Resumes with nonbinary pronouns likely overlooked: Report

(NewsNation) — Research from a Business.com report found nonbinary job seekers face bias in the hiring processes.

More than 80% of nonbinary people believed that using “they/them” pronouns in their resume would hurt their job search. Additionally, over half of nonbinary people reported having negative experiences once hired.

The report tested how the use of gender-neutral pronouns impacted an employer’s perception. Business.com sent mostly identical resumes of two phantom job seekers to 180 unique job postings that were for entry-level candidates.

“Both featured a gender-ambiguous name, ‘Taylor Williams.’ The only difference between the test and control resumes was the presence of gender pronouns on the test version. The test resume included ‘they/them’ pronouns under the name in the header,” the report said.

Seventy-two percent of managers said they’d contact the applicant on the control resume, but only 69% would want to interview the applicant whose resume contained “they/them” pronouns.

There are approximately 1.2 million LGBTQ+ adults in the United States who identify as nonbinary, according to a 2021 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

The Human Rights Campaign defines a nonbinary person as someone “who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman. Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or falling completely outside these categories. While many also identify as transgender, not all nonbinary people do.”