Maybe when hiring or interviewing, you rely on certain red flags to tell you whether or not to move forward with someone. But sometimes, a red flag isn’t actually a red flag but instead an outdated unconscious bias.
Episode Transcript
Allie Nimmons:
Welcome to the Underrepresented in Tech Podcast, hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented in Tech is a free database built with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech overall.
Michelle Frechette:
Hi, Allie.
Allie Nimmons:
Hi, Michelle. How are you doing?
Michelle Frechette:
Good. It’s hard for me not to do that to everybody now, because I just have that sing-songiness in my head, and it makes me so happy when I say that to you, that I’m always in meetings. I’m like, “Hi, Sarah. Hi, Joe.”
Allie Nimmons:
I love it. It’s a delightful way to start listening. I’m sure our listeners appreciate it.
Michelle Frechette:
I hope so. I hope so.
Allie Nimmons:
Having someone sing to them in a beautiful little voice.
Michelle Frechette:
Well, there you go, right? I mean, it’s uplifting, right? No matter how hard hitting our topics can be, we’re happy about it. So it’s all good. I wanted to talk to today a little bit about how things have changed in hiring. And I want to focus specifically on tech. I think it’s true that things have changed across the board. But I can’t speak for every industry, certainly not things that are… Nursing, for example. There’s different things. I don’t know how to hire a nurse. I don’t know what that looks like. But in tech, and in what we do in marketing and tech, things like that, I think that there are things that used to be red flags, right? On cover letters, and on applications, and on resumes that are no longer or should no longer be red flags. I think that there are things that we’ve had traditionally in place in hiring processes that don’t need to be the way they are anymore. And I think that there are questions that we sometimes ask.
First of all, there’s definitely questions that are in the United States anyway. I don’t know if you’re listening in other countries, but in the United States anyway, are illegal to ask, still get asked anyway, because if you want the job, who’s going to not answer questions? And they know that. Or they ask without knowing what the rules are or laws are. And that there’s still questions sometimes that are asked that are none of your business, even if it’s not illegal, right? So I thought we could talk a little bit about some of that in hopes of helping people who are in a hiring situation do a better job at getting good candidates in, number one, by disregarding things they don’t need to pay attention to. And number two, making their process better, so that they’re not inconveniencing and roadblocking themselves on good candidates.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. And this will be a primary Michelle episode. And I’ll sit here with you and listen to that, because I’ve only had to hire once. There was one instance where I was on a team where I had the opportunity to hire, and I did my best. I ended up hiring an amazing person. But I don’t have nearly as much experience with that level of stuff as you do. So yeah, I’m super excited to learn.
Michelle Frechette:
Well, let’s start with some things that used to be red flags for me. And I am going to start this off by saying, I have grown so much. I just had a birthday. I’m 54 years old now. I am not the person that was hiring people-
Allie Nimmons:
Happy birthday, Michelle.
Michelle Frechette:
Thank you. Thank you.
Allie Nimmons:
We never said that on the podcast, by the way. Happy birthday, Michelle. Happy birthday, Michelle.
Michelle Frechette:
Thank you.
Allie Nimmons:
Happy birthday, Michelle. Okay, go ahead.
Michelle Frechette:
But in 30 years, well, maybe not quite 30, 25 years of hiring people over time, I’ve grown, right? And the industry has changed. And the industry I was in versus the industry I’m in now has changed. And everybody’s starting out in those positions makes mistakes. So I am a person, a human, who has made mistakes over their life, and I’ve made that very clear, and I have grown. And I, hopefully, am a better person today than I was yesterday, much less 25 years ago. So I’ll just get that out of the way to begin with. But some of the things that used to be real red flags was, let’s say, language. Right? So improper use of English language. I’m using quotation marks. You all can’t see that, because you’re just listening. But the English language, if you’re hiring a writer, that might be a different situation, right?
But I’m not talking about specifics. Specifically, you’re writing my blog and you don’t understand how English syntax works, because it’s not your first language. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about why should it matter if I’m hiring a developer, for example, or I’m hiring a graphic artist, for example, that they might not have their English perfect in a cover letter or in their application. So I’m struggling to think of a for example. But let’s say, even that they spell words differently in their version of English, right? So British English is very different than American English. And you might put O-U-R instead of just O-R in the way that things like color, for example.
