Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of dream job with Danielle Cobo. I'm your host, Danielle Cobo. How often have you been in a situation where Something didn't feel right, something felt a little off. Maybe you've been in a situation where somebody has made advancements toward you, and it didn't feel right. Maybe they've touched you inappropriately, maybe you've been in an environment where you didn't feel like it was comfortable to be there. Or maybe you felt like you went for promotion. But maybe you didn't get the job because you're a woman just by your gender. It happens to more of us than we think 42% of women in the United States have felt that they face discrimination because of their gender. And I'm going to be sharing a couple stories with you today. I've experienced it firsthand. And I think that earlier in my career, I didn't feel confident in having a voice and knowing that it's okay to say no to things that it's okay to not put yourself environments or to step away from certain environments. I started my career in medical sales, I started my career in capital equipment sales, which, out of 100, sales, sales reps in the organization that I worked for, I was one of seven women. So I know what it's like working in a majority male dominated industry, and really being able to stand on your own as a powerful, confident woman. And really setting boundaries, where I stood in my own I was seen and viewed as, just like them, obviously, I know that, you know, I'm a woman, majority of people, I work with men, but I was seen as being part of them, because there was a circle of trust that was created. Um, now I understand that, you know, in that time, sometimes the circle of trust was, I would see things that would have been a national sales meetings, and maybe I didn't speak up, say my voice. And there's been a couple times throughout my career where I've experienced this, I've seen things that weren't appropriate, weren't right. And I didn't speak up. And what I've learned is, if we want to create a work environment that is supportive of women, and our future generations, that it's important that we speak up, and we create change. So when I was with one of my companies, I was I was with for a long time, I there was a lot of movement around in the organization. So they promoted this philosophy and this mentality where if you wanted to advance your career, there was a benefit of doing lateral moves, which I agree with, because when you do a lateral move, what happens is exposes you to different divisions, and the different ways that each of the divisions run their business and how different divisions collaborate together. So I was a big advocate of it. And it's not always about going up, sometimes you go laterally to go up. The here's the one thing that I did not agree with. And looking back, what I would do differently, is speak up. So I was going on this interview, I had been with the organization for five years. And in my background, I was I had medical sales experience. In fact, for this particular division, I used to sell against them. I used to work for the competitor. So I had industry experience, the person that I was interviewing with, I had five years of leadership experience compared to them who only had one year leadership experience. This was their first time working in the industry. And I had already been in the industry working for the same company for five years. I had also a previous year and a half working for a company that was a competitor.

And I was interviewing for a position where my current region was five states. So I was traveling by plane all the time. In fact, a year previously, I was living in a state I was living in Alabama and I was commuting every week to the south east. So I would go on a plan a Monday, I would fly across the south east. I would come home Thursday night, I did this for a year and a half I spent 250 nights in a hotel room. So while my claim to fame was I earned diamond delta, which basically just means that I spent more time in a hotel room and on a plane than I did at home. Now my husband was you know, in aviation school becoming a Blackhawk pilot so he was busy anyways, we just kind of it was a temporary period in our But, you know, I was used to traveling a lot. And in this time when I was interviewing for position, I was a new mom, you know, I have, I have twin boys, I was a newer mom. And I was covering five states. And so, as I'm preparing for this interview, you know, we, you know, introduce each other, and I go through my background. And, you know, he starts to ask me some questions about my background in in why I'm applying for the role. And I had a passion for the division. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was a blend of having my capital equipment background, which I had six, gosh, I don't know how many or six plus years, no seven years of capital equipment background. And I also had experience. Also, with this consumable side of the business, and high end, I had experience earning region Manager of the Year I had four back to back President's trip. So I had have a proven track record of success, not only as an individual contributor in capital equipment, but also as a region manager working for this organization. So we're going through, and as he's asking me questions, I felt this thing, I felt where he wasn't, I was kind of question myself, like, did he even look at my resume? Because the questions he was asking is, you know, things that if you looked at my resume, you knew I was familiar