still leave me stable—what's my timeline? How much room do I really have here? I think that sometimes our panic brain will tell us that it's now I need to have something now.
Jen Dionisio 13:56 [Laughter]
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 15:34 Once you've done that work on really looking at, what are the things that are most hurtful to you in the process? And then what is your real situation? Now you can hold these two conflicting truths up against one another, and start to get a better sense of when you need to prioritize one over the other. So for example, let's say it's a very violating request. It's something that feels like a whole lot of unpaid labor. Or maybe even it feels like an assignment where they could end up stealing your work from you and using it, even though they didn't pay you for it. That kind of thing. Yeah, probably worth pushing back on for your own wellbeing. Kind of like no matter what, there are some things where you're like, I cannot do that, right? Hard lines.
Now, maybe there's something that feels like a little bit of a reach, where it's like, yeah, I feel like they're asking for a little more than it's fair there. But you decide, you know, my runway is sort of starting to get a little shorter, I do want to make sure I don't take myself out of the running, there's enough good things about this job. Okay, I'm gonna go along with that one. When your runway gets short, so if you're getting to a place where you're like, I truly do need to be very attentive to getting money in the door soon, right? I'm thinking about like, can I pay my bills effectively in the next few months? That might be a place where you do start to lower the bar a little bit.
And that's okay, it's okay to decide to do that. You may feel like you're not speaking up about what you know is right, like you're not speaking up about ethics and your values. And that might feel bad. But it's okay, sometimes, to make those compromises in service of taking care of yourself. If you do that, what I'm going to suggest is that you really acknowledge to yourself, "What is the price that I am paying right now? And why am I making that tradeoff?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 13:56 And that's normal, right? Like my panic brain does that too. But the slower and more reflective brain might realize that we actually have six more months that are pretty comfortable. And maybe a few months after that, that things would feel a little bit more stressed, but we'd be okay. And that might not be true for you, EJ. I have no idea of your situation. I'm not telling you that that is true for you, only you can answer that question. But what I would say is that this is a really helpful thing to kind of walk through slowly, and make sure that you're using real information and not panic brain to make this decision.
The other thing, EJ, is that, you know, you mentioned you're freelancing. Freelancing is great, that brings in some income. And you might be thinking like, "but it's not enough" or "it's not stable enough. It's not enough to make me feel safe." And what I would say to that is that that is a really high bar. And so you may also want to ask yourself some questions about your freelance work that kind of lower the bar on that a little bit and say, okay, is that freelance work something that extends my runway here? Does it give me a couple more months because it helps me stretch things out? So how might this freelance work help me avoid feeling pressure to jump to a questionable company? What space does it give me? It doesn't solve the problem. But it may actually give you enough to kind of cushion you further.
And so, on this side, the side that's about really dealing with the reality that you need a job, I look at it as really getting more specific about the time and resources that you do have. And kind of quelling that panic part of you that might be really quick to jump to conclusions, and therefore very fearful of anything that could knock you out of the running.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 17:12 So for example, "I have decided I'm not going to say anything about this exploitative request, because I know that I really need to get money in the door by September." If you do that, it's not that it takes the hurt away—like, it still costs you something sort of emotionally to do something that violates your values. But what this does is this gives you some space to name it, and then to be able to feel it. To kind of feel that grief or that pain or that conflict, and then process it so that you don't end up beating yourself up about it, or feeling stuck on it, feeling like you need to shame yourself for not having spoken up about something. It just really gives you that clarity, that yes, you know, you're making a tradeoff, and you're making it intentionally, and it's okay. And in different circumstances in the future, you'll make a different choice. And that just allows you to kind of move on from it.
Jen Dionisio 17:24 I would imagine, too, that might give you a chance to really think about if you get the job, what influence do you want to have in their hiring process moving forward so that, you know, you can kind of share once you're in there, what that was like for you and how that could be different? Because sometimes I think, unfortunately, people just don't even consider some of the things we mentioned, like the amount of time or resources some of these projects take.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 18:33 Well, yeah, I think dehumanization has become so normal in the hiring process that people don't even realize when they're doing it. And so actually speaking of that, I think the other thing I wanted to talk about here around EJ's situation is, what are some ways they might be able to speak up about this stuff as a job seeker without necessarily taking themselves out of the running? So some ways that they could say, "Hey, let me flag this thing for you," but still feel like they are being open to the process and not unnecessarily counting themselves out.
So what I would say is that it can be really helpful to practice some things in advance that you might say, or questions you might ask. So for example, in a recruiting process early on, it's really helpful sometimes to just ask directly what the full interview process looks like. What is an interview loop at this company? What are the steps that are involved? What's the length of time from initial conversation to getting an offer? How many people end up in a finalist round, typically? When has it taken longer than normal to get from initial interview to offer? And what made it take longer?
