This is #IncreaseDiversity, a weekly series sharing best practices for employers who want to implement effective diversity recruitment programs. In this edition, we are exploring the hiring system through a five-part composite case study demonstrating the career experience of being underrepresented while navigating in the hiring system. Welcome to Part I: Keesha Meets the Hiring System.

To have a career, Keesha must interact with the hiring system and all the policies, practices, and behaviors with which companies comply to preserve it. This hiring system has a series of challenging mental and emotional obstacles that can be covert and overt. Therefore, it creates an obstacle course that Keesha must overcome while simultaneously experiencing a battle of two worlds. She wrangles an internal dialogue of, “Am I enough?” In the other world, she encounters external perceptions whereby people question, “Is she enough?” And the only way to get through this obstacle course is to navigate it well. Navigating the hiring system can mean jumping over landmines of appropriate versus inappropriate behavior, dodging microaggressions, swimming through unconscious biases, and balancing the tight rope of assimilation versus authenticity to be likable and make others feel comfortable.

The war starts the moment Keesha faces the decision to enter the job market. The internal dialogue proceeds.

I: The Decision: Bet on yourself? The internal dialogue: Am I enough? Should I take a chance and bet on myself?

Keesha is a beneficiary of generational trauma. In her psyche, she carries with her centuries of exploitation, oppression, and exclusion of both enslaved and freed ancestors. She carries the experiences of her emancipated, but oppressed ancestors who, during the Reconstruction era, tried to build a better life after enslavement only to suffer mass incarceration, false accusations, lynching, and other tortures. Furthermore, she carries with her the experience of her ancestors being excluded during the Jim Crow era, only to be treated as separate and unequal. For centuries, they died trying to be seen and treated as humans. Her ancestors fought for human rights for Blacks. Her ancestors fought for equal rights for women. Her ancestors fought for constitutional rights for LGBTQ+. A journey that has still not come to an end. It has simply evolved. This energy moves through her consciousness. What once meant death for her ancestors, to her, manifests as mental and emotional anguish—oftentimes killing parts of her whole self along the way. It becomes a part of the journey through the hiring system embedded with an obstacle course for marginalized populations.

She struggles with the decision to start a new job search. After all, maybe it is better for her to stay put at her current company. She knows the good, the bad and the ugly and has learned to navigate it. What if she cannot navigate the next company? She struggles with confidence in her own decision to evaluate a company before accepting an offer. After all, she thought she found a good company in her current employer, but quickly discovered it was not what the manager sold it to be. Is now the right time to look for a new job? Should she wait for a better time?

She makes a decision to move forward.

II: The Job Description. The internal dialogue: Am I enough? For whom was this job description created?

Keesha finds a job posting. It is a job description filled with a masculine tone where she reads words “grit” and “dominance” and “aggressive.” Though it does not quite sound like her, she resigns to the fact that this position is in a male-dominated industry and a male dominated field. She continues reading. There are 10 qualifications she must meet to be considered for the role. She takes the time to review each qualification. If even one is off, she questions herself. She researches the company jargon written in the posting to understand the acronyms used. If they put this jargon in the job description, it must mean that she should know what it means, right? And finally, she decides to submit an application.

The war continues. As the internal dialogue advances, the external dialogue enters.

LinkedIn’s research shows that women on average apply for fewer positions, and in particular for less senior positions. So it may be that women are just applying for positions that are safer bets for them which leads to higher success rates per application (source).

Source: LinkedIn.com

III: The Application. The external dialogue: Is she enough? Will she have what it takes to fit into our culture?

The recruiter looks at Keesha’s resume. He smirks at the name Keesha as if he has uncovered the secret, Keesha’s race and gender. He struggles to confirm whether to pass along Keesha’s application. The hiring manager, Brian, made it perfectly clear that the department only wants to see applicants from their list of top schools, one being Brian’s alma mater. Hesitantly, the recruiter passes the application along and reminds Brian that the organization has an initiative to increase diversity. Brian obliges and reviews. Does Keesha have the “with-it-ness” to work here, he questions. After all, Sarah was hired 7 years ago, and she left after one year. I only want to invest in people who can make it here, Brian groans. Begrudgingly, he invites Keesha to interview.

Keesha accepts the interview.

“Companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race...” (source)

IV: The Interview. The internal dialogue: Am I enough? Have I made them feel comfortable enough? | The external dialogue: Is she enough? Can I see her doing this work, on this team, for this company, supporting our clients?

Keesha gets a professional blow out to straighten her natural hair. Replaces the green nail polish for a neutral color. She switches the hoop earrings for studs. And then, she finds a pair of heels that match her conservative suit. She tops it all with practice sessions of smiling in the mirror and making full eye-contact while answering the question, “Tell me about yourself.”