with the industry, you knew that I was familiar with the products I had sold against it. Right. So I had plenty of experience for this. And then when it got to a couple of questions, this is where this is where I want to really put on the radar on if you're in an interview, there are certain questions they can ask. And there are certain questions they cannot ask. Okay, so HR violation. So questions that they cannot ask Is anything about your age, anything about your sexual orientation? Anything about your marital status, they can't even ask you, if you're married, they can't ask you. If you have kids, they can't ask you if you're pregnant. They can't ask you about your race or your ethnicity. They can't ask you about religion. And here's one that most people don't know. And a lot of managers still ask this. And they're actually not allowed to, they cannot ask about your salary history. So there used to be this expectation when before offering the offer letter, they would ask you to send in your two most previous years of W tos and that's how they would gauge what they would offer as an offer letter. Well, that's actually discrimination because quite frankly, you could have been underpaid in your role for what your what the experience or value that you brought. So just know that they can't ask you about your salary, salary history. They here's the questions that they asked me, this individual asked me, he said, Okay, well, I see here that you're applying for this role. And this is going to require a lot of travel because it's an entire state. I said, I understand, you know, I currently travel right now. And he goes, Well, how are you going to travel with kids? I'm like, Okay, again, did you look at my resume. I was covering five states, I was used to traveling, I've traveled my whole career. And I was interviewing for a position that was one state, if anything, this was going to significantly reduce my travel, because I could drive anywhere. I wouldn't be on a plane and most the time when I was on plane I was doing connecting flights. So he asked me, well, how are you going to do this job with kids? How are you going to travel? Then the next question he asked cuz I had, you know, I had shared, I'm a military spouse, which I can, I can definitely share that information. If I'm the one that's, you know, sharing it. He's gonna ask me the questions where he wasn't able to do or what he's not allowed to do is ask me, Is your husband deployable?

Is your husband deployable? Then as a follow up to that, because I had responded? I said, Well, yeah, he's in the military. At any point. My husband can be deployed. That's part of being in the military. Now he's reserves he doesn't deploy as frequently, but he deploys it's just part of being in the military. But he asked me, Is he deployable? And how are you going to do this job if he deploys? I was blown away. So remember, I have five and a half years of being a hiring manager. I know what questions he can and cannot ask. I felt so offended in this interview, where not only did I feel like he didn't take the time to look at my resume to look at my background to know that I had more experience than him. I have more of a proven track record as I'm manager and as an individual crib attributor than him, more industry experienced than him. And the feeling and the impression that I got through the interview process was that he was just doing a check the box like, I'm just going to interview her because I have to interview her because she's an internal person. And, you know, she's another manager. And I know I'm not alone on this, because there was other people that interviewed for the same position, and they felt the exact same way. So you really think about like, what, what culture is is creating, when this is the impression that they're getting from internal employees? I can't even imagine what would be happening if if he was asking these questions to an external employee. So these questions are not allowed. They're not allowed to ask you what your marital status is? How, you know, if you're going to have kids, if you have kids, if you're ever military spouse, which this is such a hard one, because quite frankly, there's, I really second guess, myself, throughout my career on whether to tell people I'm a military spouse, because I'm one and I'm proud, you know, I'm, I serve the country, alongside my husband, my family serves our country. But there's also a lot of stigma around being a military spouse, there's a lot of reservations of companies saying, Well, you know, are you going to move? How long are you going to be here? The, the questions are in there, whether they ask it or not, is entirely up to them. But there's a fear that some military spouses have when it comes to saying that they're a military spouse. So I knew that they couldn't ask these questions. So what did I do? So I was very loyal to this organization. And I think that was my first learning lesson is whether you're loyal to an organization or not, it's important that you create awareness of what's happening, and to take it a step further take action. Because if you don't, then what happens is, it's going to continue to happen, nothing's going to change unless we put things in place unless we speak up. Unless we amplify our voice. Unless we create change, it's got to start with us. So you think about, you know, if you're a mom, do you want your kids to go through these same things? Do you want your friends to go through the same situations, you want your peers to go through the