Really understanding how much they've sort of thought about the different steps, and also how consistent they are. Like if people don't really know the answer to those questions, that is a flag that it's kind of Wild West, anything goes. And that might be something to kind of keep in mind.
Jen Dionisio 19:48 Good point.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:49 One step a little bit more assertive than that might be to say, you know, "I'm concerned about X aspect of the process. I don't want to take myself out of the running, but I'd really like to understand the purpose of this assignment, and if you've considered the impact of this on the candidate experience—if you've considered how much time these projects take to complete?" Just kind of starting that conversation about a concern. You're not necessarily saying, "No, I won't do it." But you're saying, "Hey, have you considered this?" Now, questions like this may not change the process that you're going through.
These questions may not spark somebody to go, "Ooh, yeah, you're totally right. You don't have to do that anymore." If they do, great. But the thing is, what this does is that this helps to kind of shift the narrative—give people something to think about. Something to chew on. And that is actually really helpful, because like I said, dehumanization has been so normalized that a lot of people aren't asking themselves these questions. I have a lot to say about like, why are people in HR and why are hiring managers not asking themselves these questions? But for lots of reasons, they are not.
And so if you are nudging them, or kind of opening up their perspective a little bit, that might shift things down the line. And it also gives you a little bit of a way to potentially have some both/and, which is to say, "I'm acknowledging that the existing status quo system is not right. And I'm participating in it because I need to get my needs met." And so that might be a way to feel a little bit more at peace with where you're at in this process. And it also gives you information—because if you ask some questions, like, "I'd like to better understand the purpose of this part of the interview process," or "I have some concerns about the number of steps here," people's responses tell you a lot.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 21:35 If what you get back is open and curious, or even like, "Yeah, you know, I really understand where you're coming from here, I'd love to see it be changed. I don't have power over that right now." That might be a good response that might make you feel like, okay, this person kind of gets it or at least they care. If you get a response that's really dismissive, or that's really like, "Well, people should just want to work here so badly that they're willing to do whatever it takes," that might be a red flag that tells you something about the way that they see workers in general that may show up in the workplace if you take a job there. And so that might actually tell you a little bit more about whether it's worth it to set a firm boundary or not in that particular scenario.
Jen Dionisio 22:18 Yeah, I love that. You mentioned that because, you know, if I think of the talent acquisition people at my last job, when candidates came to them with concerns or questions or, you know, feedback on things that weren't working well in the process, they were really good about coming to us as the hiring managers, and giving us that feedback and inviting us to make changes. And I think that is a really good sign of somebody actually listening to what you're saying and wanting the processes to change and not you. Because ultimately, their goal is to get a good person in that role. And if enough people start pushing back, it makes them pay attention even more. In prepping for this episode, Sara, I read a really great piece of advice from the Ask A Manager column from Alison Green.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 23:07 Love her.
Jen Dionisio 23:08 She's so great. And she suggested a third option between those two, where she recommends offering to do a more reasonable version of an assignment if it feels like it's too intense. I'm going to quote her specifically so I don't mix up her words. But what she said was, you know, an example like, "Because of other commitments right now, I can't spend more than an hour or so on an assignment exercise. But I could do a smaller piece of the work (and kind of name what that is) that will still give you a feel for my work, if that would work on your end." She also gives the idea of saying something like, "I don't usually do spec work. But I'd be happy to send you examples of similar work I've done in the past that illustrate what I think you're looking for here." And I think with those two you're kind of giving the hiring managers some choices about how they want to work with you.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 24:05 Yeah, I love those too, because those are all spaces where you can start to have a discussion around compromise. It's like, they've proposed that you do some big-ass 15-hour project. You've proposed that you do a one-hour project. Now each of you has sort of made an opening bid. And there's a little bit of a conversation where maybe you come out the other end with something that works well enough for everybody. Now, I know that not every job conversation feels like two equal parties negotiating on details.
Like, I get the power dynamics there are not always like that. But I think it can be helpful to kind of imagine they're a little bit more like that and to show up to the conversation with your own perspective on, "Here's what I'd like to offer. Here's what I think is appropriate," because it does give you a little bit more of a stake in the ground to work from as opposed to just sort of taking whatever thing they're requesting and trying to whittle it down a little bit which might not get you as far.
