Despite employers today touting their inclusive benefits, including cancer support groups—McClelland says the diagnosis has killed her career prospects and that she’s even been asked to work for free.  

“I had a forced exit from my career to focus on cancer treatment, and it turns out re-entering the tech world with experience as a senior leader is the hardest professional hurdle I could come up against,” she revealed last week on LinkedIn.

“In 4 months, I’ve submitted 108 applications, had 9 interviews, reached 3 task stages, and been unsuccessful in all,” she continued. “Stopping my career to fight for my life is something I never expected to do at 31. It feels like being hurtled out into space without a tether, after a decade of dedicated hard work.”

Before her diagnosis, McClelland had climbed the corporate ladder to senior management roles, across major television channels like Channel 4 and tech startups—including for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s son, Euan Blair at Multiverse, the U.K’s first edtech unicorn.

But now she’s confronting the reality of rejoining the working world after taking a career break to focus on getting through intense chemotherapy and then surgery to remove the lump—as advised by her oncologist.

“I don’t think I realized how difficult it was going to be, but it also wasn’t a consideration at the time,” McClelland tells Fortune. “It was either I do this cancer treatment and get the best possible outcome, or I die.” 

“Now that I’m here, I am shocked at how difficult it is.”

Asked to work for free alongside grads to get ‘used to working again’

Despite having 14 years of experience, including 5 years of senior leadership across 4 countries and 3 continents, she’s been forced to start her career at zero again and expected to apply for graduate-style unpaid internships. 

An old colleague recently reached out to McClelland for her expertise on their startup. 

“I was like, that’s amazing and then came it through in the conversation that they didn’t have any money to pay me,” she recalls. “They positioned it as ‘to get you back on your feet and get you used to working again’ type proposal.” 

“I found that quite insulting because this person is somebody that I enjoyed working with, but it was implying that because I’ve had cancer I also just forgot how to work which is ridiculous.”

Even since posting about struggling to find work after having cancer, McClelland says more unpaid “opportunities” have rolled her way.

Most recently, a gaming studio founder reached out with a potential job offer.  

“He was saying that it was an opportunity, but I wouldn’t be getting paid straight away—and that nobody works for him gets paid, and it’s for people who have just left uni and need more work experience,” she adds. “So it’s an unpaid internship.” 

“I’ve got a decade of experience with globally recognized brands, and I’m now back where I started being told I should work for free.”

To go public with your health journey—or not  

Since revealing her diagnosis on LinkedIn last week, the post has gone viral, racking up thousands of likes and potential leads for new work. 

“I’ve created opportunities for myself, because I’ve said I need help,” McClelland says, adding that she’s even heard from the very same hiring managers who have previously ghosted her applications. 

“I’ve got at least four or five people who have come to me and said ‘We’re actually hiring this role right now’. And I check it out, and I go back to them and go, ‘Yeah, I actually applied for that last month and was rejected within the space of a couple of days.’”

“It’s incredible to me that I’m able to get this human reaction on LinkedIn, where they see me as a potential candidate,” she adds. “But if I were to go through their process and apply it’s a reduction.”

Although being open about her health journey has created positive conversations and potential movement on her career on this occasion, that’s not always been the case: McClelland, who has been job-hunting since Christmas, says she has previously written similar posts and taken them down after taking stock that it was negatively impacting her job prospects. 

Other times, she would get through the application process, only to be turned down after being honest about her requirements for hybrid work and other adjustments around her new needs.

“I think cancer is a huge thing that’s very varied. Maybe if you haven’t had a brush with it, then it always appears to be this really huge insurmountable thing. When in actual fact, depending on where a person is with their treatment, it’s very manageable,” she says. 

“But I’ve got recruiters telling me that actually, people will just discriminate and it’s better to not talk about it until you’ve already signed a contract—and then you disclose whether you need any support because technically, cancer is classed as a disability.” 

It’s why she’s hesitant to recommend others navigating cancer and the job market to copy her.

“The only thing that matters is that you get through to the other side of this treatment,” McClelland says. “The only other thing from a job side of things would be to just stay connected with your network—and that doesn’t mean tell everybody what you’ve got going on with your cancer diagnosis, but there are people in your network who really want to see you succeed, and those people will come through for you if you ask for help.”

“There were times in my cancer treatment when I couldn’t read, I couldn’t focus my eyes. I was hallucinating for a little bit. There are really really nightmarish experiences where you will not be in a position to work—and I’m not trying to scare anybody by saying those things, but it’s not about shouting it out if it’s not what you want to do,” she adds. 

“It’s about just keeping your support network close, both in your personal life, but also in your professional life, knowing who those people are and knowing who we just tap on the shoulder and feel comfortable asking for help.”