Thus many participants across racial minority groups were concerned about their résumés activating negative stereotypes that could make employers think that they would be too different from the dominant cultural white majority to “fit in” well. Whereas removing all racial markers from the résumé was not an option for some job seekers (for instance, if their last name clearly signalled minority status), applicants felt that it was still possible to influence whether their résumé sent a strong signal of racial affiliation or a muted one that indicated assimilation. Deterrents to Whitening We found five primary deterrents to résumé whitening: (1) the view that the human capital value of an experience was too great to omit from the résumé; (2) the belief that the presence of minority racial cues on the résumé could screen out discriminatory employers; (3) identity-based moral objections to whitening; (4) a belief in the generally meritocratic nature of labor markets; and (5) the assumption that a particular targeted employer values racial diversity. Human capital value of experience. Several respondents stressed that whitening their work or volunteer history might require concealing potentially important aspects of their human capital. As a black male college student put it, “I think that [the omission of certain activities] definitely becomes problematic because these are real things that I have done, that I have accomplished.” As a result, whitening might lead to a significantly sparser résumé. A black college senior used an example from her own experience to highlight this issue: [I am in] essentially a black choir, we sing spiritual music for the past four years so it’s my main extracurricular on campus or one of my main extracurricular activities along with the [University] African American Students’ Association. So in a sense I can’t take those off my résumé because if I do then I’m not doing anything else on campus or it doesn’t look like I’m doing anything else on campus. Screening employers. Others noted that the removal of racial cues might deprive them of the opportunity to screen employers—that is, to signal their race upfront and avoid having to interact with or eventually work for discriminatory employers. A black male college student
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Table 1. Thematic Coding Analysis (continued) Aggregate theoretical dimensions Second-order categories First-order codes Representative quotes* Deterrents Human capital value of experience “I can’t take that [experience] off because it’s an integral part of my résumé. I couldn’t take that out of my résumé” (black, female; medicine) Screening employers “If blackness put a shadow over all [my résumé] then it probably isn’t the job I want to be in.” (black, male; fine arts) Identity-based objections “I have considered [whitening my résumé], except for I feel that my Japanese and Chinese backgrounds are really valuable to my identity.” (Asian, female; education) Belief in meritocracy “If you’re smart… I think that’s what they [i.e., the employers in which I am interested] want. So in that sense I don’t think it’s logical for someone to try to hide their racial characteristic if they’re a minority.” (Asian, female; financial services) Assumption that the targeted employer values diversity “I think is becoming more and more of a [positive] factor in selection processes these days because the workplaces [I am targeting] are becoming more diverse, and employers are putting much more value in those who [are] culturally and ethnically diverse. (Asian, male; information technology) * We report each quoted respondent’s race, gender, and targeted industry in parentheses.