And so, should that disqualify somebody from a job? I used to say, maybe not the British part, right? If I could tell that English wasn’t their first language, and they weren’t going to write properly, take that with a grain of salt, the word properly, because I’m talking about 25 years ago, that they would automatically be disqualified. Their cover letter was not attention to detail enough for hiring back when I worked in academia. The truth of the matter is, if somebody’s second language is what they’re writing in, and that’s not germane to the job they’re going to be doing, why does it matter? I would argue it doesn’t. Right? So Allie’s nodding. She’s-
Allie Nimmons:
Sorry. I muted myself.
Michelle Frechette:
I’m like, “Come on. Chime in, Allie”
Allie Nimmons:
I’m so sorry. I muted myself, so that I wouldn’t make any noise and interrupt you. But yes, I’m nodding.
Michelle Frechette:
It’s okay. Yes.
Allie Nimmons:
Yes, I totally agree with you.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. And there’s questions that we used to ask… So just to kind of put it out there. The questions you cannot ask legally in the United States are, what is your marital status? Do you have children? Do you plan to have children? What is your health? Do you have any disabilities? Those are not questions that you can ask in an application. Those are not questions you can ask in an interview. Those will get you in trouble with the labor board, wherever you live.
There’s always been ways around that, right? There’s things around that. There’s ways that you can ask questions that are kind of skirt the issue a little bit, those kinds of things. And those things shouldn’t be asked either quite honestly. If you ask somebody, “So Allie, are you planning to have children?” What am I really asking? I’m asking, “So are there going to be major outages in the next few years while you’re working for me?”
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if there are, because it’s illegal to ask that. I hope this never happens. But Allie could get hit by a bus next week, and be out for a month anyway. Well, she’s having her leg fixed. I don’t know. So whether or not she goes out for maternity leave versus she’s out for an extended illness, or a spousal illness, whatever it is, we have things now built into our work system to be able to cover and help with those things. The Family Medical Leave Act, for example, is one of those things. So we need to be really cautious about what we’re looking at when we’re hiring. And I would argue the only thing we need to look at is attitude, because we want somebody who fits, right? We’re looking for fit and ability. Can they do the job-
Allie Nimmons:
Skills.
Michelle Frechette:
… you’re asking them? Skills, that’s right. If you’re asking for a blogger, are they able to write? Can I see a writing sample? Can I see the work that you’ve done? And know that it’s the style and the ability fits in with what we need. If you’re a developer, I want to see some examples of your programming, right?
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
Those are the things that matter, not like, “Oh, and do you have children?”
Allie Nimmons:
And I feel like, so say it’s, January, February, March, right?
Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm.
Allie Nimmons:
And you are hiring a marketing manager, and you know that the holidays is your most busiest season, and you can’t have anyone out during the holidays. And so, you’re thinking, “Well, I don’t want you getting pregnant. And then, being out nine months from now during the holiday.” I feel like, isn’t it more appropriate for you to put in the job description. Here are the times of year or here are the times in the coming future where you would have to be available if you take this job. So then, that way, if maybe that person is family planning, right? Then, they would be able to account for that without having to be asked. That seems more helpful, rather than putting the person on the spot and asking them personal questions.
Michelle Frechette:
Right. But also, even if they are family planning, and that is when your busy season is, they might not be family planning, and they might get pregnant anyway.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, true.
Michelle Frechette:
You can give as much information as possible. That’s not going to stop somebody from applying for a job they want. And it’s not going to stop circumstances from happening after you’ve hired somebody. So basically, I’m still just saying, you got to hire people based on their skill sets and their fit for the organization. Are the personalities going to work well together? Are you hiring for synergy? Or are you hiring because somebody fits your calendar year?
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
So important to really just think about the right things. And I was telling you a little bit before. Is it always necessary to have an interview? Some people who are neurodivergent, some people who have huge anxiety disorders, and things like that, for them, the interview is the most difficult part of a process. They may be the most amazing person, and fit in the company, and have skills out the wazoo. I don’t know what a wazoo is. But they might have skills that go right out their wazoo.
