There are a lot of things I dread doing: waking up early, shaving my legs, running. But nothing causes me as much anxiety as applying for jobs. And so, as you can imagine, I’m not thrilled to be spending my nights sifting through job boards or the career pages of dream organizations while editing my resume.
I guess when I really think about it, it’s not applying for a job that I don’t like or even interviewing. I actually love to talk about myself and my accomplishments. It’s the negative thoughts that enter my mind before I hit “submit” to apply. It’s natural to second-guess yourself and your ability to fulfill the job description, but most of the time I’m not worried about my skill set.
I’m worried about my race.
I get angry thinking about all the white faces with less experience than me that are submitting their resumes for the same position without a care. Maybe they know the hiring manager, or maybe they’ve got a friend at the company. Either way, the bigger issue here is this:
As a black applicant, there are a number of things that I have to worry about that white applicants don’t:
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I wonder if someone else will look like me in the office
Some businesses have a team page where you can see everyone that works there, bright-eyed with smiling faces. It’s usually accompanied by some type of quote or link to their social pages. I use this to my advantage, doing some serious digging to find out how they really feel about the company and if it’ll be a good fit for me.
2. I worry about microaggressions
No, you can’t touch my hair. Yes, my real name is Brittany. And, no, I’m not “really well spoken for a black girl,” I’m just really well spoken.
3. I wonder if black lives matter to the company and how my views will be received
It’s not that I expect a company to have social channels that proclaim #BlackLivesMatter, and there isn’t anything wrong with a little disagreement, but I shouldn’t have to wonder if the company is going to allow blatantly racist comments to be shared throughout the office.
4. I wonder if my hairstyle will be accepted
This one seems silly but past examples have proven that blacks have lost their jobs because of the way their hair grows out of their scalp or for refusing to change their hair.
5. I wonder if I’ll be hired based on skill and personality or to fill a quota
While in college, and even in my first job out of school, I knew that if I wasn’t asked any other question from my white counterparts I’d be asked something along the lines of “what qualifies you to work here?” No matter how many times I was asked this question it still caught me by surprise. After all, I’d already been hired, so why do I have to run through my resume again for you? It wasn’t until I gave an elevator pitch to coworkers that I was accepted as someone with talent and not just the diversity hire of the month.
Sometimes, I feel like the problem is me. Maybe I’m being too picky or expecting too much out of my first few years of my career. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel like the first few years are crucial. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not plagued with fear of applying to predominately white businesses because of the things I listed above. But sometimes I just get sick of always having to be twice as good to get half as much or, in some cases, not even a call back.
