Subtle Class Cues Can Backfire on Your Resume

https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume

by throwawaymath • 7 years ago

16 10 7 years ago

Their lower class applicants had country music listed as an interest on the resume while higher class had classical music.

Classical music is objectively more intricate and difficult to master so I’d expect it to signal a more qualified applicant if they’re using music as a representative interest of their personality.

throwawaymath2• 7 years ago

Are you being facetious? I don't think the candidate's favorite music genre is being explicitly used as a job qualification. They're not filtering on it because it's relevant to the job.

camjohnson262• 7 years ago

Why would you put musical interests on your resume if you didn’t want it to be used as a filter? As a resume screener I’m going to assume anything in the resume is fair game, and there’s objective reasons to select a candidate who’s self aware enough to know that country music isn’t sending a good signal.

The fact that they like country music isn’t the problem, it’s that they thought it was a good interest to put on a resume.

poulsbohemian2• 7 years ago

In my 20+ career I've never put extracurriculars or personal interests on my resume, am I doing it all wrong? I don't see how my musical preferences or outside interests not specifically pertinent to the job could be seen as appropriate for a resume.

esotericn2• 7 years ago

In this specific case it would be highly relevant as I assume the law firms wish to select for socioeconomic class. If you make it hard for them they'll just bin your CV.

Software companies are less likely to care explicitly, there it'd be more of an accidental bias (e.g. 'culture fit').

poulsbohemian2• 7 years ago

I agree with and recognize the reasoning you are suggesting here, but seething at how all flavors of wrong thinking it represents in the part of these firms. And I write that as someone who enjoys classical music, wine tasting, sailing, etc, IE: the same activities that would probably signal successfully.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 7 years ago

TLDR:

Elite Lawfirms prefer:

Higher class men >> Lower class women > Higher class women > Lower class men

More higher class men invited than all others combined. Only 1/78 lower class men invited.

rayiner• 7 years ago

This study is a good example of how hard it is to analyze a complex problem. In an effort to establish controls, the study is based on a specific methodology. The authors mailed applications to top law firms and measured the response rate. The resumes were for fictional students from second-tier law schools, identical except for gender and class markers.

All applicants were in the top 1% of their class and were on law review, but came from second-tier law schools. This was important because graduates from the most elite law schools (e.g., Harvard and Yale) are typically recruited on-campus.

The study identifies quite solid evidence of discrimination against those candidates. However, it then draws a pretty broad conclusion:

Our findings confirm that, despite our national myth that anyone can make it if they work hard enough, the social class people grow up in greatly shapes the types of jobs (and salaries) they can attain, regardless of the achievements listed on their resumes.

Although the conclusion is probably true, the study doesn't really adequately support it. The authors studied responses to mail-in applications to "top law firms." But top law firms hire almost all of their candidates from on-campus interviews at top law schools. At every law school I am aware of, law firms select students to interview through an semi-anonymous process were names and gender are hidden. (Obviously, the law firms find out the name and gender during the interview itself.) Indeed, at top law schools, firms don't even get to select candidates in the first instance. Interviews are instead allocated through a bidding/lottery system.

Additionally, the applications were identical with respect to grades and law school rank. But those are the main criteria law firms use to select entry-level hires. Keeping them constant isolates the effect of other resume factors, but also strips out information about the relative impact of class signals versus grades and law school rank. Therefore, it cannot distinguish between a system that is mostly meritocratic except when it comes to tie-breakers, and one where class can play a large role even overcoming differences in grades and law school rank.

(I will also add that some of the markers on the resume are not necessarily markers of class, but other things. Law is an overwhelmingly liberal profession, for example, while listing that you enjoy "country music" on your resume could be seen as signaling conservative political attitudes.)

So the study draws conclusions about how law firms as a whole work, but based on studying a hiring pipeline that doesn't reflect how the vast majority of candidates are hired--one that reflects the exception not the rule. For example, one might conclude from the article that entry level attorneys at top law firms are mostly men, but in fact the pipeline is essentially 50/50 until you get to the senior associate level.

That is not to cast doubt on the conclusions in the study. Certainly, the feedback about stereotypes about women ring true as a matter of my anecdotal experience. (My wife was told, when she was going through interview season, that she didn't need to worry about it as much because I had already been offered a position at a good firm.) But it just shows how hard this stuff is to study. The study generalizes beyond what is supportable by its methodology. And it bypasses a mechanism--blind/lottery on-campus interviews--that the profession deliberately implemented to reduce bias in hiring.

esotericn2• 7 years ago

In the UK this would be essentially irrelevant on a CV as it'd be trivial to pull out at interview anyway.

Hobbies, pronounciation, dress sense etc aren't protected in any way and it would be absurd if they were (you'd have an interview that looked like a turing test or something).

Subtle Class Cues Can Backfire on Your Resume

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