And at that point, they are so in the throes of anxiety, they interview poorly. If this person isn’t in a position where they have to interface with others often, interview other people, put in high anxiety screen times with other people, is it important to have a face-to-face interview? Could you do it asynchronously? I’m just putting ideas out there, because if it’s not germane to the job, then why are we forcing people to do things that are-
Allie Nimmons:
Necessary.
Michelle Frechette:
That are not necessary. And that could be even be problematic. The other thing-
Allie Nimmons:
I have-
Michelle Frechette:
Go ahead.
Allie Nimmons:
I was going to say, I have two that I thought of.
Michelle Frechette:
Uh-huh.
Allie Nimmons:
That I wanted to throw in really quickly. So in a recent episode that I did of this podcast with accessibility expert, Amber Hines. Or she provided an anecdote about somebody who was blind, and they were given as part of an interview, I guess a coding exercise to do as a part of their interview. And the code was not accessible to them.
Michelle Frechette:
Oh, gee whiz.
Allie Nimmons:
So they couldn’t even access what they needed to do. It wasn’t that they couldn’t do the exercise, they couldn’t see it.
Michelle Frechette:
Right.
Allie Nimmons:
You know?
Michelle Frechette:
Exactly.
Allie Nimmons:
For lack of a better word, they couldn’t see it. And-
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
That was a huge thing. And so, if you’re giving somebody… I mean, we could do a whole episode on the practice of making people code for interviews. But if you’re doing that, and you’re doing it in a way that is preventative toward their success.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, it’s going to seem like a red flag that they’re like, “Well, I can’t do this.” Or that they do it poorly or incorrectly because you didn’t… There’s that.
Michelle Frechette:
Or are you just sucky at providing tasks in your interviews?
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, which means you’d be sucky at providing tasks within the company, but that’s whatever.
Michelle Frechette:
Exactly.
Allie Nimmons:
The other thing, completely separate to that. Something that I knew of as a red flag for a very long time that has recently become okay to most people is hair. Right?
Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm.
Allie Nimmons:
And I don’t want to just say black, because there are people of color… The hair of people color in its natural state. So it’s not chemically processed. It’s not covered by a wig, or braids, or anything, for such a long time was seen as unprofessional, and was a red flag to people in an interview of like, “Well, you don’t look professional.” Right? You don’t present yourself well for the interview. And so, that has an effect on things. That absolutely needs to get thrown out of the window.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. For sure.
Allie Nimmons:
My hair grew out of my head the way that it grew, and that should be enough for you. My hair does not affect my ability to do a job.
Michelle Frechette:
That’s right.
Allie Nimmons:
Also, I saw an article yesterday that was talking about how a lot of hair relaxers have been linked to ovarian cancer.
Michelle Frechette:
Oh, so let’s not even go.
Allie Nimmons:
And for 60 years, as a woman-
Michelle Frechette:
Telling people.
Allie Nimmons:
You couldn’t even get hired if your hair wasn’t relaxed. You couldn’t go into the Army if your hair was not relaxed.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, it’s terrible.
Allie Nimmons:
Hello? So…
Michelle Frechette:
Right?
Allie Nimmons:
I think there’s something to be said definitely for, if you go to an interview, you dress a certain type of way, you try to look your absolute best in terms of your appearance. But I think that there’s definitely people who take it too seriously to where it’s like, “Oh, you have a hair out of place. Or you wore jeans and that’s inappropriate.” And so, that’s going to get thrown out.
Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
So the overall thing is, I’m saying for this one, is kind of physical appearance when it comes to-
Michelle Frechette:
Yes.
Allie Nimmons:
… people who don’t look like you.
Michelle Frechette:
Exactly. Exactly. It has no bearing in how somebody does their job. And then, the last thing I would mention is something that used to be kind of a unwritten requirement was that resumes had to be kept to one page. I haven’t done any research on this, so I’m going anecdotally here. I think the history on that was, when I was growing up, you actually had to go to a printer and have your resumes printed, because the internet did not exist. Computers did not exist. You had a professional person type up your resume. And then, you had a hundred copies made at a printer on nice paper. And so, people didn’t want a stack of papers delivered to them. You were worried that, you didn’t want to staple them. But if it ended up in a stack and they were separated, what would happen?
