"Wanted Us To Meet...": Mumbai CEO Instantly Rejects Woman Candidate After Unusual Request

A Mumbai-based CEO has triggered a debate online after revealing that a woman hired for a senior role in his company asked him to meet her husband before she accepted the offer. Vinod Chendhil, the founder and CEO of the healthy noodle brand Naturally Yours, shared the incident on X, expressing his surprise and disappointment over the candidate's dependency on her husband's approval. He described the request as a "huge red flag" and said that this request on the woman's part led to her "instant" rejection.

"Spoke to a candidate today, who wanted us to meet her husband after we had selected her. Instant reject," Mr Chendhil wrote on X. He also clarified that this woman had been selected as a "senior level hire".

Take a look below: 

Spoke to a candidate tdy, who wanted us to meet her husband after we had selected her.

Instant reject.

P.s: This was for a senior level hire.

— Vinod Chendhil (@vinodchendhil) March 18, 2025

In the follow-up post, Mr Chendhil explained why the request was concerning. He said that the woman wanted her husband to "interview" the CEO to determine whether the company would be a good fit for her. 

"Because she wants her husband to say yes for her to join us. Why would an independent woman want that? Basically, she wants her husband to interview us to see if it's okay for her to join. Shows she is totally dependent on him. How will she ever take any decisions if she cannot take a basic one? And she is not an intern to be asking us to speak to someone elder, right? Huge red flag," he wrote.

When another X user questioned his reasoning, Mr Chendhil said, "No logic, why would someone want husband approval before joining?"

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Mr Chendhil's post has garnered mixed reactions from social media users. 

"I have had conversations with female candidate's parents BUT at intern levels. Mostly to allay any anxiety around their kid being safe & taken care of (it's their first job, so understood). At senior levels, it's a crazy thing. There's no way it would have worked. Good call," shared one user. 

"True. We interviewed a person from Delhi who agreed to join in Bangalore but then said my family may not allow it and we said an immediate no. Career decisions are taken by self and involving family is recipe for disaster," commented another. 

However, some users disagreed with Mr Chendhil. Sakshi Shukla, founder of Saturn Studios, pointed out that women often have a lesser degree of freedom compared to men. "I hear you. But this isn't a red flag on her part. (And I'm very aware that yours isn't a business of empowering women.) But its not a sign that she cannot take decisions - it's a sign that her family wants to control where she works. You might as well have rejected a really solid candidate just because society is structured in a way that functions against women," she wrote.

To this, Mr Chendhil replied saying the decision to not hire the woman was based on "other red flags" that cropped up during her three-hour interview.