A few months ago, I read a LinkedIn post by an HR professional who was conducting a video interview with a mom who said she had expected her baby to be asleep at the time of the interview, but it didn’t work out that way. The HR professional told the mom to hold the baby during the interview, which, by the way, went very well.
Most comments were positive.
One read:
“Sounds like she should stay at home and take care of her baby instead of…“
There were lots and LOTS of smackdown reactions like:
“this mentality is why you’re single”
and
“bless your heart”
but none of these comments were corrective or helpful in any way. In fact, the mocking and shaming in these reactive comments seemed to be just different kind of wrong.
It was ugly.
I was compelled to go a different direction with my reply (cause ya know I replied):
“Your comment is more in line with the cultural climate of twitter. LinkedIn is a business networking platform where any business associate can go to your profile, scroll to your activity, view every one of your likes, comments and posts and form an opinion about your cultural competence, judgment and social skills. If a hiring manager were to view this particular comment, I suspect your name would be removed from the pool of applicants because it evidences poor judgment and indicates a future potential risk that you would violate an HR policy.“
He deleted his comment.
It probably wasn’t due to my reply alone, but I’d like to believe my “developmental feedback” will be a stone in his shoe the next time he is faced with an opportunity to attack a stranger on the internet. or at least on LinkedIn.
I’m not searching for him on twitter. #hardpass