Jen Dionisio 24:57 Sara, I really love that I think all of the suggestions and questions you've posed to EJ really seem like they're in service of making EJ as the job seeker feel a lot more empowered and in control of some things that they can control in this process.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 25:15 Yeah, you know, I always say, and I think maybe this is a good closing note for EJ, there are going to be tradeoffs, right? We have to make choices in a world where oftentimes, we have competing interests or competing needs; there is no perfect answer. And the more that we try to come up with the perfect answer, the more we tend to get stuck. When we slow ourselves down and we allow ourselves to just be intentional about which tradeoffs we're making and to really understand why we're making those tradeoffs right now, that allows us to move on with some confidence and to not get so hung up on whether we're doing the right thing every moment.
Jen Dionisio 25:52 So thank you, EJ, for writing in with that dilemma. We'd love to know how you decide to move forward with some of the requests you get. Keep us posted.
Jen Dionisio 26:05 So our next question is actually a perfect complement to the one we just talked about because it's about someone who's on the other side of this issue, and trying to create a more equitable process from inside a company. Are you ready?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 26:21 Yes.
Jen Dionisio 26:22 Okay, so this one is from a product design manager on a team of about 40 people. She wrote that she feels lucky that her team is still hiring in this market. But...
DU 26:35 I'm not comfortable with the way we hire people. In theory, we should have an awesome, equitable hiring process. We have playbooks and rubrics for each stage that we train everyone on a hiring panel to be confident with. We even got rid of a take-home assignment this year in the hopes of attracting more parents and folks who work long hours and wouldn't otherwise have an equitable experience. We have a dedicated DEI team at the company that "screens" our materials for bias and maintains relationships with communities where we should be reaching out for candidates from URMs. Our recruiters are upfront about the pay ranges for each position during the very first call with a prospective candidate.
Here's where I'm angry though. Our head of design has repeatedly swooped in last minute on a candidate the design leadership team and hiring panel is excited about and has asked us to down-level the person if we extend an offer. He claims that our organization should aspire to be one of the best in the business and that designers here working in a mid-level role would be as good as a senior or even a staff-level person at another company. By down-leveling a person, he claims it should also demonstrate how excited someone is to join the company and that it would motivate them to strive and grow extra fast once they come in—the whole, "we will revisit in a year." (I've seen him do this to other folks, including people in management roles, and it's never worked without the person feeling gaslit, or needing to get competing offers from somewhere else to advocate for themselves.)
The rest of the design leadership team believes in our hiring process, but we're at a loss of what to do when it gets vetoed based on his ultimate perception. And we hate being the ones to deliver the bad news—it makes us look like we have values as design leaders that we do not.
It's also not a consistent pattern on his part, either. I've seen him not want to lose out on a candidate who has an offer from another company that he perceives as being high quality, and matching it, and even breaking salary pay bands to land the person. He's also re-leveled a personally recommended candidate that the rest of the design leadership team and hiring panel did not evaluate well, shortly after his start date. All of this feels deeply unfair from different angles, particularly financial ones. I am fortunate that I get to hire people in this climate, and I know what I need to do to retain and grow the people I have on my team, but I'm essentially blocked by my own manager on how we can deliver.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 28:53 Okay, first of all, hell yes to this person.
Jen Dionisio 28:56 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 28:56 I'm gonna call her DU for short. That's for "Deeply Unfair." So DU, we see you. We see you putting in that work: making hiring more equitable, questioning all those exploitative norms that EJ mentioned in their letter. We see you out here trying to make it better for people who are going through 7,000 hoops to get a job right now. Thank you for your service. And I can sense that you might be feeling a little bit dejected right now, a little bit like maybe that work you're putting in doesn't matter, because it's not being implemented or it's not being implemented consistently.
And so what I want to affirm to you here is that it matters. It matters because the work that you do to make things fairer and to build systems and standards, it might not change your organization. You actually don't control your organization, right? Like, they're going to do what they're going to do. But it does change the people who encounter that work. So your fellow product design managers, recruiters, people who are coming up in the organization behind you, all of those people will see what you're up to, they will learn from it, and hopefully it'll help them grow and shift their mindsets. It'll help them be exposed to new ideas.
It's like I said to EJ about asking some questions in the interview process that might trigger people to think differently or to recognize that what they're asking for is a lot. The work that you're doing, even if it doesn't get implemented, or even if it doesn't change everybody's opinion, some people might ask themselves some new questions or might see the work that they're doing differently in the hiring process, because of the work you have put in. So I'm going to ask you to really hold onto the idea that you have done something worthy here even if your boss never changes.
