Applying for a Job? Your Age? Your Gender? ...

 A resume correspondence study on the basis of more than 40,000 job applications for four occupations (administrative jobs, sales, security jobs, janitor jobs) found "robust evidence of age discrimination in hiring against older women, especially those near retirement age, but considerably less evidence of age discrimination against men".

For the four occupations combined, callback rates were significantly lower when the applicants were perceived as older, i.e., by 18% for middle-aged workers and about 35% for older workers.

For administrative jobs, the callback rate was 14,4% for applicants aged 29 to 31, 10,3% for those aged 49 to 51 and 7,6% for applicants aged 64 to 66. 

For sales jobs, there was not really a difference between young and middle-aged applicantsn in terms of callback rate. However, the callback rate for older applicants was 30% lower. In addition, there was evidence of stronger age discrimination of female applicants. 

For security jobs too, there were more or less equal callback rates for middle-aged and older applicants. Again, both were lower than the callback rate for younger applicants. 

And, finally, for janitor jobs, the callback rate for older applicants was significantly lower than the rate for middle-aged or younger applicants (Neumark, Burn & Button, 2018).

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- Neumark, D., Burn, I. & Button, P. (2018). Is It Harder For Older Workers to Find Jobs? New and Improved Evidence from a Field Experiment. Journal of Political Economy, 127(2), link
- photograph by Flip Schulke via

Recruiters Getting Ageist Guidelines

In a survey, 105 hiring professionals were asked if age discrimination was a problem they encountered. 92 of them (88%) said yes and 87% knew of other hiring managers or recruiters who had not considered a candidate because of their age. 58% said that they had experienced ageist guidelines from their clients or from managers and that they had been instructed to pass on a candidate because of age. When advocating for older job seekers, they often see hiring managers turning these candidates down citing stereotypes such as "culture fit, lack of drive, and outdated skillsets" as reasons. The recruiters reported anecdotally that, at times, they were asked to source "young and pretty" candidates or, in one case, a "blonde and attractive female" (via).

photograph by Joseph Szabo (1975) via

Disability + Job Application

According to an Opinium survey, disabled people have to apply for 60% more jobs than non-disabled people. While 69% of non-disabled applicants are invited to a job interview, only 51% of applications from disabled people result in a job interview. Since two in five are not confident about finding a job and 27% believe they are less likely to be hired due to their disability, more than half of disabled people apply for jobs they are overqualified for feeling their disability would make them a less attractive candidate (via).



photograph "504 sit-in, Anthony Tusler, 1977, from the collection of American Association of People with Disabilities" via

Job Descriptions: Male-Coded or Female-Coded?

After scanning 75.000 job advertisements in the U.K. for gendered words, Totaljobs came to the conclusion that hidden bias can have an enormous impact on job descriptions. Here are a few findings:



The most commonly used male-gendered words were: lead, analyse, competitive, active, confident; the most commonly used female-gendered words were: support, responsible, understanding, dependable, committed. By industry, the strongest bias was found in education (67% female bias) and science (62% male bias) (via).

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photograph by Vivian Maier via

The Future of Women Astronauts Seen from 1962

"When I was about 13, I wrote to NASA and asked what I needed to do to try to be an astronaut. And of course, there weren't any women astronauts and NASA wrote me back and said there would not be any women astronauts. And I was just crestfallen."
Hillary Clinton



In February 1962, long before Women@NASA, a woman  from Connecticut applied at NASA and received the following reply (via):

Dear Miss Kelly:
This is in response to your letter of February 20, 1962.
Your offer to go on a space mission is commendable and we are very grateful.
This is to advise that we have no existing program concerning women astronauts nor do we contemplate any such plan.
We appreciate your interest and support of the nations's space program.
Sincerely,
O.B. Lloyd, Jr.
Director
Public Information

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selfie of Buzz Aldrin in 1966 on the Gemini 12 mission via

The Digital-Native-Nonsense

"There are a number of labels to describe the young people currently studying at school, college and university. They include the digital natives, the net generation, the Google generation or the millenials." The concept of the digital native - "native speakers" of the digital language and computers -  is solely based on the criterion when a person was born. Supporters of this notion, such as Prensky, say that those born in the last two or three decades have always interacted with technology, that they "are used to receiving information really fast", prefer their graphics before their text than the other way round, and function best when networking.