same experiences? So I reached out to HR, and I said, you know, I love the company that I work for? And, and, you know, I just want to make you aware that these are some of the questions that were asked, luckily, I'm an internal employee. And so I, you know, I'm not going to file anything, but I want to make you aware, and I want something to be addressed about this, because this isn't right. And if he was asking an external employee, or if he's asking an internal employee, the reality is, is it could be a major lawsuit, and he's putting our company at risk. Either he needs a training on what he can and cannot ask conversations he can and cannot have. Or he needs to not be in that position. Right? Those are the two options. Obviously, I'm always going to advocate for the training, maybe he just didn't know. I mean, those are pretty obvious ones. But benefit of the doubt, you know, positive and 10, maybe he didn't know. So I reached out to HR, but here's where if I could go back, I would do something differently is I would have, I would have called the employees relations team. Because at that time, HR department didn't do anything. They didn't address it, they didn't follow up with me. And there's times after that, where I've noticed kind of a habit on things, where situations would come up, reach out to HR and nothing would really be done. So one thing is is yes, called HR. But really, if you're in a situation where something's not right, sexual harassment, you know, interview questions, or there's just a toxic environment, call your employee relations team, that's what they're there for. Oftentimes, they'll

have a third party company, do an investigation. Okay. So looking back, that's one thing that I wish I would have done differently because the reality is, I don't know if it's going to change, and I want to be the voice for future generations. And here's the thing I'm going to give you kind of some some stats around like why this is so important to when it comes to speaking up. And women having a voice is think about this, you think about you know, I came from an aesthetic industry, for example, or even my previous background in dental sales is an aesthetics it's predominantly you know, 90% of the consumers are women. However, when you look at in the sales force is predominantly women. However, when you look at management and mid level management, yes, there are more women, but majority of them are men. Now you get to that VP level that National Sales Director and VP level significantly more men than women. Why is that? Because there's perceptions out there on what women can and can't do. And there's this mindset to that the underlining effect that that has on women is, women feel like when I hear this from women all the time from clients is, if I have kids, it's gonna ruin my career. Or I don't want to, I don't want to post pictures of my kids, because what's gonna happen is, what if the hiring manager looks at me on social media, and they're gonna make this assumption that I can't do the job because I have kids? That's not right. That's not right at all. And here's why we get to speak up. Because if you look at just the overall leadership team came, for every 100 men that get promoted, and hired to manager, only 72 Women are promoted and hired only 72. So and when you really look at some of you know, there's been a lot of studies on ROI wise, and women and women are often found to work twice as hard or even, not even twice are but harder, right, because we're balancing being the primary caretaker at home. And as well as you know, working. And when you look at some of these bigger companies that have women in leadership roles, they're actually more profitable than a lot of the other companies. So the stats, and the, the stats show that women can be very beneficial in leadership roles. However, very seldom are companies doing this. So 62% of men hold manager level positions, while only 38% of women do. So look at the organization that you're working for, and what percentage of men are holding these leadership positions versus women. And this is not a male bashing. Okay, I am a wife, to an amazing man who's a strong, you know, he's a strong man, he's a big supporter of me, it's one of the reasons why I love him is he lets me be a strong independent woman. But I also lean on him for a lot we are we are a couple, we are equal on things. And I'm also raising two boys. So I'm not this is not a male bashing. This is being an advocate for women. So again, 62% of manager level positions are held by men, only 38% are by women. That's an extreme example, right then and there when I was interviewing for this position, and this mindset that you can't do this job, if you're a mom, and you can't do this job, if you're a military spouse, take it a step further. Okay, those are manager level positions. 78% of suite C suite jobs are held by men 78%. And we know that Statistics show that when women are in leadership roles, it fosters a unique environment for company culture, because there's, there's different skill sets that are involved with empathy and understanding and the importance of work life balance so that your employees don't experience burnout. And there's been stats that show that companies are more profitable when they have more women in leadership type roles. So like I said, one of the things looking back, I

