Stigmatizing Career Breaks: How Resumes Reinforce Bias Against Job Seekers
When reviewing a resume, a recruiter makes a lot of assumptions that determine if the candidate is a potential fit for the role. Having never talked to the person or interacted with them outside of their application or resume, assumptions are used to save time and create a resemblance of efficiency in the recruitment process, especially when hundreds of applicants are involved. Certain characteristics are categorized as “red flags” and lead evaluators to take a pause when determining legitimacy or quality of experiences and character.
Included in these red flags are resume gaps, a noticeable time period where a person has no form of employment listed. The negative assumptions tied to these gaps are unreliability, poor performance, or an inability to interview and secure employment. All of which create shame around time away from work and stigmatizes significant breaks in a person's resume. It disregards the likelihood of layoffs caused by a constrained job market, as well as personal explanations including caregiving, parental responsibilities, health breaks, career change, and travel.
These speculations impart a stigma that while away from work a person’s skill set, education, and intelligence are deteriorating. It ignores the experiences people have outside of their jobs and how other areas of a person’s life may contribute to their overall abilities and knowledge. Disregarding people’s experiences outside of work also diminishes humanity in a people centric process, seeing individuals as only valuable when working and contributing to an organization. This leads hiring managers and recruiters to take on a narrow, incomplete view of candidates seeing them only for face value.
The expectation of these types of criticisms has led the traditional resume and candidate application to prioritizes optics. Candidates create a perception of themselves that they think an employer may find valuable with flowery adjectives and buzz words to grab the attention of whoever is reviewing their application (whether person or automating screening system), sometimes even going above and beyond by paying an “expert” resume writer to do it for them.
With bias and stigma ever present in the resume review process, it's disappointing that this is the main form of evaluation that determines the type of talent entering an organization. Job board platforms have introduced some tools to encourage skills based hiring, however they are still firmly attached to the resume. That’s why Do Not Apply (DNA*) is a talent platform centered around what you know, what you value, and who you are. No need for a resume or a cover letter, your profile shows a company what matters - your skills, what you know, and where you are capable of going.
