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Employers Less Likely to Hire People With They/Them Pronouns in Resumes, Report Says
The most recent data from business.com found that employers are less inclined to go through resumes that include the nonbinary “they/them” pronouns.
Businesss.com sent almost identical “phantom” resumes to 180 job advertisements as part of its investigation of the employment of nonbinary people; however, one of the resumes had nonbinary pronouns.
“Both featured a gender-ambiguous name, ‘Taylor Williams.’ The only difference between the test and control resumes was the presence of gender pronouns on the test version,” Ryan McGonagill, the industry research director at business.com, said in the report. “The test resume included ‘they/them’ pronouns under the name in the header.”
Both “phantom” resumés were college graduates “with qualifications matching the entry-level jobs they applied for.” However, the report found that the resumés with “they/them” pronouns “received eight percent less employer interest than the control resumes without pronouns.”
McGonagill said the report's findings were “especially worrisome” considering more than 64 percent of the organizations were equal-opportunity employers.
More than 400 nonbinary people were interviewed by Business.com about their employment experiences and if they felt discriminated against. Of those surveyed, 59 percent said their non-binary identity “would somewhat hurt” their search for employment, while five percent believed it would “somewhat help.”
Similarly, 51% said that being nonbinary had a “very or somewhat negatively” impact on their work experiences, while only 8% said that it had a “very or somewhat positive” impact.
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