Jen Dionisio 30:39 I think that's such a good point that often we want kind of the big organization-wide impact to be shown. And it can really minimize some of the smaller impacts that we have.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 30:51 Yeah. And of course, you want the big impact, right? Like, yeah, you do. You want your organization to change. It would be great if your boss showed up and pulled you into a meeting and was like, "Hey, I realize I have been ignoring your equitable hiring standards. And I see how that's perpetuating inequality. And I'm committed to change. And thank you. And here's what we're going to do from here." Of course, that would be great. And also, if that doesn't happen, that doesn't mean that you've been defeated here, you know? We don't want to overly tie our sense of success to whether other people change and instead really think about, what is the value of the work I'm doing on its own merits?
Jen Dionisio 31:27 And yet it does really sound like DU wants to have a bigger impact than just her own. So Sara, how could she try to get through to her boss and have these changes be implemented more broadly?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 31:43 Yeah. Okay. Well, I flagged something in her question that I think is important here. It sounds like this boss is making a lot of justifications for their decisions, and those justifications feel pretty sus to me. So I want to unpack those a little bit, because I think there might be a helpful starting spot. So first of all, the boss has said that he wants people to be so excited to be there that they will accept a down-leveled role. And so when I unpack that, what I hear underneath that is an underlying belief. And that belief is something like good hires are people who feel lucky to be here and will accept anything in order to get the opportunity.
Jen Dionisio 32:17 Boo.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 32:18 Right. Okay. Second one I see, so this is another one that I think is similar is some of the justification he has said is that, "Well, we'll have the best team if everyone's under-leveled. Like, if all of our mids are actually at a senior level, if everybody is better than their title says, then therefore, we'll have the best team."
Jen Dionisio 32:34 Oh, my God.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 32:35 The underlying belief there might be something like, "Oh, excellent designers are willing to take a role at a lower level and won't leave for a place that offers a higher level." Now, I think we can see that those underlying beliefs are probably unlikely to be true, right? Like this is pretty easy to poke holes in when we slow down and think about it. Have you met a bunch of amazing designers who are willing to put up with being treated like they are more junior than they are and have no boundaries and no expectations and will jump through every hoop?
Jen Dionisio 33:01 Nope.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 33:02 No, because great designers, like, they're like, "I could get a different job that doesn't ask me to do that, that actually treats me well."
Jen Dionisio 33:09 And compensates me for the level that they have actually realized I am at.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 33:14 Right. But I really want to call these out as beliefs here. Because it sounds like that is where he currently is living. Right? And he may not realize these are his beliefs. He may not say like, "Oh, yeah, I totally think that." But that's the underlying belief that is guiding some of his justification or his behavior. So I want to call them beliefs, because where I'm sitting, my suspicion is that efforts to change his behavior are not going to work unless he shifts his beliefs, or unless somebody with more power than him sets consequences for him for not changing his behavior. The person who has the power to set consequences around his behavior is not you. DU is not in a role where they can force him to change his behaviors, because they do not hold power over him. And so what I might suggest is to really say, if you want to try to get your boss to listen to you, if you're hoping to change some of his behavior, I might home in on, how might I help shift his beliefs?
Now, shifting people's beliefs is hard work, and DU, it's also not your job. This is something you can choose to do, because it matters to you, because you believe it is so important that you are willing to put in extra time for it, because it gives you personal meaning. But this is not your job. So this is a choice you can make. And I would really ask you to consider, how much energy do I have for that work right now? And if you don't have the energy for that work, it may be okay for you to say, "Oh, shifting my boss's beliefs is something I'm not going to take on in this particular moment." If you decide, though, that this is something that you really do want to invest in, DU, then great, I think that that is wonderful because, again, norms change when we are willing to speak up about them and do work to make them change.
So if you're really focusing on helping to shift his beliefs, though, it's a slower process. It is really oftentimes more about being curious and understanding where they're at right now, and really being willing to listen to their existing mindset. And that's hard to do, because you have strong opinions about their existing mindset. And I do too, right? Like, I would also find this challenging. But that is really when people start to open up to change is when they feel heard and understood and when they feel like the perspective that they're coming in with is valued. So you may want to think about, you know, can you be open to being there for those conversations? What are the things that are making him think the way that he thinks? Where has he seen this borne out? What are some examples he's seen of this working and what led him to this belief?
And then from there, you can start to work in some alternate perspectives and alternate observations that you might be able to offer to him, but less from the perspective of like, "I'm going to tell you why you're wrong," and more from the perspective of, "Okay, I've heard your side of things, sort of how you're seeing things. I'm interested in that. And I'm respectful of that. Here's an offering of how I see things and some things maybe that you haven't thought about. And can we have both of those things on the table?" But really, people tend to change beliefs when they're in relationship with somebody, when they're in connection with somebody, and when it feels like it’s safe for them to be open to new things. And so if you can't get to a place where you build some of that deeper connection and trust between you, then you're probably not on very fertile ground for changing somebody's belief structure.