You didn’t print front and back, because that wasn’t a thing, unless you were printing a book. There’s so much history in what a resume is. But nowadays, I would much rather get three pages of somebody’s work, and involvement, and anything that’s really important to understand their body of work and how they would be able to do the job than have one page poorly identify things that they’ve done. I mean, I’ve never not had my resume updated, right? If you’re at Liquid Web and you’re listening to this, I’m not putting my resume out there. But I’m not stupid. I don’t want to forget things someday as I may move forward or whatever. And so I’ve always, from day one, kept a resume updated.
I now have a CV that’s about six pages long, because of all of the research I’ve done, my academic career, all of the speaking that I do, all the things that I do in my career, all the different projects that I have on the side. I could never fit that into one page and explain exactly who Michelle is working in your environment. And that’s okay. Because if I’m applying for a job that wants Michelle for who I am and the work that I do, they want to see that. And so, it’s okay to have a resume or a CV, curriculum vitae, that is longer than one page. And actually, oftentimes now, it’s welcome. And there’s a question about cover letters. A lot of the times, people don’t even… I hated cover letters when I was in a hiring position. It’s like, “Yeah, I know you want to do the job here. You’re going to blow sunshine up my skirt.” I don’t care. I just want to see the work that you do.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
If the cover letter doesn’t add to the body of work that you’ve already talked about in your resume, I don’t care. Don’t even bother. Although some places still require it, so you really kind of have to have something ready.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. And also, the thing-
Michelle Frechette:
And then, the last thing that… Oh, sorry.
Allie Nimmons:
I wanted to just add-
Michelle Frechette:
Go ahead.
Allie Nimmons:
… to the long resume thing. I feel like it was also an assumption decades ago or whatever, however long ago, that if you’ve had more than one or two jobs, then something’s wrong with you. Why are you hopping around so much? You should have one job and stick with it your whole life sort of a thing. And so, if you’re looking for another job, they expect to see maybe one or two other positions, and whatever.
Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm.
Allie Nimmons:
Nowadays, I mean, I’m 30. If I had to present someone with a resume right now, there’d probably be six different places of employment already at 30 plus this and all the other stuff that I do.
Michelle Frechette:
Right. Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
So yeah, my resume needs to physically be longer to account for all of that. And I should not be punished for having-
Michelle Frechette:
Right.
Allie Nimmons:
… a rich and varied history, because that’s now how I think the workforce works is, it’s more normal to spend a couple years here, a couple years there, and move around, move up, and whatever. So yeah, I would hate to think that, okay, well, I can only have it one page. So I have to edit myself and make myself seem smaller to fit in this space that’s been designed for me.
Michelle Frechette:
And the other thing is, we’ve talked about this before, not requiring a photograph or a date of birth when somebody applies.
Allie Nimmons:
That’s a huge one.
Michelle Frechette:
Right? And I’ve always applied places in my past. Always applied sounds really weird. I have applied places in my youth specifically that would have you check off a box whether you are a male or female. I don’t see how that’s relevant. Maybe it’s important that you have something like that in your intake paperwork for hiring. I can’t imagine, but maybe for health insurance reasons or something like that, whatever. I’m not an HR person, but it’s absolutely not necessary in your application.
And I do want to acknowledge that there’s a lot of research that says, if I can tell by your resume… Not I, but the generic I, can tell by your resume that you are somebody from the BIPOC community, you’re probably automatically being discounted anyway. So if your name sounds ethnic, if I could see a face that’s not a white face, research just shows that automatically I’m discounting it as being less educated or less intelligent. And that’s just complete and utter bullshit. But I do want to acknowledge the fact that when people are asking for that information, they’re already biasing regardless of what your name is. And so, it’s an uphill battlefield anyway in a lot of respects. Let’s not make it even more difficult for people who are applying to work for you.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, there was one other one as you were talking that I thought to ask, is that… Oh, college. Do you think that that is something that… Because nowadays, college is not nearly as, not to say as important. But you can do a lot more professionally without a college education Right?
