When she questioned how much she would be paid, she was shocked when the HR employee cancelled the interview Following an initial phone interview for the menu development job with Canadian food delivery company, SkipTheDishes, Taylor Byrnes was invited back for a second in-person interview.
She then sent an email which read: “I had another question that I wanted to ask you. If I do end up filling this position, how much do you think I’ll be getting paid an hour? Benefits will also be included, right? Sorry, I just thought I should ask now. Thanks for your time and have a lovely day.”
A SkipTheDishes employee then responded that questions about compensation and benefits “at such an early stage” was “a concern related to organisational fit”, acknowledging their corporate culture “may be unique in this way”.
“As a startup company, we seek out those who go out of their way to seek out challenges and new opportunities. We believe in hard work and perseverance in pursuit of company goals as opposed to focusing on compensation,” the employee said in an email to Byrnes, which she then later posted to Twitter.
Byrnes was so shocked by the reply that she posted screenshots of the email messages on Twitter in a quest for others to boycott the company. The message has been re-tweeted almost 5000 times, causing a social media outrage – with many backing her by saying she was right to ask about compensation and supporting the call for a boycott.
The company, SkipTheDishes, has since reached out to apologise to her and have now invited her back for another interview. They have also committed to providing more staff training to avoid similar situations in the future.
In a statement to Buzzfeed Canada, co-founder Joshua Simair the email sent to Taylor was “wrong and does not represent our team’s approach or values”.
“We are very disappointed in how it was handled. We do share a compensation package prior to hiring. As soon as we became aware of it on Monday, we reached out to Taylor to apologise for the email and reschedule her interview,” he said.
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