wish I wouldn't, I wish I would have said more and advocated more. And if you've ever been in that situation where you felt like there's been discrimination where you've had sexual advancements that have made towards you or you felt like something wasn't right, be the voice of the future, be the voice of the future generation speak up for yourself. 63% of women do not file a complaint. So now I fall under one of those stats. 63% of women do not file a complaint. 39% of employees aren't confident that their issues will be addressed and only in 46%. fear retaliation, and I was one of those employees, I felt like well, first off, it didn't really get addressed. So then what what happened is because I had created awareness around this, it didn't get a dress, then I didn't feel confident that the future situations that came up would also be addressed. Now also, I recognize that there's a stigma around it, too. One of the things that went through my mind was, well if I if I say something if I file a complaint, then are people going to think that you know that. Oh, well. There's Danielle she's, she's the one that filed a complaint against the company. You know, be careful what you say to her. Yeah, you know what, there's probably gonna People that are going to think that but the reality is, is, if we want change to happen, it's so important for us to speak up. It's so important for other women that are out there for the future generations that are coming up. And if people are going to judge them that's on them. If 10 people judge me, but I'm able to make a change for another woman, or another employee, or another coworker, or friend, it's worth it. So let's kind of talk about what are some things that you do? What are five things you can do if you were in a situation where you felt like you've been discriminated against, right? So how can we take this situation where, you know, I, here's what, what I did, and maybe there's some opportunities to change a little bit and share what you can do differently, to speak up. The first one is, follow your intuition. If it doesn't feel right, then speak up. If you're in a situation where you feel like there's been inappropriate touching, or you've been in a work environment, that's been inappropriate, speak up if you feel like you're being discriminated against, speak up. Okay, reach out to HR, really, if you can reach out to employee relations, because often they'll have like a third party company that will do the investigation. The second is record what happened, really remove the emotions from it. Because you know, when they go to investigate, they're not going to investigate the emotions, they're going to investigate the facts, what happened. And the more time that goes by where you didn't write down things, it's easy to forget. So the minute it happens, or the minute where you saying, I'm going to I'm going to do take action, or even if don't take action right away, which I still encourage you to do. At least write it down, write down the things that weren't right. So in that particular situation, I would have wrote down which I did write down the quit the questions that they asked that were completely inappropriate. then report it, report it to your HR, your employee relations team, be the voice of the future, speak up. If we don't speak up, it will continue to happen. Also, while you while you also go into it, reporting it to your employees relations team. The fourth thing is to do is to seek outside help as well. Make sure you get outside representation. So that someone else outside the organization is advocating for you and providing some guidance on what things and actions that companies should or should not be taking to move forward with the discrimination. And the fifth is Be mindful of retaliation. The reality is is there may be retaliation, especially if you're in a situation where there's maybe sexual advancements, which have been very frequently I think that a lot of women out there. There's been definitely some times in my career where inappropriate advancements have been made.

So be mindful of retaliation. If you're ever in a situation where there is retaliation, record it. record everything that happens when it happens and you retaliation that happens. Your conversations with employer relations, your conversations with HR, your conversations with your when you seek outside help. So again, follow your intuition. If it doesn't feel right, speak up, record what happened. Remove the emotions and state the facts, report the discrimination, be the voice of the future, get outside help, and be mindful of retaliation and record it. There is no reason why we as women should be in situations where we are being discriminated against because we are a woman. There are so much research out there that shows that women in leadership positions, those organizations thrive. There's no reason why any woman should be in a situation where she does not feel comfortable or safe, walking into an office or into a work environment. If you're in any of these situations, speak up be the voice looking back I wish I did. And that's why I'm sharing with you the story today, because it's a matter of making change. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope this episode helps you if you've ever been in that situation. I invite you to subscribe, follow each week I share. I invite guests on and we talk about different ways and tools that you can have a thriving career and abundant life. So I invite you to subscribe follow share with your friends your family and your co workers this episode if you know that anybody that's been in this situation share the episode with them thank you for tuning in and create an intentional day