So again, this is hard work, it can be really worthwhile work. But it is also not your job. This is extra work, and I want to make sure that you are really taking that on from a place of choice and feeling like that is something you can decide to do if you have it in you, and you can decide to stop doing if you don't have it in you. But if all of it sounds immediately exhausting, like, being curious to this person, and you're like, "Oh my god," rolling your eyes, I would say it's okay to relinquish yourself that responsibility.
Jen Dionisio 33:24 Yeah, I think that's something so often with managing up, we see a problem, we want to take action on it. But I think I'm always so struck that it's like, "My manager has managers. Why aren't they stepping in here?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 37:25 Yes. Okay, so that brings me to something else that DU might explore here, which is, you potentially have some influence on this person's beliefs, if you want to put in the work. But like I said before, I don't think that you have the power to be responsible for changing their behavior. The people who this person reports to are the people who have that power. So that might be looking at, how might you escalate some of these behaviors to the people who actually hold the power to change them, or to, like, set some consequences if your boss doesn't change here? Whose responsibility is it to rein in his behavior?
For example, I might look at HR in this scenario. I'm curious what HR's perspective on the hiring process is, at what level they've bought into the work that you've done to build a more equitable process. Do they have an official stance on what it should look like? HR is there to avoid risk to the business. So that means sometimes HR people are not your friend, right? Like, sometimes what they're trying to do is protect the business. But in this particular situation, part of avoiding risk to the business is making sure that hiring is not breaking any laws, or that hiring isn't gonna create sort of like reputation risk for the company. So some of what he's doing sounds like it could be in a danger zone around discriminatory practices.
Jen Dionisio 38:46 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 38:46 Not saying any of it is illegal. Not a lawyer. But it might raise flags for people in HR. And so it might be helpful to let them in on some of the issues that you're seeing. If you feel like there are people there you could talk to privately about this with some level of trust. You might also think about, you know, who's your boss's boss? And what does that person care about? What might you be able to bring up to them, and if you have a relationship with them, particularly like if you have a skip level or something like that, that might be a good place to kind of flag that bigger concern. Now, the thing I will say, DU, is that if you choose to go this route, remember that your job here is not to fix the problem. You would like the problem to be fixed. But your role in the process is surfacing it to the people who have the appropriate power to fix the problem. And if then they choose not to do anything about it to remember that that part is not you. That's them. That's the organization.
Jen Dionisio 39:41 Yeah. And I think it's also really telling that there's a chance that maybe people aren't aware that this is how your boss is leveling people, and they would have some pretty strong opinions about what that means. Or is that completely out of sync with other departments? Because that could also create a lot of…have ripple effects throughout the entire organization if just one group has these very specific leveling rules, while everybody else doesn't.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 40:10 Right? Okay, so DU, there's one other piece of this that I want to check in on. And that's about your boundaries. So something that you said was that other managers hate being the ones to deliver the bad news: "It makes us look like we have values as design leaders that we do not." And so what I hear in there is that you and your colleagues are feeling complicit in his behavior, and that that's hurting you. So this is a place where I might challenge you to explore what it would look like to not do his dirty work. For example, you might be able to start communicating, like, "Hey, I accept that your decision on leveling this candidate is like this. But I don't feel good about it. And so I'm not going to be the person who communicates this decision to them. If you feel strongly about leveling them differently than our panel has recommended they get leveled, then I need you to be responsible for communicating that leveling decision to them."
Jen Dionisio 41:06 Love that.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 41:07 Now, that might sound like a strong boundary to set. That might sound impossible. Like, I get that that might sound hard to do. But I'm going to encourage you to sit with it a little bit. What would it feel like to say, "No, I won't do your dirty work, I won't disappoint this person." What would it look like if you said, "Hey, if you believe this so strongly, I really need you to be the one to communicate it." And then related to that, something I'm really curious about here is you say that you and the other managers share these feelings. What would it look like if your leadership team came together to set this boundary? "Hey, we've been noticing that in X, Y, and Z circumstance, we followed the process, our panel came to a decision, and then you blocked that decision, or you forced a different decision."
If you could bring that conversation up in the group, there might be some strength in numbers. And that might be something that you can work together as a leadership team to set some boundaries around. What are the things that you as a layer of product design managers are no longer willing to do? That's a way to kind of increase your safety when you're setting a boundary that could otherwise feel pretty scary to set.
Jen Dionisio 42:12 And I think that's a good point, Sara, because it feels like DU has kind of the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 42:19 Yes.
