Dear Reader,
The interviewer smiled politely.
You could almost hear the quiet click of a mental file cabinet: PhD. Postdoc. Researcher.
Each time Divya (not her real name), a PhD scientist with years of lab and data experience, described the projects she’d led—how she managed teams, built partnerships, and wrote reports that shaped decisions far beyond her lab, university, or discipline—they redirected her.
“So tell me more about your postdoc.”
She explained. They nodded. Then asked again.
She wasn’t being unclear. She just wasn’t being heard.
If you’ve ever walked out of an interview feeling invisible, you’ll recognize yourself in this experience that a program member of mine had a while back.
As a group of us discussed her experience, we realized something worse was going on here:
Divya was being infantilized, treated as though the volunteer work she highlighted—done outside the lab—didn’t count.
Her interviewers were polite about it, of course.
But the message was clear: They were only interested in work she did that was assigned to her by a professor.
Yiiiiiikes. 🚩🚩🚩
Because what she described spoke directly to the skills they claimed to want.
She did in fact lead teams. She built things. She solved problems.
Maybe you did, too.
None of that stops being legitimate just because you did it without the involvement of your academic advisor. (Huh??)
Or when you were a student. (Where would universities be without volunteer grad student labour?)
When someone’s already put you in a metaphorical box, it doesn’t matter how perfectly you reframe your resume.
They’ve already decided who you are. *screams*
Their limited imagination (and refusal to listen to you) is not your fault.
In the movie version, our hero Divya would stand up and say, “I’m out. You don’t get to work with me, a person you refuse to see.”
In real life, she stayed polite. Because that’s what we all do when we feel trapped in rooms like that.
Here’s the reframe: You may be in the interviewee seat but you’re judging them, too. (They FAILED your test, miserably.)
And when someone shows you that they can’t treat you as a peer, that’s data.
This is also why building new connections matters so much.
If you only rely on your old academic circles, you’ll keep meeting people who see you through that same narrow lens.
New networks help you find the people who are interested in YOU instead of academia’s narrow version of you.
Take this with you today: Notice who sees you clearly, because they’re the ones really worth talking to.
Cheers,
Jen
P.S. Want to explore working with me? Visit my Services page to learn about options, or reply to this email and let me know what you want my help with!
Jennifer Polk, PhD
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