New York.- “I don’t have a college degree and that has definitely prevented me from getting certain jobs that I did have experience for because I started working at 15 years old,” LaFawn Davis, senior vice president of Environmental, Social & Indeed Governance. “And they told me ‘you must have a degree to apply for this job.’ How many good candidates walk away from a hiring opportunity because they believe they don’t have what it takes?
LaFawn Davis has 15 years of experience in human resources departments at companies such as Google, Yahoo, PayPal and Twilio. During an interview with Entrepreneur.com During the Indeed Future Works forum, he recalled how his job search experience was:
“There is a certain shame and you don’t dare to pursue other opportunities. People will see that in a job description and not try it. Many candidates walk away instead of thinking ‘I have the skills for this job’”, said the expert.
LaFawn’s experience has led her to a life mission: to make hiring fair and without bias. That talent recruitment processes give all candidates an opportunity.
“Of course, there are jobs that do require a college degree. I want my doctor to be well qualified, as well as my lawyer. But there are many papers do not need it. Many times a college degree does not mean that someone will be good at the job or that someone knows more from having a master’s degree than from having experience in the field, ”said the Indeed expert.
The New Normal and the future of work
Discussing workplace trends, LaFawn Davis made it clear that “The New Normal is anything but normal.” While human nature tries to go back to the way things were done before, the reality is that we are in a new world of work.”
For the expert, companies must change the way they see their employees and how they attract candidates. She points out that even now that we are facing so much economic uncertainty, the hiring processes are broken.
“Now we must achieve equality in the hiring or talent acquisition process so that everyone has a chance,” says LaFawn Davis.
In Latin America we are experiencing a boom in the birth of unicorns that come with a different work culture. However, we come from a macho work culture that, although on paper it is illegal to discriminate, is still macho and very attached to old practices. We are seeing a cultural shift due to digital nomads migrating to big cities.
“The times they Are a changing. We see more support from entrepreneurs to give more entry to women. I believe that today there is already a demand from the new generations to change the old practices that left out valuable candidates due to their gender, age, experience, etc.”
In the region, for example, we have the strange phenomenon that millions of women work from home or are nenis because for a long time they could not access jobs that pay the same as male colleagues.
“58% of people work in informal jobs without protection from institutions and that’s scary,” warns Davis. “There has to be a social change, but it will take time. Not only to affect public policy, but to change the traditionalist attitude that we are used to.”
Women against the glass ceiling
Senior management positions remain minimal for women. The glass ceiling phenomenon is very real. Because by the time you reach the age where you can access a position of power, you are also at the point where society expects you to be a mother. Eventually professional women must make this decision between career and family.
“My advice to women looking for a job: don’t lose hope. Because that’s how changes happen. You are the backbone of society.”
The Indeed specialist points out that this is known as maternal bias: the idea that a woman can be a great employee or a great mother, but never both at the same time. “That’s ridiculous,” warns the interviewee. “Sometimes it is said openly and other times it is only acted upon, but it does happen when a woman is removed ‘from the play’ for being a mother.”
“Women shouldn’t have to choose. If they want to be mothers, wonderful, if they want to have a career, they can do that too. Companies must make real changes like not discarding candidates because they have children or because they might not be able to handle the workload. It’s the only way to get fair hiring,” Davies says, recalling that, for example, when a man is being considered for a position, it rarely matters how many children he has.
Finally, LaFawn Davis stressed that companies, especially startups that have more agility to change their processes, must hire in a more humane way to have a better social impact.
“We are trying to get companies to see their candidates differently and evaluate them based on their skills and not on their academic degree or whether they are women or men,” he says. “We must see candidates for the skills they have and not for their CV.”
March Violante Martha Elena Violante (March Violante) is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Emprendedor.com and has more than 10 years of career in digital journalism. She has interviewed figures such as Randi Zuckerberg, Daniele Lamarre, Zoe Saldana, among others. She has worked in media such as Entrepreneur in Spanish and English, High Level, PREMIERE Cinema, Mexico Unknown, among others. “We are entrepreneur.com”