Having DEI on resume is a job search liability

[DEI, from A1] stripped the three letters from their resumes and sought roles in adjacent departments, such as in human resources, public affairs and marketing. Others have weighed changing careers.

- Kishan writes for Bloomberg.

DAVID Daniels IV said having experience in diversity, equity and inclusion feels like having scarlet letters in an already tough job market.

(BEN SKLAR Bloomberg)

One job hunter is Josue Mendez in New York, who used to work in the diversity group at Ogilvy, an advertising agency owned by WPP. In June, weeks after his team won an industry award for a leadership program for its Black male employees, he was among those let go. Since then, Mendez has spent his days scouring job listings and attending job fairs.

A conversation with a recruiter was going well, he said, until Mendez mentioned his experience in diversity.

"It suddenly went very cold," Mendez recalled. "The second they see any previous work specifically in DEI, they want to stay away."

The call ended ahead of schedule. The recruiter later told Mendez that he was out of the running for the job.

A handful of large corporations remain publicly committed to workplace diversity. Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and Coca-Cola have kept the DEI label on their websites. And others are now emphasizing veterans and disabled employees.

But there has been a wave of reversals in the last year. Amazon.com halted some of its programs, McDonald’s stopped setting “representation goals” and Goldman Sachs Group ended a policy of taking some companies public only if they had diverse board members.

Corporate fears around legal risks this year overshadowed everything else, said Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, whose firm CapEQ advises companies on diversity and other social issues.