Michelle Frechette:
Sure.
Allie Nimmons:
The internet, and resources, and self-teaching, and bootcamps, and all that stuff. Do you feel like not having a college on a resume is still a red flag for some people?
Michelle Frechette:
I think it depends on the job, right?
Allie Nimmons:
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Frechette:
So I think in tech, less so. I think if you’re applying to be a nurse, you better see some nursing-
Allie Nimmons:
No. Yeah, for sure.
Michelle Frechette:
… education, right? Right. So we’re specifically talking about that, but I just kind of want to put that little caveat out there.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. I want my doctor to have a doctorate. You know?
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. Right? What do they say? You know what they call a doctor who graduated? Do you know what they call a med student who graduated less in their class? Doctor. As long as you’ve got the doctorate.
Allie Nimmons:
Dang.
Michelle Frechette:
Right?
Allie Nimmons:
That’s a good one.
Michelle Frechette:
Exactly.
Allie Nimmons:
That’s terrifying.
Michelle Frechette:
I know. Exactly. I don’t think it’s as important that, in a lot of respects, that there is a college degree on there. However, if you have a college degree and you’re proud of it, absolutely include it on your resume or your CV. It can only give you a boost up if people are looking for those kinds of things. However, if you are worried about age discrimination, you don’t have to put the year that you went to college. And let’s acknowledge that some people go to college later in life, right? So if I had gone to college in my 40s, and I put that I got my MBA in 2017, you’re going to automatically assume I’m younger than I am anyway, as opposed to I put my high school, my college graduation at 1991, and you’re like, “Damn, she’s old.” [inaudible 00:22:03].
Allie Nimmons:
Oh, no.
Michelle Frechette:
So you can put your college degrees without putting the year that you graduated. It’s not necessary information, and it can actually be used against you if somebody is age discriminant. So be cautious of the information that you include. If you have questions, you can DM me. You can DM us on our Twitter account. You can contact us through our website, or through Slack, whatever. Always happy to give my two cents worth and help people out if they have a question about what to include or not include. And from the hiring perspective, if you have questions about what things you should or shouldn’t ask or how you can ask certain questions, I’m always happy to help with that too.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that last one you talked about reminds me so much of, I was recently helping my mom get her resume up-to-date. My mom is, say, I think a couple years older than you.
Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm.
Allie Nimmons:
And she was very self-conscious because when she was in college, worked with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, which is one of the most famous historic Black dance companies in the world. And it’s an incredible piece of her professional education. And she didn’t want to include it, because she was like, “People are going to think that I’m old.” Because she had the date on there and everything, of the tour she was on.
And I was like, “I think you should put…” We talked about the benefits of like, do you want to age yourself or do you want to show this amazing thing that makes you an amazing hire? Right? I think at the end she did agree to leave it, but I think she took the dates off. And so, we compromised in that way. But we were very worried of like, will people see that as a red flag or a green flag? Because it could be both depending on who’s looking at it.
Michelle Frechette:
Yep, exactly. And you just have to be careful. So include what you want. We can have a whole topic one time about resume, and how to deal with gaps in your employment, and things like that. But basically today, I just kind of want to cover some of those red flags, dos and don’ts, and kind of just put that out there, so.
Allie Nimmons:
Absolutely. All righty.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
Thank you so much, Michelle. Thank you so much out there-
Michelle Frechette:
We’ll see you the next time.
Allie Nimmons:
… in podcastland for listening. Yeah, and we’ll see you next week.
This episode was sponsored by the following companies, WP Wallet. WP Wallet is a free, simple, intelligent tool that helps WordPress professionals effortlessly manage all of their license keys and invoices for all sites and clients. Never forget a renewal, lose a license key, or miss out on a reimbursement again. Join WP Wallet for free today.
LearnDash. Learndash is taking cutting edge e-learning methodology and infusing it into WordPress. More than just a plugin, LearnDash is trusted to power the learning programs for major universities, small to mid-size companies, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers worldwide.
If you’re interested in sponsoring an episode using our database, or just want to say hi, go to underrepresentedintech.com. See you next week.