I say real job, because I’d been working whilst studying as a dishwasher, packer, waiter, bingo operator, book-binder, and in a bookies. The interviews for these jobs were straightforward, turning up on time and in the right place got you half way there.
My first real interview – way back in 1994 – was for a graduate statistician position at a big drug company in the UK. They paid my train ticket, put me up in a hotel, and took all the candidates out for dinner. I was blown away and really wanted the job. I also had no money and that’s not just an expression.
I can remember bits of the interview, my future boss asked some technical questions, there was even one on the correct definition of a p-value. I don’t remember him asking me about football, but there was probably the standard question about what you liked to do in your spare time and I have always loved football.
I only lasted 15 months in the job, but I kept in touch with my boss and we met up in London at a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society. In the pub, he told me that it had been a difficult decision to employ me or a female candidate, but he had chosen me because I played football and that would give us something to talk about.
Although football is getting better at gender balance, back then it was almost exclusively male. So I benefited in that important moment from being a man. I am sure there have been other moments in my career where I have benefited from being a man, and also from being white and having English as my first language. But these moments have been hidden from me, whereas this football moment was revealed.
The woman who missed out ended up getting the next graduate job at the same company and lasted at lot longer than my 15 months. So she turned out to be a better candidate. I know her because we met at the group dinner and as colleagues we joked about how I’d won our mini-competition.
My boss was never overtly sexist and I only ever saw him treat people with respect. He was a warm and encouraging person and taught me a lot about statistics and clinical trials.
We did play football together in a lunchtime competition with some other male colleagues and got regularly thrashed. As we drove to and from the games, I got personal time with my boss and we talked about work and football. I may have benefited further from our good relationship if I’d stayed.