As our ‘Welcome LGBTQ+ at Work’ campaign comes to an end, we are privileged to feature Ashish Chopra in our final episode. Ashish, a Full Life Cycle Recruiter at Google, is a distinguished professional and a celebrated figure in the LGBTQ+ community. He was the first runner-up in Mr. Gay India 2018, a drag artist, and a successful entrepreneur, having co-founded BeUnic, a community-oriented e-commerce platform empowering LGBTQ artists and designers. His journey is one of resilience, courage, and triumph over adversity.
Ashish shares his initial experiences of navigating his career as an LGBTQ+ professional, emphasizing the challenges he faced. “Navigating my career was very daunting. In fact, I remember attending a lot of job interviews with vibrant green hair, and I had 7 piercings on my face. And I got rejected left, right, and center. I was not hired anywhere at all. In fact, some of them would ask me as well what after joining the organization, would you change? Would you color your hair black? Would you remove your piercings? And I would say no because I very clearly told them this is me. That is I don't want to change myself to join your organization.”
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Despite these rejections, Ashish persevered. He reflects on the moment when he compromised on his appearance for job interviews. “The day I colored my hair black, the day I removed my piercings for a lot of the interviews, I got the offer letter the next day. So I'm assuming it was that. I had this notion in my head that I would have to hide my true self in the corporate world. I cannot be my complete self.”
