International Women’s Day – Break the Bias

Support to change jobs or change careers, and overcome new job anxiety

The theme for International Women’s Day this year is #BreakTheBias, recognising that bias gets in the way of women moving ahead, and taking action by calling out gender bias, discrimination and stereotyping.

Recognising that one area where bias comes up for women is at work, this blog draws on my HR background and career coaching experience. My aim is to provide some tips to reduce job related stress and work anxiety, and provide some support with job change or career change, interviews, and general confidence building at work.

Confidence can be a big factor for women at work, and it has been found that women are actually harsher about themselves. For example, when looking at the same job ads, often women will rate themselves as meeting maybe 4 of 7 criteria, and therefore not apply, whereas men will reckon they meet at least half the criteria and apply. There are a few ways to address this and build confidence. If you can, find a mentor, someone who can support you with a combination of practical advice and that feeling of having someone you trust backing you up. When you see a job that you feel might be suitable, check in with your mentor about what skills, knowledge and experience they feel you have that are relevant to the job; they might highlight things you don’t even give yourself credit for!

A more foundational thing to work on, which is helpful across all areas of life, is self awareness. This is the ability to tune into your thoughts, feelings, including values and beliefs, and your actions, being aware of your strengths, skills and limitations without judgement. Self awareness allows you to work with what you have; making the most of your unique set of skills and experience, and helps reduce the self-judgments that can be limiting. Knowing, and being comfortable with, yourself helps give you the confidence to know who you are, what you are good at (and what you are not) and the ability to then authentically promote yourself in situations like work meetings, job interviews and performance appraisals.

Something women can find difficult is asking for help, but it’s invaluable! Some great sources of support are:

• online forums, such as mum’s pages or parenting pages if you’re seeking advice and support on returning to work, or balancing work and kids.

• LinkedIn forums and Seek, or other jobsites that have career guidance and job-hunting resources.

• family and friends. Be specific with requests for help; rather than telling a friend that you need some help with your job hunt, try for example;

o   ‘knowing that you’re great with grammar, can you please proof read this job application’,

o   ‘you know a lot about finance, can you please check that I’ve covered the key points in this application’,

o   ‘you’ve been on interview panels, will you please mock interview me for this job?’.

Get help with updating your resume and cover letter; there are online templates, companies who do resume writing, and of course I’m happy to provide some career coaching to talk through your plans, support you through the decision making, and give practical support through interview coaching, help with new job anxiety etc.

Many job ads will have a specific contact person, who is also a great resource. Call and ask questions about the job, checking that it sounds like a good fit before you spend time on an application, and also take the opportunity to promote yourself, so they remember you when they read your application. For example, if you ask about upcoming projects, or specific tasks, respond with ‘oh that’s great, I did xyz project in my last role’, ‘I do abc task in my current role and really enjoy it’…

If you have applied /interviewed for a job and didn’t get it, that contact person is still a great resource. Call up and thank them for having considered your application and ask for feedback. This is not about arguing that you should have got the job; rather it’s a chance to find out what came across well in your application or interview, what was missing and what you can improve. It may be that you have the skills and experience, but aren’t confident in selling yourself, or even that you’re not recognising skills you have that are important to employers.

Self awareness is also useful once in the workplace, where it’s not unusual to come across the idea that there are particular male and female roles, that women aren’t suited to leadership, and so on. These are some of the biases that we’re working to break, and there is evidence that the performance of men and women at work is rated differently. For instance, one study on gender and performance ratings found that men were overall harsher in assigning performance ratings, and rated women significantly lower for leadership potential, persuasive communication, client focus, and creativity, despite there being little evidence to back up these perceived differences.

Being comfortable with yourself and how you are perceived can help with speaking up in meetings, taking a lead in project teams, and generally not ‘second-guessing’ yourself, and this can help in countering that bias. For many, feeling prepared is helpful with this, keep brief notes on key tasks, and especially wins. Also, keeping track of wins, achievements, difficult situations handled etc is really helpful when it comes to performance appraisals, asking for a pay rise, or applying for a new role. Having evidence of how you add value to the organisation, and being able to confidently express your worth is key. I’ve had a few people seek pay rises by explaining to their manager that they need more money, for example to support their family, or with rents going up etc. While your manager is presumably human, and may even be sympathetic, this isn’t the best way to approach this conversation; it’s about explaining why you and the work you do, and the skills, knowledge and experience you bring, are worth more. It’s essentially a cost/benefit analysis, and it’s not personal – keep it professional.

If you’re looking to move up into a leadership role, or already in leadership and maybe finding the next step hard, it may be helpful to know that studies have found men and women have many similarities at work. For example, a 2019 study from the UK found:

“working women and men to be more similar than different, with similarities being even more pronounced at the senior leadership level.

However, this study also highlighted that leaders continue to be evaluated differently, based on traditional beliefs in gender roles and stereotypes, despite the lack of empirical evidence”

Which brings me back to International Women’s Day and the theme of #BreakTheBias; it seems one way to help ourselves and each other at work is to focus on performance, skills, knowledge and experience, and acknowledge great work when we see it – both from others and, not forgetting, also from ourselves!