Job seeker creates a 'fake male CV' to expose gender discrimination present in the hiring process

Getting a decent job is easier said than done in today's world. However, the task remains even more difficult for women who become victims of gender discrimination when applying for a job. While there have been efforts toward ensuring gender equality, many incidents of hiring bias continue to happen. A woman, u/Anxious_North3397, shared her story of being discriminated against for a job in a post on Reddit. The post starts with the author describing that she works in a "male-dominated world," hinting that she works in a job where males are preferred, which happens to be Offensive Security, an American company that deals with cyber security.

The woman has four years of experience in the field and states that she is trying to shift companies. She talks about how she has been sending her CV to many companies for a year, applying for "red teaming roles." Unfortunately, she doesn't get any response after waiting a long time. She reasons that she is well qualified for all the positions she is applying to but is turned down by many employers. They claimed that she was too old and that most of the team were young men, which they thought would make her uncomfortable.

Frustrated with her situation, she decided to try an experiment by applying for the same roles by creating a "fake male CV." She talks about the CV, saying, "No degrees, no certs. 4 years experience as well." Using this new CV, she applied to the same roles that she had initially tried for and unsurprisingly, most of these companies ended up contacting her after under the notion that she was a man applying for the job. It also highlights how she was subject to gender discrimination despite being well-suited for the role and having the necessary qualifications.

People on the platform chimed in with their own tales of unfair treatment. u/justacuriousbystande commented, "I chose my business name as gender neutral as I knew this would be a problem for me as well. I was right. In ten years, there have been a handful who were displeased to discover I am a woman on arrival. I am not usually rehired in the future, but I like to do a damn fine job just to make sure they can't complain about the quality of my work."

Another user, u/bigpony, shared an instance of racial discrimination, saying, "In other news, I am a black person who did this by changing my identity to white. Massive night and day. It definitely hurts when I show up and they are uncomfortable that I am black, though. But this is America; they make sure I am reminded I'm racially less at least once a day here.

Pointing out how illogical this practice was, u/Sylvers said, "This is one of the dumbest business decisions any business can ever make. Imagine cutting your recruitment pool in half, completely arbitrarily, and having to fight over what few quality employees are left with your industry competitors in only half the recruitment pool. You're losing a metric ton of employee skill and talent that can potentially increase your productivity and profits meaningfully for literally no reason whatsoever. In all seriousness, this is ironic. In a very capitalist world, not hiring qualified female employees is a very anti-capitalist decision. You're prioritizing personal ideology over profit and success—sheer stupidity."