How to overcome hiring bias and other problems with being a women and a women of color.
This morning I was reading the Harvard Business Review (HBR) and came upon
Women of Color Get Less Support at Work. Here’s How Managers Can Change That, by Zuhairah Washington and Laura Morgan Roberts.
While reading, it made me realize my own experience and the ordeal that I have had to experience in the workplace and job searching.
I fully dread whenever I return to the job marketplace or look for a professional growth opportunity. Each time I average 30-45 "No" and only an average of 3 interviews. The no's I get are the "Thank You for your time applying for..." email within 24 hours of submitting my application. To increase my chances of a callback and/or interview throughout the years, I have often changed my last name to a more "Anglo-Saxon-sounding name. I stopped disclosing my gender, race, and color in all applications.
Unfortunately, I know I am not alone in this experience. Well-studied, professional Latino women go through this and have ugly cried and felt like a loser thru the process. And the icing on the cake get a job below your capacity, suffering thru microaggressions, double standards, and fighting the Impostor Syndrome.
To increase my chances, I also went back to school to finish a long-time goal of completing my Master's Degree and got into lots of student loan debt. And guess what? I was still NOT ENOUGH!!!!.
"Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise," psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, who coined the term, wrote in 1978.
-Women in Investment: Feel like an imposter? You are not alone by Laura Miller
THE YEAR 2020 AND THE END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
In the HRB by Washington and Roberts, several steps are directed to business owners and managers to advance women of color. These steps place responsibility on ourselves by taking the initiative and in the manager in recognizing bias, accessing potentials instead of competencies, provide honest feedback. However, 2020 has wreaked havoc that we are yet to see. In a way, it advances for a change. While now is negative, it will change the competitiveness and further make companies and leaders against globalization and diversity have to accept the 21st-century reality.
In Forbes Magazine, Marr 2020 mentions that working from home has and will continue to transform the job market and genuinely change global competition for the job role. Employees can work from anywhere worldwide, meaning the job market could become truly globalized. Marr says this could mean that applicants can reach the thousands and that globalization can genuinely make a diverse workforce where names, ethnicity, and race will not matter.
To have adequate job opportunities in today’s marketplace, we must change and become something else.
Here is a snippet of a post on my LinkedIn page I posted on June 2020, "I was going thru social media and found this message, which comes right after a conversation I had with my partner regarding the Job Market in 2020. Our conversation was around the idea of changing my name, Kenya, in my resume to a whitewashed version of Michelle, my second name. I find it absurd that in the 21st Century, being a woman and having a foreign name takes away from my preparation and experience. That in 2020, for me and many others to have adequate job opportunities in today’s marketplace, we have to change and become something else. BUT, YOU KNOW WHAT! I will send my resume with my African Name and my Latino last name, knowing that I am a uniquely prepared and capable professional in this changing and evolving marketplace. And those companies and “hiring managers” who have an issue with my gender or unique name and background will have to miss out on what I have to offer. I prefer to align myself with an organization and teams that are truly diverse and inclusive and not with ideals and leadership skills that are outdated and based on the 1900s. Good luck to them in surviving the technology and globalization that is upon us and will never go away."
Sincerely,
Kenya
#businesswoman#launch #goals