At least that’s according to comments I’ve heard numerous times attending and participating in workplace gender diversity events and discussions. This is limiting the pool of first round female candidates available for certain positions before the interviewing process even begins.
But where’s the evidence that this is happening? Where are the studies that can claim this is a major trend that’s occurring?
And is the problem, if there is a problem, that women lack confidence?
Much of the evidence of this perceived trend is anecdotal, and comes from what people believe is going on – or at least have witnessed, or heard about, in same way. Some claim they heard it from a mentee who shared a story of not applying for a role, others that they can see the issue in the number of female applicants applying for certain positions.
Others may have read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, in which the Facebook COO cites internal research from HP, quoted in a McKinsey article, that found men will apply for a position if they meet 60% of the requirements, while women will only do so if they meet 100% of the requirements. That study was later published again in The Confidence Code and has been mentioned in numerous articles since. It’s been used to claim everything from women lack confidence, to men are overly self-assured, and that recruiters need to address the language they use in job ads in order to attract a more diverse range of candidates.
On Friday at the launch of a new gender diversity report from Boston Consulting Group, ABC Managing Director Michelle Guthrie shared her own personal experience of being turned off from applying for a role because she believed she was underqualified. The job advert specifically called for somebody who had “run an advertising company” – of which she had not. Later she was told by someone involved in the hiring process that she’d be “perfect for the role”. Michelle used this example to further back up the idea that women expect themselves to meet all or at least the majority of the criteria when applying for a position, when men will not.
It’s hard to say if Michelle’s hesitation for applying for that role came from the fact she was a woman, or if other men with a similar level of experience would have opted out of applying for the position – and/or ever share the experience with a roomful of men and women, as Michelle did.
Perhaps part of the issue with job advertisements is that they often call for black and white experiences with leadership – experiences that women can’t always claim to have achieved. More men than women have had the opportunity to serve in leadership positions in large corporates, so more men than women may naturally apply for a job position that calls for specific experience in such positions.
Tara Sophia Mohr shared her own research on the issue with the Harvard Business Review in 2014. She surveyed 1000 men and women on one simple question: “If you decided not to apply for a job because you didn’t meet all the qualifications, why didn’t you apply?”
What she found was that self confidence wasn’t a leading barrier, with just 10% of men and 12% of women ticking, “I didn’t think I could d the job well” as their key reasons for not applying.
Rather, the number one reason for not applying came down to the effort required, with 46% of men and 41% of women listing as their number one reasons that: “I didn’t think they would hire me since I didn’t meet the qualifications and I didn’t want to waste my time and energy.”
As Mohr wrote at the time:
“What held them back from applying was not a mistaken perception about themselves, but a mistaken perception about the hiring process.”
It’s not necessarily a matter of confidence, but rather one of opportunity. Smart organisations that genuinely want to see a more diverse range of candidates applying for leadership positions must recognise that they will only achieve this if they call for a more diverse range of experiences in their job ads.
And for everyone applying for such roles, read in between the oftentimes laziness of those who’ve written the job advertisements.
Help a recruiter out. Apply for the jobs they have advertised, even when they’ve failed to correctly articulate just what they’re looking for.