Those born before 1980, on the other hand, are so-called digital immigrants. And it gets better: These digital immigrants somehow manage to learn to use technologies but cannot get rid of the past and remain "unable to fully understand the natives". Digital immigrants are, for instance, characterised by a tendency to read manuals before finding solutions online. Prensky draws parallels between digital natives and native speakers (Helsper & Eynon, 2009), the latter being another myth.

(...) linguists, applied linguists and language teachers all appeal to the native speaker as an important reference point and a benchmark for knowledge of a language. But who exactly is the native speaker? Alan Davies, The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality

The native speaker is "a scientific concept, rather than a flesh and blood creature", a social construct. In the 1980s, the non-native speaker was a deficient native-speaker. This notion was called into question in the late 1990s.

In sum, the attempts that have been made to describe the 'native speaker' in applied linguistics are inadequate, and based on unjustified assumptions drawn from flawed 'common sense' conceptions of speakerhood, or the misapplication of a reductive linguistic concept. Whatever the 'native speaker' might be, we have yet to reach a satisfactory scientific description that can be applied not only to concepts, but also to real people, with all their attendant inconsistencies and imperfections. The question Paikeday and his correspondents struggled to answer still stands, leading us to suspect that the 'native speaker' is not a scientific classification at all. Lowe

Back to the digital native, a term that is widely used in both public and political debate. It is, by the way, also frequently used in job advertisements as an obvious code for "we only accept young applicants". It is nothing but "a pretext for age discrimination" (via).

There is a growing body of academic research that has questioned the validity of the generational interpretation of the digital native concept. Those in support of this digital native / immigrant distinction tend to assign broad characteristics (e.g. a specific learning style, amount and type of technology use and / or set of learning preferences) to an entire generation (Bennet et al., 2008) and suggest all young people are expert with technology. Yet, while the proportion of young people who use the Internet and other new technologies is higher than the older population (...) there are significant differences in how and why young people use these new technologies and how effectively they use them (...). Indeed, a number of writers have highlighted the complexity and diversity of use of new technologies by young people which tends to be ignored or minimized in many arguments in support of the digital native.

The line between age and generation is blurred, digital native is about the year of birth rather than the amount of exposure, the experience or expertise with technologies versus the ability to post selfies on social media. This approach has serious implications as it also suggests that a "digital disconnect" between "young" and "old" is inevitable (Helper & Eynon, 2009).

Helsper and Eynon (2009) conducted a survey (n = 2.350) in Britain, analysed the data and came to the conclusion that it

is very clear (is) that it is not helpful to define digital natives and immigrants as two distinct, dichotomous generations. While there were differences in how generations engaged with the internet there were similarities across generations as well mainly based on how much experience people have with using technologies. In addition, the findings presented here confirm that individuals’ Internet use lies along a continuum of engagement instead of being a dichotomous divide between users and non-users. (...)
This research adds to existing research by showing that a generational distinction between natives and immigrants, us and them, is not reflected in empirical data. Therefore, the distinction is not helpful and could even be harmful.

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- Helsper, E. & Eynon, R. (2009). Digital natives: where is the evidence? British Educational Research Journal, 1-18.
- images via and via

"Dear applicant, we regret to inform you...". Rejection letters and politeness strategies in Japan and the U.S.

An analysis of Japanese and US-American rejection letters sent to applicants came to the conclusion that politeness strategies differ. While US-American letters tend to look personal - e.g. by addressing letters personally, often by forename - Japanese letters openly show that all rejected applicants receive the same letter and don't use forenames as not preserving a certain distance would be considered as disrespectful. US-Americans attempt to look positive and communicate concern while Japanese feel less uncomfortable when they are rejected as "one of many" (Baresova, 2008).



"To counterbalance the negativity of refusal and inadequacy with something positive, the Americans frequently added praise for the candidate’s “excellent qualifications”, which, although very personal in appearance, lacked any specifics and were, upon closer comparison, remarkably similar, even between letters addressed to the candidate with many years of experience and the new graduate with no qualifications at all."
Baresova, 2008:108

"It could be argued that the Americans only seem to be more personal than the Japanese, because the Americans also send virtually the same letter to all applicants, but this would be to ignore the more significant fact. Of course neither the Americans nor the Japanese are going to write individualized letters. The difference is that the Americans want to seem personal."
Baresova, 2008:109



"Each culture has a different perception of what is polite, and each language has various devices for expressing politeness. Some situations call for more politeness than others. The importance of politeness increases with the degree of potential offense to the hearer. Rejection is, by its very nature, one of the most offensive speech acts, and if not done politely it is quite likely to negatively impact the hearer’s self-image. Therefore, various politeness strategies are employed to minimize its negative impact. To perform a rejection is not easy, even if both parties have a complete understanding of the language and rituals concerning politeness in that culture. To reject someone from another culture without causing offense or misunderstanding is even more challenging."
Baresova, 2008:11




- Baresova, I. (2008). Politeness Strategies in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Study of American and Japanese Employment Rejection Letters. Olomoue: Palacky University.
- photographs by Micheal Rougier (1964) via and via and via and via

Forever Young. Working in the Advertising Industry.

