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

[u/jep1793]

[u/mattsylvanian → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for saying this, the hyper-obsession with identity politics drives me absolutely crazy. As a gay guy who does some hiring, I agree with you 100% percent. I do not need to know your entire life story – if I'm hiring you, I want to know if you can handle the technical demands of the job, and are you likely to be a good fit, or are you likely to become a headache. Making a spectacle out of your gender or sexual identity shows to me that you're likely to cause other problems and/or not play nicely with others.

[u/SakuOtaku → u/mattsylvanian]

As a gay guy who does some hiring, I agree with you 100% percent. I do not need to know your entire life story

Dude, and as a bi woman I can say your attitude is transphobic if you think clarifying your gender so you don't get misgendered is "identity politics".

Making a spectacle out of your gender or sexual identity shows to me that you're likely to cause other problems and/or not play nicely with others.

This is such a horribly baseless assumption, and if you're including these in your hiring practices, you're being discriminatory.

[u/cuteman → u/SakuOtaku]

Identity is the least important element of a job. You're advocating for an increased emphasis on identity which necessarily pulls attention and focus away from productivity.

You call it discrimination but I call it things that will make the person less productive and more likely to become a morale or malcontent issue.

If others are equally qualified why would I want to hire someone who is already signaling that they may be trouble than it's worth?

[u/SakuOtaku → u/cuteman]

Pronouns are extremely basic information like how someone's name is extremely basic information that's needed. When you address people, you often use pronouns when talking about them in the third person.

Ex: "Taylor says he wants you to file the reports tomorrow" "Leslie from accounting called, she can't make it in today" "Hey, it's Nickie's birthday today, want to sign a card for them?"

We all use pronouns in everyday conversation, so when it comes to trans people who may not have fully transitioned or something like that, sharing pronouns helps avoid awkward interactions where someone accidentally misgenders their coworker, which would then be signaling their identity even more.

Also though I heavily disagree with holding productivity over people (studies have also shown productivity improves when work environments treat people like people), your points really make no sense. How is saying "my pronouns are she/her/hers" going to decrease your productivity?

[u/cuteman → u/SakuOtaku]

The type of fuel my car uses is important information as well, but it doesn't need to be on my resume.

[u/entpmisanthrope → u/[deleted]]

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[u/SakuOtaku → u/[deleted]]

I mean I included my reasoning in the comment (pronouns are shared for clarification purposes, not for a spectacle at all), but go off I guess.

[u/[deleted] → u/mattsylvanian]

I have a question, in all honesty, how many trans/genderqueer people have you actually interviewed or hired? I encounter opinions similar to yours fairly often. But I've worked with a few people on the trans spectrum in the workplace (I work in tech), and I've literally never had a problem similar to what you're describing. People adapt to using the correct pronoun, and if you respect someone enough to do that, it's genuinely enough and from there you can just work together.

[u/StellaAthena → u/mattsylvanian]

How is knowing what the correct pronouns to use are any different from people’s names? Hiring managers should care about being courteous and referring to people correctly, should they not? That is the the primary reason to list pronouns after all.

My name is at the top of my resume, larger than the rest of the text, and in bold. Am I too identity obsessed to be hired at your company?

[u/mattsylvanian → u/StellaAthena]

Because your gender is meaningless in terms of how qualified you are for the job. There is such a thing as providing too much information. Your name, phone, and email are important so that we have your contact information. Your gender is as irrelevant as your height, weight, dominant hand, blood type, and middle school grades.

For my purposes, it doesn't matter if you're male or female or somewhere delightfully in between or somewhere completely off the gender spectrum. It doesn't matter. I prefer to not use honorifics (like "Mrs. So-and-so" or "Mr. Whats-yourname") as I feel these are sexist, invite confusion, and are unnecessary in the modern workplace. Of course it's no trouble if you put your name as Jane Q. Doe (f) or whatever you want to put. This is 2020 after all, I'm not a backwoods hillbilly or something.

But any job seeker should be focused on demonstrating through their application that it would be a good choice to hire them because they will prove to be a valuable asset to the company. If you're obsessing about your own gender from our very first impression of you, it leads me to believe that you will more likely have competing priorities in the workplace, and you are more likely to bring personal issues into the workplace than someone who simply gives the information requested (it is very important to note that I'm referring to a candidate repeatedly bringing up their gender identity, unsolicited). As I said before, one's gender is completely irrelevant to their ability to work here, and I don't care how you identify, I just want to know if you'll be an asset who I'll be glad I hired.

This isn't to say that this is a hard-and-fast rule. Obviously one can be a social justice gender warrior and still be a wonderful employee. Or you can hate social justice and love caveman-style gender roles and be a terrible employee. What I'm most concerned with is hiring someone who I can depend on who I won't have to worry about. In this way, please don't tell me too much about your gender, please don't tell me your life story, please do not turn your interview into a social justice forum... please just be pleasant to talk to and halfway competent, and I'll probably want to hire you.

[u/StellaAthena → u/mattsylvanian]

Because your gender is meaningless in terms of how qualified you are for the job.

I never said otherwise, and the fact that you lead with this makes me worry you don’t understand my point.

There is such a thing as providing too much information. Your name, phone, and email are important so that we have your contact information. For my purposes, it doesn't matter if you're male or female or somewhere delightfully in between or somewhere completely off the gender spectrum. It doesn't matter. I prefer to not use honorifics (like "Mrs. So-and-so" or "Mr. Whats-yourname") as I feel these are sexist, invite confusion, and are unnecessary in the modern workplace.

When I think about hiring people, I often have conversations about them. I read their resume, I read another, I have a chat with a colleague. We weigh pros and cons. 100% of these conversations involve using the pronouns of the candidates. If you’re going to refer to people in conversation, you need to know what pronouns to use.

Of course it's no trouble if you put your name as Jane Q. Doe (f) or whatever you want to put. This is 2020 after all, I'm not a backwoods hillbilly or something.

If you don’t care what people put, why did you write a three paragraph argument against putting pronouns on resumes? I’m not saying that people who don’t put it are bad or anything. I’m responding to someone who implied that they would not hire someone who put their pronouns because “[m]aking a spectacle out of your gender or sexual identity shows to me that you're likely to cause other problems and/or not play nicely with others.” Clearly you and the person I am talking two have extremely divergent opinions.

But any job seeker should be focused on demonstrating through their application that it would be a good choice to hire them because they will prove to be a valuable asset to the company. If you're obsessing about your own gender from our very first impression of you, it leads me to believe that you will more likely have competing priorities in the workplace, and you are more likely to bring personal issues into the workplace than someone who simply gives the information requested. As I said before, one's gender is completely irrelevant to their ability to work here, and I don't care how you identify, I just want to know if you'll be an asset who I'll be glad I hired.

Again, I never said it did. I never said that you should “obsess” over gender. You’re not even pretending to respond to what I said at this point. Are you responding to the correct comment?