AdaMarie launched the first jobs board for women in STEM this month. (You can create your Seeker or Company profile here!)
Developing the board raised a lot of questions: What search terms do our seekers (and employers) use? How can we make it easier to connect highly qualified candidates to the employers they seek? Should we allow direct messaging?
We felt that one question—and our response to it—deserved special attention:
What about profile pictures?
LinkedIn and other jobs boards have historically encouraged users to upload a profile photo. On some sites your profile isn’t considered complete without one.
At AdaMarie, we value authenticity, community, and opportunities for our members to express themselves. But we’re also driven by a mission: To eradicate biases in STEM, increase employer access to excellent, historically underrepresented talent, and optimize workplace practices for inclusion. Guided by this mission, we decided that AdaMarie’s seeker profiles will not include photos.
Why?
Just as we believe employers have a responsibility to identify and remove biases in their systems, we have a responsibility to identify and counter biases in our own. Photos can be problematic. The biases that applicants of color face when applying to jobs keep employers from accessing their talent:
- In a study (1) conducted by the University of Chicago and M.I.T., researchers submitted fictitious resumes from similarly qualified candidates to a range of companies, randomly assigning black-sounding names (Lakisha and Jamal) to some and white-sounding names (Emily and Greg) to others. Those with white-sounding names were 50% more likely to receive a callback than those with black-sounding names.
- In a follow-up study (2) , candidates with black-sounding names had to have graduated from elite universities to have the same odds of a callback as those with white-sounding names from less selective schools.
- Another follow-up study (3) found that Chinese, Pakistani, and Indian-sounding names were 28% less likely to be called for an interview.
Many leaders in STEM fields, especially tech, believe that their decisions are merit-based, and imbalanced hiring is a result of pipeline problems, not bias.
Data on the demographics of graduates, however, demonstrates that even when the pipeline diversifies, hiring doesn’t catch up. According to U.S. Department of Education (4) data, Black, Latino, and Native American graduates make up nine percent of degrees from the top 25 undergraduate computer science programs, but less than five percent of the workforce in major tech companies, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
Fortunately, there is a solution.
Going in Blind
Hiring data from multiple studies strongly suggests that blind resume reviews (removing identifying information such as name, photo, and other indicators of demographic background such as “Women’s Chess Club”) don’t just bring employers closer to hiring an underrepresented employee—they make it more likely they will hire the right employee.
- GapJumpers, a company that created blind resume review software, conducted a review (5) of 1,400 hires at a wide range of companies, including Bloomberg and Dolby Laboratories. When companies used traditional (not blinded) resume screening, about a fifth of applicants who were not white, male, able-bodied candidates from elite schools made it to a first-round interview. When companies used blind resume screening, 60 percent made the cut.
- Harvard Business School conducted a follow-up study (6) in which they found that blind hiring doesn’t just lead to a more diverse workforce, it fosters better hiring decisions. In their study, when employers used objective criteria, such as a job test completed anonymously instead of applications that included identifying information, the workers they hired stayed at the job longer and appeared to be a “better fit” for the role. In instances in which hiring managers decided to overrule test results and hire using subjective discretion, their hires were significantly more likely to be fired or quit.
At AdaMarie, we believe that removing profile photos is a step in support of the practice of blinding resume reviews.
Why Not Make Profile Photos Optional?
Eradicating biases means leveling the playing field. Unless all groups—including the majority—adopt practices that counter bias, some groups will remain at an advantage over others, based on bias, not merit.
While white applicants don’t have to worry that a profile photo may cause their resume to be overlooked, applicants of color have to choose between two risky options: include a profile photo and take a chance of triggering prejudice OR choose not to include a photo and risk employers coming to their own, often inaccurate, conclusions about why their profile photo is blank. The questions a missing profile photo can raise— Are they too careless to complete their profile? What are they hiding? —can make applicants without photos seem less attractive than applicants who can include a photo, risk-free.
Profiles without headshots allow employers to focus on applicants’ qualifications, bringing them closer to hiring the right person for the role.
Beyond AdaMarie
We know that many of you, both seekers and employers, use jobs boards and recruiting tools outside of AdaMarie. If you are interested in countering the effect of bias in your applications and recruiting, these tips can help refocus on qualifications, not appearance:
- For both job seekers and recruiters: Some job boards, including Indeed and Monster, also do not include candidate photos. (This may explain why demographics at both sites are more diverse (7) than those at LinkedIn, which can feel more like Facebook with resumes.)
- For recruiters and hiring managers: The Recruiter accounts on LinkedIn provide an option to hide candidate photos and names when reviewing profiles and applications. We highly recommend activating this option to refocus on resumes.
For more tips on debiasing the job description, check out a recent blog post from CEO Rebecca Tierney on inclusion-minded recruiting.
If you would like to learn more about how AdaMarie helps employers optimize their workplace for inclusion, please contact us at learnmore@ada-marie.com.
(1) https://cos.gatech.edu/facultyres/Diversity_Studies/Bertrand_LakishaJamal.pdf
(2) https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/93/4/1451/2332119?redirectedFrom=fulltext
(4) https://www.eeoc.gov/special-report/diversity-high-tech
(6) https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21709/revisions/w21709.rev0.pdf
(7) https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/02/03/social-media-preferences-vary-by-race-and-ethnicity/ AND https://www.refuelagency.com/blog/hispanic/hispanic-job-search/
About The Author: Sara Sanford, AdaMarie Equity Consultant
Sara is the founder of GEN and the architect behind the GEN Certification, the first gold standard for intersectional equity in U.S. businesses, which has expanded to certify businesses globally. She is a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Information, where she teaches on the intersection of equity, ethics, and data, and she is the author of Inclusion Inc: How to Design Intersectional Equity into the Workplace.
Sara believes we now have the tools for all businesses to be equity-centered if they choose to be. She has been interviewed by the New York Times, and her book, Inclusion, Inc., is available through major online outlets.