Jen Dionisio 42:19 Trying to deal with this and figure out what to do alone. But it's impacting more than them. So I love this idea of getting a group together to really show that it's not just one person's opinion, and that it is a belief that is embedded in the team's entire philosophy.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 42:39 Yeah, and you know, speaking of weight of the world on your shoulders, I really do hear that in DU as well. And so I think my closing words to DU are like, "This ain't all on you." Thank you for doing the hard work to try to make things better. And know that it is not your responsibility to make people change and organizations change when they have decided not to. So keep that in mind and really balance out the values that you bring to this and the amount that you can put into it. Your job is not to fix an organization.
Jen Dionisio 43:11 Hear hear.
Jen Dionisio 43:16 Sara, our last dilemma today is a little bit different than the others. It's not about hiring. But it is about feeling disillusioned with the status quo, and wondering what to do about it. This dilemma comes from someone who pivoted into UX from another field. And here's what he shared:
AB 43:35 I'm new to UX as of 3 years ago. I've excelled in UX and have recently progressed into a Lead role at a large telecommunications org. But, I'm feeling bored, dissatisfied and directionless (already). I find it hard to set personal goals in my current work environment. It's large and sprawling and even at a lead level you're far away from any opportunity to influence decisions. Ironically, although I've progressed in seniority quickly, that was not really my intention. I don't care much for ladder climbing or titles, I just want to make cool stuff and be creative, and to influence good decisions for bettering people's lives.
I just don't really know where to go to obtain the things I'm looking for and I certainly don't care to increase the grasp capitalism has on the world. Is what I'm seeking even attainable in the world of design? I can't help but think "maybe I'm expecting too much?" Or maybe I've just bought into the whole "design can change peoples lives" evangelism way too much. How can you find creativity and creation in design? Or is it all just about the money?
Jen Dionisio 44:38 So Sara, how about we call this person AB for "Already Bored?”
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 44:44 Yeah, I love that name. Okay. It sounds like Already Bored's success on paper, their "success" hasn't really felt like success to them.
Jen Dionisio 44:53 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 44:53 I think that's true for a lot of people. And I feel like that's maybe the first place to start here.
Jen Dionisio 44:59 Yeah, I know you love to talk about career malaise. So what do you think is happening here?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 45:04 Yeah, I do love to talk about career malaise. So what I'm seeing is that AB has really named their disconnect. The stuff they care about is not what this role is optimized for. So congratulations, AB, you've actually gotten to a really crucial realization pretty quickly. And I think that that is very healthy; I find that a lot of people hit that realization pretty deep in their careers, kind of mid-career. They've maybe worked really hard to go up a ladder, to get a big title, and then they get there, and they're like, "Huh, is this it?" Or like, "I hate this."
Jen Dionisio 45:38 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 45:39 And so that can set off this big stream of questioning and doubt, and really send people into a kind of cynical cycle of malaise where things don't really feel meaningful anymore. And so naming that disconnect, between what you care about and what the role is optimized for, is actually the first step to either getting out of that cycle or preventing it. Because then you can start to figure out, what do I do with this disconnect? And so, in that process, what I want to affirm, AB, is that it sounds like you have a lot of strengths that have helped you get where you are already. You already made a career pivot. And that means that you know what it takes to shift your work, to shift your mindset, to kind of evolve the way you approach things, to learn all of these different things.
And so I think that what that means now, it doesn't mean you have to make another pivot in the sense of like, from one industry to another. But maybe there's a little bit of a mini pivot from the way that you think about success in your job to something that is more satisfying for you.
Jen Dionisio 46:37 Yes, you know, I always point this out to clients who've pivoted in the past: like, if you've done it once, you know it's possible to do it successfully again. And if you've switched industries, some of these smaller pivots are really actually maybe a little easier to manage than what you've been able to do successfully before.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 46:57 Yeah. And in fact, a lot of them are not really even a pivot externally at all. It's more like an internal pivot in the way that you think about your work. And actually, that's what I want to dig into here when we start talking about goals. AB wrote, "Although I've progressed in seniority quickly, that was not really my intention. I don't care much for ladder climbing or titles. I just want to make cool stuff and be creative and to influence good decisions for bettering people's lives." Yeah, I completely understand why they're struggling to think about goals, when they don't really care about climbing the ladder. And they feel like they just want to make good stuff.
So what I might do here is to really say how can you start to pivot your definition of success to be more focused on the things that you truly value? So in this, what I hear are some values around creativity, being playful, sounds like that really nourishes you. And also some values around doing good things for other humans, being sort of like a good person or being sort of a force for justice or righteousness in the world in some fashion. And I don't know exactly what that means to you, but I think that may be important to figure out: what do you mean by that when you say "doing good things for humans?" What does that look like for you? What are the things that come up for you? Because I think some clarity on those values will be really valuable when it starts to come to how you think about your goals going forward.
