Single CEOs Need Not Apply
It isn't quite enough for a CEO to have perfect professional credentials and be capable of dazzling the board of directors at interviews. They can kiss the job goodbye, reports the Times, unless their wives pass muster and appear capable of participating in the endless schmoozing and entertaining that goes with a high level job in the corporate or nonprofit sector. Apparently, pesky old discrimination laws don't allow interviewers to straight-out ask about the existence of a wife and her social skills—not that this ever stands in the way of said wives being appropriately judged and scrutinized.
Headhunter Melanie Kusin's tricks include calling the person at home, then "eventually I invariably get the spouse and always try and stay on the phone as long as possible." And at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, not even that pretence is bothered with: Before Thomas P. Campbell's (pictured) recent arrival in the top job, candidates' wives were interviewed, which at least means that whoever didn't get the job doesn't have to blame himself.
