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New York Times, December 1, 2009
In Job Hunt,
College Degree Can’t Close Racial Gap
By MICHAEL LUO
Johnny R. Williams, 30, would appear to be an
unlikely person to have to fret about the impact of race on his
job search, with companies like JPMorgan Chase and an M.B.A. from
the University of Chicago on his résumé.
But after graduating from business school last year and not having
much success garnering interviews, he decided to retool his résumé,
scrubbing it of any details that might tip off his skin color.
His membership, for instance, in the African-American business
students association? Deleted.
“If they’re going to X me,” Mr. Williams said,
“I’d like to at least get in the door first.”
Similarly, Barry Jabbar Sykes, 37, who has a degree in mathematics
from Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta,
now uses Barry J. Sykes in his continuing search for an information
technology position, even though he has gone by Jabbar his whole
life.
“Barry sounds like I could be from Ireland,” he said.
That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans,
even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some
people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating
in President Obama’s election.
But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when
it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped
that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10
months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been
even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared
with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing
field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.
College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative
to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for
black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly
twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent
compared with 4.4 percent.
Various academic studies have confirmed that black job seekers
have a harder time than whites. A study published several years
ago in The American Economic Review titled “Are Emily and
Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” found that
applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer
callbacks than those with white-sounding names.
A more recent study, published this year in The Journal of Labor
Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers tended to hire
more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did.
The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with
more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around
the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those
interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks
and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon
as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies
after meetings.
Whether or not each case actually involved bias, the possibility
has furnished an additional agonizing layer of second-guessing
for many as their job searches have dragged on.
“It does weigh on you in the search because you’re
wondering, how much is race playing a factor in whether I’m
even getting a first call, or whether I’m even getting an
in-person interview once they hear my voice and they know I’m
probably African-American?” said Terelle Hairston, 25, a
graduate of Yale University who has been looking for work since
the summer while also trying to get a marketing consulting start-up
off the ground. “You even worry that the hiring manager
may not be as interested in diversity as the H.R. manager or upper
management.”
Mr. Williams recently applied to a Dallas money management firm
that had posted a position with top business schools. The hiring
manager had seemed ecstatic to hear from him, telling him they
had trouble getting people from prestigious business schools to
move to the area. Mr. Williams had left New York and moved back
in with his parents in Dallas to save money.
But when Mr. Williams later met two men from the firm for lunch,
he said they appeared stunned when he strolled up to introduce
himself.
“Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit,” he said.
“It was kind of quiet for about 45 seconds.”
The company’s interest in him quickly cooled, setting off
the inevitable questions in his mind.
Discrimination in many cases may not even be intentional, some
job seekers pointed out, but simply a matter of people gravitating
toward similar people, casting about for the right “cultural
fit,” a buzzword often heard in corporate circles.
There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level
ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal
networks, in many cases leaving blacks at a disadvantage. A recent
study published in the academic journal Social Problems found
that white males receive substantially more job leads for high-level
supervisory positions than women and members of minorities.
Many interviewed, however, wrestled with “pulling the race
card,” groping between their cynicism and desire to avoid
the stigma that blacks are too quick to claim victimhood. After
all, many had gone to good schools and had accomplished résumés.
Some had grown up in well-to-do settings, with parents who had
raised them never to doubt how high they could climb. Moreover,
there is President Obama, perhaps the ultimate embodiment of that
belief.
Certainly, they conceded, there are times when their race can
be beneficial, particularly with companies that have diversity
programs. But many said they sensed that such opportunities had
been cut back over the years and even more during the downturn.
Others speculated there was now more of a tendency to deem diversity
unnecessary after Mr. Obama’s triumph.
In fact, whether Mr. Obama’s election has been good or
bad for their job prospects is hotly debated. Several interviewed
went so far as to say that they believed there was only so much
progress that many in the country could take, and that there was
now a backlash against blacks.
“There is resentment toward his presidency among some because
of his race,” said Edward Verner, a Morehouse alumnus from
New Jersey who was laid off as a regional sales manager and has
been able to find only part-time work. “This has affected
well-educated, African-American job seekers.”
It is difficult to overstate the degree that they say race permeates
nearly every aspect of their job searches, from how early they
show up to interviews to the kinds of anecdotes they try to come
up with.
“You want to be a nonthreatening, professional black guy,”
said Winston Bell, 40, of Cleveland, who has been looking for
a job in business development.
He drew an analogy to several prominent black sports broadcasters.
“You don’t want to be Stephen A. Smith. You want to
be Bryant Gumbel. You don’t even want to be Stuart Scott.
You don’t want to be, ‘Booyah.’ ”
Nearly all said they agonized over job applications that asked
them whether they would like to identify their race. Most said
they usually did not.
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