Meanwhile, it sounds like being a lead and moving up in titles, it sounds like that's fine. But it doesn't actually do much for meeting those needs of creativity and doing good. Doesn't mean it's wrong to move up. It can be nice to move up, to feel like you have, you know, some seniority or to get a bigger paycheck, but it's not going to ever meet those particular needs. So if you think about your goals for the year, or for the next period of time, as being about getting those needs met, what would that look like? What would growth look like to you if you were thinking about growing your creative skills or expanding your creative practice in some way? What are the skills that you wish you were better at? Or what are some techniques or technologies or approaches that you'd like to try out and kind of get into your toolset? What feels like a stretch right now?
For example, some things that might stretch UX people in different ways, maybe it's facilitating workshops, if you haven't done a lot of that. Or maybe it's like learning something like a piece of software that you're less experienced with. Like, "Oh, you know, our visual designers use Figma all the time. But a lot of the UX folks maybe don't spend as much time in Figma. I want to get good at Figma." That might be a way to stretch your creativity there. Maybe it's a nearby skill, like content design or research. It also doesn't even have to be at work. Like if creativity is really valuable to you, and that doesn't feel like it's totally being nourished in your job, maybe it's thinking more about how you can have space for that practice outside of work.
Is there space for an art practice or craft practice or something that kind of scratches that itch? Is it partnering with a friend on a side project where there's like, some adjacency to your professional life, but it feels more creative because you have complete ownership over it? So that would be like ways that you might look at growth around creativity. Another thing that you might look at is, "Okay, what are some goals around being a better advocate for humanity?" What would it look like to make your goals be focused on speaking up more boldly or advocating for more just or equitable solutions?
Or what if you turned that inward and you said, "Oh, I really want to do right by people. How do I stretch my ability to see the unintended consequences or potential for harm in my own UX practice? What do I need to learn about? What communities do I need to better understand? What issues or topics do I need to be more mindful of? And how might I actually expand my capacity to really live out that value of making things better for people?" These goals, they are not necessarily tied to getting a raise or a promotion. These are not goals that are necessarily going to be validated or even visible to your company.
But that is not why I am suggesting them, AB, because what I heard from you is that it is not all about the money. You don't really care about titles. You have enough of a title and it sounds like you have enough money, that that has not been a big concern of yours. So this is a chance to define what is meaningful on your own terms. And then to make sure that you're giving yourself goals that help you get those needs met inside or outside of work.
Jen Dionisio 51:21 Sara, this makes me think a lot about a practice called job crafting. Have you heard of this before?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 51:27 Yes, I've heard the term but I haven't ever really read about it.
Jen Dionisio 51:30 Yeah. So is this kind of new to me too, but it feels so right. And it aligns with a lot of what you're saying. This researcher Amy Wrzesniewski has been doing research on this topic for about 20 years. And she talks a lot about some of the things you were saying about like changing the things that you focus your attention on at work to be more tied to the things that are personally meaningful to you, as opposed to specifically what the organization or business needs from you. And she talks about that in like three different ways.
There's task crafting, where you may end up using your skills maybe more than they're needed, but in ways that feel really important or valuable to you. There's relationship crafting, so bringing more purpose and joy and satisfaction into your work by kind of changing who you spend your time with there. So you know, if there's a collaborator that really kind of energizes you and makes you feel really creative, find more ways to spend time with them. And the third way she talks about is cognitive crafting, where it is really about shifting your perspective in terms of how you interpret the tasks you're doing and what they mean. And I think that that is a nice segue into the more existential question that AB posed, which is like, how does he find purpose in his work? And is it even possible to do that in this field? What do you think about that, Sara?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 52:59 Yeah, I love the idea of job crafting as a way to find some like micro purpose, right? It's like this smaller level of purpose in some ways, but can be really valuable day to day. But I think that still leaves us with kind of that bigger question, right, which is like, it's not the way that AB stated it. But there's a question that feels embedded in there that I think comes up a lot in my coaching, which is like, does design even matter under capitalism? Yeah, that's a big one.
Jen Dionisio 53:25 Does it?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 53:25 Well, so to that, I say, look, this line of thinking tends to get very nihilistic very quickly, because it leads us into a place where it's easy to believe nothing matters, because there is nothing that is enough. Does anything matter under capitalism? Does anything matter under climate change? It's like, anything that doesn't feel like the most pressing issue of our time suddenly becomes unimportant. But then there's nothing you can do that would fix the most pressing issue all at once anyway. And so then you're in a place where it's like, everything's pointless. You're in like "fuck it" territory, right?