As she enters the interview, Keesha must navigate her concerns that she does not see images or reflections of individuals at the company who identify similarly to her. She must navigate the fact that Chip, another candidate, already knows Brian because they were introduced through a mutual contact. She must navigate the fact that she and Brian have no obvious mutual contacts because no one in his network looks like her and probably never will.

“Research shows that 70% of all jobs are not published publicly on jobs sites and as much as 80% of jobs are filled through personal and professional connections.” (source)

She must navigate how to demonstrate confidence. Though she has it, she has been socialized to believe that her work should speak for itself and anything more would be too bossy. She must navigate Brian’s unconscious biases that have only seen white men from ivy league schools work in this field. Keesha must navigate the fact that Brian has not ever had to work with Keeshas or people who identify like her. Brian is used to working with employees like Chip who engage in heterosexual relationships, are married with 2.5 kids and have conservative views about politics—none of which Keesha identifies with.

“Research shows that women’s reviews are more likely to contain negative feedback, and women tend to receive different types of criticism than men. Men typically receive constructive suggestions related to additional skills to develop and growth areas, whereas women are critiqued for personality: “You come off as abrasive;” “Pay attention to your tone.” Women are often described as “bossy,” “abrasive,” “strident,” and “aggressive” when they lead, or “emotional” and “irrational” when they disagree with others. (source)

Keesha must navigate the covert and overt discrimination, the unconscious bias, unfair, inconsistent hiring practices, untrained interviewers, and ultimately a hiring process that was created to keep her out of the room and keep Chip at the table.

Feeling the pressure of his company to increase diversity, Brian perceives his options as limited. Keesha receives an offer.

V: The Offer Acceptance. The internal dialogue: Am I enough? Does the pay match my value? | The external dialogue: Is she enough? Will her value match the role?

Keesha ponders the offer letter. The salary is not much higher than her current salary. In retrospect, she wonders if she should have answered when the recruiter asked her how much she currently earns. But at the time, she felt like it was unavoidable. She had three choices: (1) answer the question honestly, (2) tell the recruiter an increased salary, or (3) do not answer the question and risk offending the recruiter. She selected option one.

Brian considers Keesha a risky hire and feels that only time will tell whether he made the right decision. His instinct tells him that he will have to make more concessions than normal in order to help Keesha be successful. This all feels like a massive inconvenience. An inconvenience of which creates a negative energy Keesha will experience and has to navigate during her onboarding.

“It’s often worse for women of color: If you break it down by race and ethnicity, the pay gap is even wider for Black women, Native American women, and Latinas.”

The Gender Pay Gap

Source: Leanin.org

VI: The Onboarding. The internal dialogue: Am I enough? Will I find community and connection? | The external dialogue: Is she enough? Was she a “diversity hire?”

This is a busy culture. It is one of the first observations Keesha recalls. So busy, in fact, she is left to her own capability to get up to speed and perform. Meetings with her manager are few. Brian’s only expectations of performance are, “make the customer happy.” And when the customer is not happy, Brian is very unhappy.

With limited women and people of color on the team, Keesha is forced to navigate outside of shared life experiences to enter conversations with her peers discussing matters unknown to her. To find community, she works hard to enter those conversations anyway. She tries hard to not look like an outsider, for fear that she, feeling like an impostor, will be caught and removed.

VII: The Promotion. The internal dialogue: Am I enough? How did my peer receive a promotion before me? | The external dialogue: Is she enough? Will she have what it takes to fit into leadership?

Keesha works hard, keeps her head down, covers for her lower performing peers, and meets each of her deadlines. During performance reviews, she always receives great feedback and hears from Brian that she is on track. The challenge is that Keesha does not know how to get a promotion and no one can clarify the process. There are no posted guidelines and rarely are positions available for her to apply.

Whenever she asks about a promotion, she is always told that she is not quite ready. There is always “something” she must work on before she is considered “ready now” for leadership. Conversations among leadership, however, expose a different concern. Leaders are unfamiliar with Keesha and her work. So, it is hard to judge whether Keesha is qualified for the next level. They only have Brian’s feedback from which to draw.

So Keesha watches as promotional announcements are made. Her peers, even the ones she covered for, are promoted. When she questions why them and not her, she is perceived as angry, bitter, and jealous. And then Keesha reaches a decision point all over again. Is now the time to bet on myself through another employer?

Am I enough?

As we take some time to talk about each of these phases, comment below answering one (or all) of the three questions:

In this case study, who wins and who loses? And why?
At each phase, what are some other reasons Keesha may feel compelled to ask, “Am I enough?”
What is one practice, policy, or behavior that you feel also preserves the hiring system?

Do not forget to like, comment, and subscribe to the newsletter. This is part one of a five-part edition. Join us next week, July 14, for Part II: How Employers and Career Coaches can Disrupt the Hiring System

Part I: Keesha meets the hiring system
Part II: How employers and career coaches can disrupt the hiring system
Part III: How employers can leverage Keesha’s spectrum of perspective
Part IV: A closing message for Keesha
Part V: Answering FAQs

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