Recruiters Discriminate Against Qualified Women in the Job Search

All the education in the world won’t help you overcome the biases of hiring managers. In a hiring study focused on class and gender, the results showed that the advantaged social background only helps men. Even with identical resumes, the upper-class man had a significantly higher callback rate than an upper-class woman with the identical resume. Excuses for this include perceptions of the candidate’s competence, likability, fit with an organization’s culture, and career commitment. One female attorney explained the perception that higher-class women don’t need a job because they “have enough money”, “will marry someone rich” or “end up being a helicopter mom.” Essentially, the commitment penalty negates any advantage a women might have on account of their social class.

This leads to further problems. When graduates with degrees are unable to find jobs, they end up in poor-fit jobs that they are overqualified for. Moreover, there is a bigger penalty today for graduates doing work that is “beneath” them. These factors are affected also by gender, but also by race – college-educated African-American and Hispanic people were around 9 percent more likely than their white counterparts to have jobs they are overqualified for.