Jen Dionisio 53:57 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 53:58 And so I think that that is very disempowering for people. And so let me come back to my favorite theme for this episode, which is like, what if two things are true at the same time?
Jen Dionisio 54:09 Nuance.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 54:10 Which is to say, what if it's not enough, and it matters? AB, what if you could accept that the ways that you can better people's lives from within this job are limited by the capitalist structure you live in and also that bettering people's lives within an existing system still counts? It's still bettering people's lives. What small impacts might feel more meaningful if you could hold both of those truths at the same time?
Jen Dionisio 54:37 Sara, what you're saying reminds me of your advice to DU as well, which was to kind of look at some of these small impacts and not write them off just because it's not kind of the world changing or organization shifting response that you wish it was.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 54:55 And it's okay to wish it was the big response, right? Like, you can wish for that. But you don't have to feel like a failure when that doesn't happen. And I think that part of that is coming back to this theme that came up for DU, which is the ripple effects. We don't always know what ripple effects our work is going to have. So let's say, AB, that you spend some time, I don't know, learning about accessibility, because you want to make the world better for the people, right? And so you start implementing that accessibility stuff in the work that you're doing. Great. That is not going to build an ethical society. But you know what, it might make a disabled person's day better. And I think that's not nothing.
And now what if what you learn spreads to other people in the organization? And then what if those people get inspired and start to stretch their own thinking about inclusion more broadly? Like what if they start to ask themselves new questions that they never asked themselves before? Now, suddenly, you have a bunch of small impacts on the accessibility of the products that you're working on, contributed not just by you, AB, but also by the people around you who've learned from you. And you also have a growing awareness and conversation around inclusion in your organization. You have people whose brains and hearts are engaged in topics that like they might have overlooked or dismissed before.
You have all of these little tiny seeds that might blossom into something really substantial. And maybe not all of them will. But it's kind of like letting go of control over the final end result of all of that work and saying, like, "There's power and spreading those seeds. There's power and making those small changes. And let me find out where that work can go."
Jen Dionisio 56:38 And I think there's so much hope in that mindset, as opposed to feeling discouraged, or like your work is meaningless and giving up right? You know, that baton, however far you can take it gets passed to somebody else, and they can keep the work going.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 56:55 And I do think that's so important. You know, people have really been through it the past few years. And when I talk to people, it's just felt like one thing after another stress has been high. And that is very, very fertile ground for that kind of cynicism and nihilism to take over. It makes sense, right? Like, that's actually protective. If you believe nothing matters, and it's all pointless, then you don't have to feel disappointed when things don't change. You're kind of like, protecting yourself from all the bad feelings of hurt and grief, and all of that when you know, the world continues to be unfair, or your organization continues to be problematic.
But by protecting ourselves from those feelings, we also foreclose on any opportunity to make things different. We basically accept the status quo, right? So we start saying, "So that I don't have to feel bad about things not changing, I am going to simply accept the status quo and marinate in my despair." It's normal. I think every human, I would bet, does this sometimes. But I would say that that tends to be a pretty fruitless place to live. And I think that all of us can find ways to find, you know, those little seeds of hope and then to continue planting them even when we don't know that all of them will survive.
Jen Dionisio 58:09 AB, thanks so much for writing in. This is a topic I know Sara and I talk about a lot on our own. And I'm really glad that we had a chance to talk about it on the show. And I hope that it brings your energy back to the things that you cared about when you made this switch.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 58:27 Thank you so much, AB.
Jen Dionisio 58:28 So Sara, my takeaway from today's episode is that we have a lot of good folks in our universe who are really trying to make things better for themselves and everyone else, too. And I hear in these stories how hard and demoralizing it can be to do that work, to see that not all of your efforts are going to bear fruit. But these actions that people are taking, however big or small, you know, can't be viewed in isolation. Folks, every time you say no, you push back or you behave a little differently, you're showing an example that can and likely will shift someone else’s thinking—and if we do enough of that, a lot can change over time.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 59:25 Thank you all for listening to Per My Last Email. Per My Last Email is a production of Active Voice. Check us out at https://www.activevoicehq.com/ and get all the past episodes show notes and full transcripts for Per My Last Email at https://pmleshow.com/. This episode was produced by Emily Duncan. Our theme music is (I'm a) Modern Woman by Maria T. Buy her album at https://thisismariat.bandcamp.com/. Thank you to "Exploited Job Seeker," "Deeply Unfair," and “Already Bored” for sharing their dilemmas on today's show, and thank you for listening. If you've got a work dilemma eating away at you, send it over to us. Head to https://pmleshow.com/ to submit your story. See you next time.