Mr. or Ms.?
Employers Want to Know
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Hiring managers normally like to know an applicant's gender so that correspondence can be addressed correctly (e.g., "Dear Ms. Jones" or "Dear Mr. Smith"). Most applicants have names that make discerning gender easy. It's a no-brainer that Cathy is a female and Richard is a male, for example. But if your name is gender-neutral (like Dale or Lee), then it's not so easy.
Of course, hiring should be free of any bias, including gender-related, but reality doesn't always match the ideal. So some applicants use only their initials preceding the surname ("F.M. Dodds") to avoid the possibility of gender-discriminatory screening.
If you're concerned about not being considered for a position solely because of gender, using initials only before your last name may be a good strategy. But if you have no reason to suspect your gender is hindering your ability to land interviews, then employers may appreciate it if you use one of these work-arounds for a gender-neutral name:
- Include a middle name if it reveals your gender ("Chris Marie Jones").
- Precede your first name with "Ms." or "Mr."
- Include a testimonial somewhere in your resume that refers to your gender (Example: "Chris has been an asset to our team...she is always going the extra mile").
