Have you ever looked at a job posting, scanned the necessary qualifications, and immediately ruled yourself out from applying? If so, you’re not alone. According to a report by Hewlett-Packard, women apply to jobs only when they meet 100% of the qualifications. Men, on the other hand, approach job applications with much more confidence. Even if they meet only 60% of the qualifications, they tend to apply anyway.
This gender disparity manifests in many other steps in the job application process. According to a study by Kieran Snyder for Fortune, women tend to be more wordy when describing prior jobs, tell a story with complete sentences, and use passive statements with less assertive words. Men tend to keep their resumes one page, create bulleted lists of achievements, and use strong verb statements. These simple differences in presentation meant that men’s resumes “provided more detail with less words and less distraction.” Even if a male and a female candidate are equally qualified, hiring managers will lean to the more assertive resume.
There’s a confidence gap and a resume gap, and it means that women are being overlooked for men who are equally, or even less, qualified. When women do apply, the style of their resume might hold them back. These two factors contribute to gender disparities in male dominated fields such as tech and finance. So, what sociological pressures lead to women and men presenting themselves so differently? Studies show that it begins in elementary school.
According to the Harvard Business Review, girls are socialized to follow the rules and are rewarded for doing so. This skill helps girls perform better in schools relative to boys but can become a risk when they enter the workforce. A 2001 study by Diane Ready showed that boys are given more freedom to break rules, evoking the “boys will be boys” mantra, whereas girls are “expected to follow rules carefully and adopt an obedient rule.” Women are trained from a young age to thrive on the validation that comes from following authority. But in adult life, where rules are sometimes meant to be challenged, it can lead women to fall behind. The same skills that lead a girl to succeed in school might hold her back from applying to a job that she isn’t 100% qualified for. They learn to avoid taking risks and making mistakes. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, wrote, “If life were one long grade school, women would be the undisputed rulers of the world.”
Similar sociological factors influence how women write their resumes. Societal norms push women to be compassionate and collaborative whereas men are rewarded for being authoritative and ambitious. This means that when women write a resume, they must struggle with these expectations and may shy away from writing assertively. Biases in the workplace reinforce these fears: Katty Klay and Claire Shipman write in the Atlantic, “women suffer consequences for their lack of confidence—but when they do behave assertively, they may suffer a whole other set of consequences, ones that men don’t typically experience.”
Therefore, gender biases and systemic sexism in the school and workplace influence how women think about themselves, and thus how they present themselves. These external barriers must be addressed. But these barriers might not be broken in our lifetime which means we must face the one in our own heads first. Stop thinking so much and just act. “The natural result of low confidence is inaction”, write Kay and Shipman. “When women hesitate because we aren’t sure, we hold ourselves back.”
Apply to the job you want and write your resume with confidence. Consider the way you might be downplaying your expertise so that you don’t come off “too assertive”. Simply being aware of the way women are socialized can lead you to shed sexist expectations. In a world where confidence is often valued more than competence, simple changes in the way you consider opportunities and present your qualifications can make all the difference.
