How do you look for jobs in an industry known for biases against women?
By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines: “Study shows scientists are biased against women.” Specifically, the study shows that when offered resumes that were identical except for the name on the top, scientists of all genders tended to be more willing to offer jobs (and more money) to the male candidate, indicating that they felt “him” more qualified.
I personally like this write-up from the Scientific American Blog best because it doesn’t pull any punches on what this means:
Whenever the subject of women in science comes up, there are people fiercely committed to the idea that sexism does not exist. They will point to everything and anything else to explain differences while becoming angry and condescending if you even suggest that discrimination could be a factor. But these people are wrong. This data shows they are wrong. And if you encounter them, you can now use this study to inform them they’re wrong. You can say that a study found that absolutely all other factors held equal, females are discriminated against in science. Sexism exists. It’s real. Certainly, you cannot and should not argue it’s everything. But no longer can you argue it’s nothing.
We are not talking about equality of outcomes here; this result shows bias thwarts equality of opportunity.
As a woman who plans to be on the job market next fall after my postdoc finishes, probably interviewing with the same type of academic scientist highlighted in the study, this is incredibly disheartening news. I console myself by thinking “Well, at least with all this publicity, more folk will be aware of such biases during my job hunt” but it’s meager compensation for this reminder that the deck could easily be stacked against me regardless of my personal qualifications.
So this leads me to the question: How do you look for jobs in an industry known for biases against women? (Or people of colour, or LBGT folk, or people over the age of 25, or…)
Avoiding bias is hard, and completely avoiding it is likely impossible unless you get very lucky. But are there strategies that might help? Here’s a few I’ve thought of:
1. Aim for organizations that are aware of the biases in the industry
It’s very hard to overcome biases unless you are made aware of them, so it makes sense to target companies (or banks, or academic institutions, etc.) that have made that crucial first step. But how do you find these organizations?
Check who they sponsor: I blogged about why I was so happy to be kicking off my job hunt at the 2012 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and a large reason is that those organizations were demonstrating a financial and social commitment to getting more women applicants. Check the list of sponsors for events and organizations that are known to attract people like you. For example, if you’re seeking to avoid bias against women in technology you might want to look at the sponsors not only of the Grace Hopper Celebration but also the Ada Initiative, the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology the National Centre for Women in Technology, and maybe even the BlogHer conference, among others.
Ask around: Mailing lists like Systers or Linuxchix often allow discreet postings to ask about companies (you may prefer to anonymize yourself to do the asking!), plus you can ask folk in person at conferences. You can also do some web searching to that effect: sometimes people do report bad and good incidents and name company names, and sites like GlassDoor may give you other insight into company culture. For example, at least a websearch could help you be wary of this racist game development shop that recently made the news
Check their online presence: I don’t personally assume that not having any women featured on your jobs site is necessarily a sign of much more than poor choice of clip art, but sometimes you can get a lot of insight into company culture and potential biases by seeing what image they strive to project to the world.
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