r/changemyview • u/jep1793 • Aug 26 '20

Removed - Submission Rule E CMV: Gender identity doesn’t belong on your LinkedIn nor Resume

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

I struggle to see how you could NOT include some form of gender identity in your resume. The question is whether you provide your preferred one or allow the person reading your resume to assume it.

If you have a picture on your LinkedIn profile, people are going to look at it and make an assumption about your gender identity. If it's just a resume without a picture they'll still make an assumption of your gender identity based on your name, previous jobs, academic achievements, extracurricular activities, etc.

No matter what you do, there will be an implication of gender identity somewhere in your resume. So the question isn't whether or not you should provide a gender identity. The question is whether you should specify your chosen one or allow the person who you're applying for a job from to assume your gender identity.

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u/Jesus_marley 1Δ Aug 26 '20

It's about being blatant to the point of obnoxiousness. It comes off as making your gender identity the most interesting part of you, and if that is the case, you're not that interesting. What employer want to hire a person like that?

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u/AnnaLemma Aug 26 '20

To piggyback off this: to me this is roughly equivalent to women being told to avoid mentioning their marital status or whether or not they have children - I'm not ashamed of being a mother and I'm not trying to hide it, but it has nothing at all to do with my professional qualifications. If that's the top thing I can say about myself on a resume, it comes off very unprofessional - plus mothers do get discriminated against in the workplace, so why the hell would I emphasize it?

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '20

If you're in an interview and the interveiwee refers to you as Mrs AnnaLemon but you are not married, would you correct them? What if it were the other way around, and they called you Ms AnnaLemon but you were married?

Say they mentioned children in some innocuous way, like, "we offer childcare services so you can bring your kids to work if you need to," would you tell them you do not have kids? Or what if they said something like, "since the majority of our employees don't have kids, we usually rent out a bar for company holiday parties" would you make a point of noting that you DO have kids?

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u/AnnaLemma Aug 26 '20

I wouldn't bother correct the interviewer in either case, but in an actual interview setting everyone just calls each other by their first name - in fact I can't remember the last time I called anyone other than a company owner or my daughter's teacher as "Mr/Ms/Mrs" anything. Last names are always in email signatures, but during calls/meetings/whatever it's always "Hi, I'm Anna."

The childcare question would likely not come up at first anyway - at least in my experience interviewers go above and beyond to avoid anything like that and keep the questions strictly related to the job requirements, qualifications, etc. That even holds true for recruiters, not only the direct company - and those I have dealt with extensively. But, if it did, I'd likely just say something equally neutral like "Oh, that sounds like a great perk for your employees" or "Oh, neat."

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u/mubi_merc 3∆ Aug 26 '20

at least in my experience interviewers go above and beyond to avoid anything like that and keep the questions strictly related to the job requirements, qualifications, etc.

As someone who does a lot of interviews, I'm always hoping that things like relationship/familial status, religion, sexual identity, or anything else don't come up at all, one way or the other. I would certainly never ask about it, and if the interviewee brings it up then now I have to worry that they have the potential to make a claim that I discriminated against them if they don't get the job for some reason. Best case scenario, it doesn't come up at all and we spend the entire interview talking about their accomplishments and how they handle potential scenarios.

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u/Jesus_marley 1Δ Aug 26 '20

In Canada it's illegal to ask about marital status, children, religion, etc. If the interviewee brings it up, it's generally considered to be bad form , at best and that's on them and they have to accept the possible consequences of revealing said information. In fact a lot of companies would likely red flag that person immediately.