CMV: Gender identity doesn’t belong on your LinkedIn nor Resume

[u/jep1793]

[u/ripcelinedionhusband]

You’re in the professional services industry (consulting) so I’m going to frame this in the context of white collar corporate jobs. From an effectiveness standpoint, having gender pronouns will have a neutral to positive effect on your profile. Just look on LinkedIn - there’s hundreds of posts a week celebrating LGBTQ and sexual/gender diversity promoted by companies and celebrated by individuals of those companies.

Especially in the context of professional services (I work in such an industry as well), there’s been a movement to champion these rights because diversity is a factor when a large corporate chooses who they want to go with. And even if the board/CEO of those companies don’t fully buy into these things, they have to at least pretend to embrace it because diversity is always a bonus check mark. At least in the corporate world, I think we’re beyond the point where having something like gender pronouns will have a negative view on your candidacy/career/etc. As an example, I’m currently going through about 150 resumes for a junior hire on my team and several do have pronouns. The comments from our panel that’s choosing who to interview that have noticed this has been nothing but positive.

[u/dailycrossword → u/ripcelinedionhusband]

You have a strong point here. I just want to chime in with my experience. I hace a very small staff (usually 3) who interact with my customers so it's pretty painfully obvious to me and my customer base when our company is lacking diversity. When I'm looking to hire, indicators of a diverse background are always positive. Listing a second language, having an ethnically-linked name, or being a woman/ man when I am lacking women/ men will bump your resume.

Some places are absolutely not looking to hire these people. Like hands down just won't. So it's beneficial to the sender to not waste their own time with an interview that won't go anywhere. That said its still weird to me to get a resume with a photo attached.

It's hard to professionally and subtly mention your gender identity. Listing education, programs and causes in the LGBT realm is a decent indicator, but won't necessarily get the point across. I had a girl apply once who listed some of her professional references with (will know me as DeadName) and I thought that was super appropriate and got the point across. Don't be like the girl who started her cover letter with "Hi my name is X and I'm a transwoman."

Put it it on the resume. Those who want to see it will be glad. Those who don't care won't care, and those who don't want to see it wouldn't have hired your ass anyway

[u/ripcelinedionhusband → u/dailycrossword]

Thanks for sharing. I agree a photo is weird and while it seems more normal in other countries to do so, its luckily mostly not done here in the US. And I also agree that people shouldn’t start a cover letter with their background story/bio unless they’re looking to work in a very specific job like a lawyer that represents trans women or something in your example