Ageism affects a great many people in the workforce, including those working in the advertising industry. According to a study carried out in the U.K., people working in advertising, marketing, media, and public relations think (know?) that the industry is ageist. In the ad industry, ageism is significantly worse than the British workplace average. Since 2009, the average age of employees has remained 33.7.



"Almost a third (32%) of respondents have experienced ageism towards themselves, almost three times the British average of 11%, whilst 42% of the ad industry employees polled have witnessed ageism towards others, almost double the British average of 19%.
Ageism also impacts job prospects, the study suggests. A quarter of respondents were turned down for a job for being "too old," and more than half of those (56%) were told they were overqualified."

Diversity is surely discussed and has even become an issue in advertising and media ... Age, however, is not really part of this discussion (via).

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image (Good Neighbor Sam, 1964, with Jack Lemmon and Romy Schneider) via

"We don't embroider cushions here."

Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) was a French Modernist architect and furniture designer and member of Le Corbusier's studio.



When Perriand applied to work at Le Corbusier's studio in 1927, she was rejected with the following reply: "We don't embroider cushions here." One month later, Le Corbusier visited a show of hers and changed his mind; Perriand became a member of his studio (via).



photographs via and via

The Mini-Me Syndrome

The mini-me syndrome refers to the phenomenon that - for instance - human resources managers and executives often tend to choose employees and successors who are perceived as similar to themselves. (The mini-me syndrome is also discussed in parent-child relationships.) This similarity can be defined in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, career path or life style. The resulting discrimination is based on a bias people making HR decisions are often not aware of (via). There is no professional recruitment process without bias awareness.



Photograph of Buster Keaton (1895-1966) via

Orchestras, Blind Auditions, Percentages & Removing Shoes

In the late 1970s, major US-orchestras had less than 5% women, in the 80s about 10%, in the 90s the percentage rose to 25% and today about 30% are women. The secret? With the change of gender constructions and orchestras' introduction of blind auditions into their hiring processes, the percentage started changing. In blind auditions, candidates play for a "gender blind" jury concealing their identity behind a screen. In order to make sure that the sound of their shoes do not tell their gender either, candidates are instructed to remove their shoes before entering the stage (via). Orchestras, however, are not the roots of gender construction in music. It is suggested to revise music education curriculum content encouraging women to play "male" instruments. Stereotypes, however, are not only created for women: "Frail women" on the harp, men in the brass section. In 2006, the first woman tuba player was engaged by a major US-American orchestra (Phelps, 2010). Applying blind auditions will not change gender constructions at their root, but they raise the probability that a woman will be hired by about 50% (Goldin & Rouse, 2000).



Goldin, C. & Rouse, C. (2000) Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians. The American Economic Review, September, 715-741
Phelps, A. L. (2010) Beyond auditions: gender discrimination in America's top orchestras. Iowa Research Online (via); photo via

Nazia, Mariam, Alison, and the Labour Market

In a field experiment, a British research group sent 2961 applications to 987 advertised job vacancies between November 2008 and May 2009. For each vacancy, three applications were sent: one with a "white name" and two with different minority ethnic group names (African, Caribbean, Chinese, Pakistani/Bangladeshi), e.g. Nazia Mahmood, Mariam Namagembe and Alison Taylor. There was an even split in the proportion of the applications that were male and female. The researchers made sure that the fake applicants did not differ in their qualification but only in their names and the associated ethnicity. While the levels of discrimination between male and female applicants were similar, there were high levels of name-based discrimination. A ratio of 1.74 was found, in other words, 74% more ethnic minority than non-minority applications needed to be sent to get the same number of positive responses.

 

Wood, M., Hales, J., Purdon, S., Sejersen, T. & Hayllar, O. (2009) A test for racial discrimination in recruitment practice in British cities. A report of research carried out by National Centre for Social Research on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.
Photo by Clifford Coffin (1949) via