Navigating the job market as a person of color
Written by Aastha Malik
“You’re so lucky, since you’re a person of color and a woman. There are so many companies being pressured to be more diverse right now,” said a male student I had just met in the first year of university. At the time, I didn’t really know what to think of his statement. The word “lucky,” though, seemed wrong to me.
Was I lucky that more companies needed to hire me to check off a box that they now had to fill? Was I lucky that if I did get a job based on my own hard work and merit, people could assume it was due to some diversity program? Was I lucky that both my gender and race had been marginalized for so many years, that we now needed such programs in the first place to ensure equality? Surely not.
It was three years ago that I brushed off the question of a well-meaning, if slightly ignorant, stranger. Now, I find myself thinking back to it again with a whole new perspective as a recently graduated person of color, navigating the job market for the very first time. “Lucky” isn’t the word I would use to describe my experience.
As a person of color, I have noticed that there are additional steps that go into each job application. Thoughts and concerns that you wish you sometimes didn’t have to deal with. You first wonder about the company’s culture. Do they truly embrace diversity? Do they have other employees that look like me? If they don’t, is this an issue that I should be concerned about? You may spend an extra minute pondering on whether using a picture in your CV is a good idea or questioning if your name sounds too ethnic.
Sara was in the job market herself a year ago and shared her experience.
“As a Black woman, I find myself anxious about applying for jobs. I am proud of being Black and I’m keen to pursue a career path in equality, diversity and inclusion. Yet I am hesitant to put my full name on applications because it is so blatantly non-white,” she said.
“Though I want to be able to be 100% transparent with my job applications, I am tempted to mask my race by assuming my mother’s white surname just to improve my chances of even getting to the interview stage.
“I came across a job recently hiring for an inclusion role that asked applications to ‘not provide information about your race or ethnic origin’ presumably to create a fair recruitment process, yet it does not ask applicants to submit a blind CV, without their name. I am therefore forced to disclose my race in an uncomfortable way or lie. As people of color, we are forced to make difficult decisions just to have a fair chance at getting a job.”
There are more differences that come with being a person of color than just the color of our skin. There are differences in the ways we experience our world, differences in cultural backgrounds and practices as well as differences in heritage. Sometimes, extra considerations have to be made to reflect on whether these differences will be embraced and celebrated in the jobs you apply to or whether you would be judged and devalued.
Haala is an international student in the U.K. who recently graduated and has begun her job search. She worries about how her identity as a Muslim, Arab woman would fit into the British workplace.
“I sometimes feel as though some companies in the U.K. don’t necessarily accommodate or make space for Muslims,” she said. “Drinking culture is such a huge part of the U.K., so when most of the company socials include that environment, it feels not only intimidating, but you also fear being pressurized, or even worse, being excluded.
“Even though there may be socials where alcohol isn’t involved, socials with drinking tend to always be the main and most popular events here, and if you’re not going to join in, you’re going to miss out. I’d just hate to be in that position because I wouldn’t want that to impact how I am viewed as an employee at a company and how valuable I am perceived to be.”
Not having to have to think about your name, the color of your skin and your culture in the job application process is a privilege that goes unacknowledged, but a privilege that is extremely real. It is great that in recent years, we have come far when it comes to diversity and inclusivity in hiring. However, a 2019 study by CSI showed that applicants from minority ethnic backgrounds still have to send 60% more applications to get a positive response from an employer than their white counterparts. There seems to still be a long way to go to ensure that potential POC candidates feel more comfortable, represented and heard in these processes and feel less discriminated against.
As I continue the sometimes tedious and sometimes rewarding journey of job applications and interview processes, what keeps me motivated is the fact that we continue to fight toward making these privileges the norm. I am thankful for my experiences as a POC in different cultures and countries that help me stand out as a candidate for companies that are inclusive. And finally, I am grateful to the thousands of other applicants and employees like me, who continuously push barriers and ceilings to demonstrate how valuable new perspectives and backgrounds can be, hopefully making the job market a better place for all those who come.
