Ask HN: How to deal with female name on resume?
I'm a female working in the finance/tech industry. Applying to companies, I'm worried that the gendered name on my resume might be poisoning employers' perception of me: http://whatwouldkingleonidasdo.tumblr.com/post/54989171152/how-i-discovered-gender-discrimination.
Do you believe that this kind of name-based bias is strong enough that I should somehow change my resume to show something other than my name? Also, I'm working with a recruiter, should I tell him my concern?
44 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 92.4 ms ] threadMy advice, working at an enterprise SaaS company: stick to your guns, and be proud of your name! Good companies (like ours :) ) are actively seeking women for technical positions to correct the bias.
A perfectly awesome to work at company might be doing this out of ignorance, not because they would be a bad place for OP to work.
Once you get an interview, it becomes harder to avoid the discrimination. But at least you can get through the resume filter.
Its probably too much, to ask you to change your name.
If you really feel it is hurting you though, then try using your first initial. But either way, neither would stop you from getting an interview with any company I have been apart of if you had the qualifications, and I think that's true at most any reputable company.
No clue on finance however.
In the HN echo chamber maybe. I still think hiring managers are thinking "maternity leave" especially in the US.
That's a bit confused.
The US requires unpaid maternity (and other) leave via FMLA; a few states also provide some degree of paid maternity leave. (In both cases, "maternity" is overly specific, but included, in what is generally described -- as in the title of FMLA -- as "family and medical leave".) [0]
[0] http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-fami...
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/1421.htm#2a
Plus let's be honest, unpaid maternity leave is worthless even if the FMLA worked (it doesn't). That isn't maternity leave, that's "job assurance" if people cannot afford to take leave, they won't. Its as simple as that.
The US is by far the worst western country when it comes to guaranteeing that mothers and fathers will be able to spend time with their kids in the all important first year. Don't even get me started on how bad the US treats single parents.
(1) The US has no national maternity leave provision, and (2) A few states provide maternity leave, but even that is only unpaid.
The fact is, the US does have a national unpaid maternity leave provision, and a few states provide paid maternity leave.
> FMLA has so many loopholes it may have well not exist at all
FMLA covers about 60% of all employees, and is used by about 13% annually. So, while it certainly doesn't cover everyone, it certainly has considerably more effect than if it did not exist at all.
> Plus let's be honest, unpaid maternity leave is worthless even if the FMLA worked (it doesn't). That isn't maternity leave, that's "job assurance" if people cannot afford to take leave, they won't.
Its true that unpaid maternity leave obviously isn't as good as paid leave, and people are less likely to take it at all, and likely to take less of it than they would if the lead were paid. That doesn't change the fact that the existence of FMLA as a national source of unpaid maternity leave makes your early claim that there was no US national maternity leave, even unpaid, false, nor does it change the fact that the existence of state paid maternity leave programs makes your further claim that the few states that offered maternity leave offered only unpaid leave also false.
> The US is by far the worst western country when it comes to guaranteeing that mothers and fathers will be able to spend time with their kids in the all important first year.
That's rather clearly true, but not what you claimed upthread, and, more importantly, would have been irrelevant where you made the claim upthread about the nonexistence of required maternity leave in the US, since the US's relative position on maternity leave is immaterial to the issue, which is that hiring managers might avoid hiring women because they might take maternity leave. Since most positions are covered by FMLA, and since FMLA does provide for maternity leave that employees have a right to take, hiring managers might well be considering that, even if the US maternity leave provisions are poor compared to every other developed (not just "western") country.
But I won't conceded that what the US calls "Maternity Leave" is not in fact it by any modern standard of the term, it is nothing more than a job assurance program that even according to you only reaches 60% of people. And out of them few can afford it (and even them not for its full duration).
A handful of US states offer legitimate Maternity Leave and they should be congratulated for that. The federal government should be ashamed, FMLA is pathetic, and their inaction lets people (both parents & children) down daily.
To be honest I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make. That the US is awesome? That maternity leave is fine? That you just want to be "right?" If it is the first two points then we'll never reach consensus and if it is the last point then this is all a waste of time.
That your fact claims upthread (to wit that the US has no national mandatory maternity leave, including unpaid, and that the small number of states that provide more than what is nationally mandated require only unpaid leave) are false and the conclusion they were offered upthread to support (that it is not plausible that US hiring managers would act based on the concern that female applicants might demand maternity leave) is unjustified, since the US has a national mandate that covers most employees for unpaid maternity leave and the handful of states that require something more than the national minimum provide paid leave, and, whether or not those are good maternity leave mandates, they do exist, employees might make use of them, and hiring managers might well act based on sex-based assumptions about which candidates would be more likely to avail themselves of those mandatory leave programs.
It's not far-fetched to speculate that employers would likewise value female and male names differently. I'm just guessing but it feels to me like in the software industry, there may be a bias against females for managerial and project leader positions. Otoh, there is a clear bias in favor of females for bottom-rung coder positions. It's not uncommon to see language in job ads that they would like to see female applications.
Don't waste your energy with a some bozo recruiter.
Instead focus your search on networking with senior executive level women. Most companies (even in male dominate tech) have a few well positioned women. And most get the Girl Power Network thing.
Check out Women in Technology for an event near you>http://witi.meetup.com/ ; and www.womenintechnology.org
Also, The 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance for some additional target ideas... http://www.americanbanker.com/women-in-banking/gallery/the-2...
Techical recruiting is HARD, and honestly if your a small shop, with limited HR going outside to get talent may be your only option.
Most companies (especially small shops) would rather source a potential hire through their own channels, than pay a headhunter fee.
I bet it does affect interview rates.
But in general people hire for 'cultural' fit which means like them, so if you find a female who is hiring then that is bonus points, for some men it is minus points, but other things matter too like your perceived social class, what school you went to, etc.
But you can't do anything about that stuff so best is to give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of being able to judge you on your merits. But I think people do want to click with their hires regardless of official policy. You might be able to bond over technical details in your field or baseball teams or whatever.
From what I have read, some women are leaving tech to get away from the horribly misogynistic work environments they have endured. There are some real horror stories out there. If this can be used as a means to screen out potentially toxic work places, it might be a more efficient use of your time to go ahead and use the female name and let them not waste your time on interviews and what not.
Best of luck.
(I will add that I am a woman, fwiw.)
As a guy who has done hiring in the past, if I see a woman who has 5+ years in the industry I'm automatically going to talk to her. Theres a lot of bullshit out there, and you have probably put up with a fair bit more of it than most other people/men. If your still here and still looking for a job its probably because you want to be in the industry and like what you do.
Years ago, I was in the very unique situation of helping with the recruitment of my own boss. When interviewing a woman, the CTO asked if she was planning to have more kids. Her reaction was a very quick and assertive "Would you ask me the same question if I wasn't a woman?". I was embarrassed by the question and loved the answer. She was hired and we had a great working relationship for the years after.
I think it is very much OK to put people on the spot when similar questions come up.
The problem is it completely ignores people who honestly don't believe they are sexist (and may even consider themselves feminist), but suffer from an unconscious bias. These people might be fine to work for and not be biased (or blatantly so) in the rest of the hiring process.
I never thought of orchestras as havens of gender bias, but they totally were:
http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/b...
And I'm sure the judges certainly didn't consider themselves as sexist.
It's totally up to you, but an easy solution is to use initials, such as AJ instead of Allison Jane. For some reason, we almost always assume initials belong to a man.
As for the recruiter, hopefully they know some stats about diversity, including if they are trying to improve it. But in general, a recruiter does not want to submit someone who won't pass the interview.