Gender equality has stagnated in its progress. Women are gaining outstanding qualifications at rates that are equal to or greater than men. They are entering high-paying industries and pursuing advanced degrees. These are all things that are traditionally thought to be prerequisites for success. However, few women reach the top of the corporate ladder and it still takes them longer to advance. For many women, getting half as far means they must be twice as good. They have good reason to feel this way. Research suggests that organizations undervalue and take for granted women with great qualifications.
A number of studies have asked people with recruiting experience to assess overqualified job candidates. Many companies don’t consistently record the reasons they choose not to promote an employee or hire a job applicant. Even fewer would voluntarily provide academics access to that data.
Gender is a significant factor, and findings indicate that individuals are more likely to hire women than men for positions they are overqualified for. The underlying cause is gender-biased presumptions about how difficult it will be to keep them.
Expectations Concerning Who Will Stay in a Company
Men are said to put loyalty to a single company below their motivation to progress in their careers. If they had excellent qualifications they were perceived as 19% more likely than men with ordinary but adequate qualifications to leave their current position for the next, better opportunity. Men with exceptional qualifications are seen as flight risks. They aren’t expected to be loyal to one company when they could leave to go elsewhere.
People don’t see the sense in hiring someone they believe will merely be utilizing the company as a stepping stone for their future career. Acquiring and training personnel requires time and resources. These presumptions have an impact on employment choices and continue to undervalue women. Female job applicants who are overqualified are, on average, 25% less likely to get hired than men who have fewer but still acceptable qualifications.
Women, meanwhile, experience the opposite: No one worries about them leaving a company for greater chances. It’s not that they doubt the dedication of remarkable women to making progress in their careers. In fact, we discovered that having superior qualifications is viewed as an indication of a woman’s commitment to her job. It’s more likely that people have different preconceptions about what is important to great women. It is expected that outstanding men will switch jobs in order to advance. Whereas exceptional women are said to appreciate their ties with coworkers and remain loyal to their company.
People continue to undervalue great women. There is a belief that they will opt to stay even in the face of superior, outside employment prospects. The belief that women value these connections is so strong. Our findings indicate that when compared to men with comparable exceptional qualifications, exceptional women are perceived as 20 percent less likely to leave the company and 26 percent more likely to get employed.
How businesses undervalue women
The findings show how companies can take advantage of exceptional female employees. This is due to gendered assumptions about who poses a flight risk and who doesn’t. Furthermore, these gendered factors undoubtedly contribute to the glass ceiling and the pay discrepancy between men and women. Companies won’t make proactive retention measures like bonuses, increases, promotions, or additional responsibility like they would for males. They believe women will prioritize staying loyal to the company above developing in their careers through outside options.
Certainly, people can speak up for themselves when they want possibilities for growth in their employment. But there is growing evidence that women hold back from asking for pay hikes, more authority, or incentives for their work. They have a legitimate fear that they will be branded as bossy or haughty if they do. These labels have an impact because women experience more impediments to career advancement when they are perceived as being unlikeable.
How to Dispel Retention Assumptions
With this knowledge, women can assess if they might be qualified for a higher-ranking or higher-paying position by comparing their skills and experience to those of their male counterparts. Additionally, women might use outside offers as leverage to increase their benefits and pay.
But it shouldn’t be just the responsibility of women to address this inequality. It isn’t fair or sustainable to place all the responsibility for solving this issue on women. They have to work harder than males to obtain the same positions with the same pay.
Getting outside offers that fairly reflect their value is harder for women than it is for men because of gender prejudices in the recruiting process. What is worse is that individuals believe they are doing good deeds by giving extremely skilled women positions that are somewhat lower on the employment ladder. In contrast to males, people believe women might apply for a position for which they are overqualified in order to leave a company where there is a glass ceiling or where gender bias prevents them from moving forward. Offering women lower-ranking posts, in the eyes of these decision-makers, gives them a path out of those institutions that are restricting them. However, if the “assistance” or “way out” offered actually lowers women’s salaries and slows down their career paths, it’s not a good thing.
Changing policies
Company executives should carefully examine their retention policies. They are often non-standardized and left to the judgement of specific managers. Managers are required to make decisions in these types of informal evaluation processes. But without having all the information they may need or want about a potential employee or job prospect. For instance, managers frequently have knowledge of a worker’s credentials and past performance. But not necessarily of their objectives, driving forces, or dedication to the company. As a result, managers frequently base their judgments on what they do know about these unknowns. Problematically, gender biases can creep into decision-making processes through these presumptions.