References Holding You Back?0

Have you been searching for a new job for a while?  Might your references or recommendation letters be holding you back?

If you’re a woman, chances are they say you’re nurturing, agreeable, helpful, kind and sympathetic. Sounds great, right? Not necessarily. These are exactly the qualities that won’t get you hired in some industries, like academia.

A new research project at Rice University and the University of Houston reviewed recommendation letters and found a major difference between how men and women were portrayed.  Women had more “communal” terms in their letters — the compliments of being nurturing, supportive, etc. — while letters recommending men had more “agentic” terms, like confident, aggressive, outspoken and assertive.

The study also found that the more action-oriented letters had better chances in making people want to hire the candidate. The letters in this portion of the study had all gender markers stripped from them, and participants noted whether or not they would hire the candidate based on the recommendation.

Lifestyle site Lemondrop.com has come up with some great tips on how to eliminate gender bias in your recommendation letters:

• Rethink the way you ask for a recommendation. Use active verbs and direct, concise language when making a request for a reference.
• Paint a picture. Within the request, remind your former supervisor/colleague of your key accomplishments.
• Make it easy to recommend you. Provide examples of problems you solved while working together. Include language that can be lifted verbatim into a recommendation.  Give your potential recommenders a list of accomplishments and attributes that you want articulated.