Diversity-proof Your Resume
Your resume is the most important tool to help you secure interviews. It is the key component in your career search process because, if written purposefully and designed appropriately, it will be a call to action to its readers—your potential employers; they will be moved to meet the person wonderfully presented in the resume. As integral as this ingredient is to landing an interview, most resumes don’t make it past the initial screening process and get filed away forever in some wastepaper basket floating in cyberspace or in the one just beneath the screener’s desk. The #1 reason many resumes only get a quick glance: the (scary) content; what a job seeker chooses to include on a resume will either lead to an interview or an empty email box. Content matters. Providing too much information on diversity-related issues will raise flags. And, unless you want to be a professional flag raiser, remember that less is more. Whatever you leave off of a resume can always be addressed during an interview.
Here are a few tips to diversity-proof your resume and help it land in the “must contact” pile of potential candidates:
Diversity-proof Tip #1: Your name
To avoid being discriminated against because of your gender or ethnicity, use just the initial of your first name. This way, the reader has no way of knowing if you are female or male; for example: V. Fassinger. In addition, if you have a name that is spelled uniquely and is thus difficult for some to pronounce, you can put the pronunciation in parentheses and quotation marks after your name; for example: Vicque (“Vickie”) Fassinger. Sometimes a potential employer may feel so uncertain about how to pronounce a candidate’s name that he/she simply chooses to go on to the next resume instead. Another way to make it easier for the potential employer to feel comfortable with your name is by including your nickname (if you have one and have been referred to with this nickname at other employers); for example, the Chinese name of “Mei” could be written as: Mei “May” Yuen (in this instance, the nickname also happens to be how the name is pronounced).
Diversity-proof Tip #2: Your Education
Do not include the date you graduated from college. This could hurt you in several ways. If you just graduated, the employer may think you are too inexperienced and full of more theory than real-world endeavors. Further, if you graduated decades ago, the employer may think that you are not current with 21st century jargon, gizmos, gadgets, and Standard Operating Procedures. By including the year, the reader could potentially figure out how old you are and then silently discriminate against you. Sometimes candidates are overlooked because they have no education listed on their resume. If you attended (and completed) even ONE college course beyond high school, include the name of the college and the type of degree you were pursuing and then write either “coursework” after it or “currently pursuing” after it. For example:
JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY
Bachelor of Arts coursework (or currently pursuing)
Even if you have taken a 5-year hiatus from college, you still (most assuredly) have every intention of actualizing that goal. A third component regarding education that coud be used to discriminate you is if you graduated from high school or not. Of course, if you attended even one college class after your high school years, then you have already earned either your high school diploma or your G.E.D.; thus, there is no need to include high school on your resume. If, however, the position to which you are applying requires a high school diploma (and no college), then simply write: High School Graduate (even if you earned that diploma via a G.E.D. program).
Diversity-proof Tip #3: Your work history
Ideally, you ought to have a different resume and letter for every different job you are seeking. Most people don’t want to be bothered having to create brand new resumes for each job; that is a mistake. You need to appear focused to the reader. Sending a resume highlighting your experience as a professional frisbee freestyler for a position you are currently seeking as an iguana trainer is your resume’s direct, one-way ticket to that wastepaper basket in cyberspace (unless you can teach an iguana to snag a disc). If you had successful experience as an iguana trainer 11 years ago and want to get back into that field, then THAT job experience needs to be the first job the readers see on your resume—and not your current role in hot doggin’ it with a 165 gram disc. Simply leave the dates off and, instead, write the number of years you worked as an iguana trainer.
Be truthful on your resume without the minutiae of details that can stop you from getting an interview. After all, you may not even want the job after going on the interview; but, wouldn’t it be great to have that choice?
Tags: age on resume, and work history can be used against you, diversity-proof your resume, gender on resume, how age
