Women are less likely to apply for jobs, but more likely to get hired: report

Despite the fact that gender equality at the workplace lends itself to umpteen debates and discussions, women continue to feel discriminated against in many fields of work and even study.

According to a report by Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2017, employers favour men not because they are prejudiced against women, but because they have the perception that men perform better on average at certain tasks.

It is perhaps this perception that lends to the fact that in many industries, women are less likely to advance to the top of their fields. “Women make up just 4.2 percent of CEOs and 19.2 percent of board members,” the report had stated.

The recent Gender Insights Report by LinkedIn pointed out how gender impacts a candidate’s journey. It found that while women and men explore opportunities similarly, there is a clear difference in how they apply for jobs, and how companies recruit them. The findings were compiled using the billions of data points created by more than 610 million members in over 200 countries on LinkedIn in 2018, as well as surveying a group of LinkedIn users in 2017 and in 2018.

The survey results show women to be more selective about the jobs they apply to when compared to men. “Women are 16 percent less likely to apply for a job after viewing it. But when women apply to jobs, they are more likely to get hired,” the report stated.

Recruitment differences

Companies depend on employee referrals and recruiters’ reports as their top source of quality hires. However, women are far less likely than men to ask for a referral to a job they are interested in, even when they have a connection at the company. Men are reported to be 68 percent more likely to ask for a referral before applying to a job.

Both men and women want to know what it is like to work at a company before applying for an opening there. Nearly 70 percent of the women said they consider salary range and benefits as the most important part of a job posting.

The report also revealed how recruiters reach out to people. Once a recruiter views a woman’s profile, they are likely to reach out via mail, as compared to men. “The challenge, however, is that when women appear in recruiter search results, they are 13 percent less likely to be viewed by recruiters than men,” the report stated.

Survey data showed that both men and women are almost equally interested in learning about new opportunities and majority of them would be willing to speak with a recruiter if one reached out.

Also read: In India, 96 percent of women in tech want to stay in the industry, claims report

When qualification matters

In order to apply for a job women feel they need to meet 100 percent of the criteria while men usually apply after meeting about 60 percent. Women tend to screen themselves out of the conversation and end up applying to fewer jobs than men.

The HBS report too stated something similar. It said women are much less likely to get hired for jobs than men, even when the candidates have the exact same qualifications.

From the behavioural pattern seen by LinkedIn, women and men consider a wide range of opportunities when they start browsing job postings. While career growth is a common priority, both genders are willing to invest the time to do their research.

The report also stated that to achieve gender balance at work, a company needs to address the unconscious bias in the sourcing process. Data showed that when recruiters are searching for candidates, they looked at men’s LinkedIn profiles more frequently.

However, after recruiters review a candidate’s profile, they find women to be as qualified as men, and reach out to both genders at a similar rate. “To combat the initial selection bias, more companies are implementing anonymised hiring and removing key identifiers like names and photos from candidates’ applications. Some are even using VR technology to eliminate the bias of in-person interviews,” the report added.