For those that do not know I use to be a manager at a Taco Bell my freshman year of college, it was such a humbling experience that has taught me so many of my leadership qualities. In this role not only did I manage a crew but also hired and interview all sorts of people. This experience at such a young age has given me a new perspective for my future internships and jobs. Whenever I go in for an interview, I know I need to dress the part and be as professional as I can because I know I can not give anyone a reason to not find me worthy. We all have our bias thoughts each and everyday and a big one in job interviews is based on appearance. Unfortunately, with these more professional internships wearing the right suit is just as important as what you have to say. From what I can remember most of my interviews have been with a man, and whenever there was a woman in the room, I remember they would approach a question in a softer natural tone than the man. This tactic overall made me think that the man who always talked more was the one in higher up position. This thought made me think about bias in gender, so I took the Gender-Career IAT to see what it would tell me. The study conclude that my responses suggest little or no automatic association between female and male with science and liberal arts. This study was not exactly what I was hoping to answer but interesting to think about how you associate woman or men to either a science or liberal career. But with these tests we are taking it with a grain of salt, as the journal, “How to think about ‘Implicit Bias,” states this is more of a general conception rather than tell you whether you fall explicitly in a certain category. If I could go back to my previous interviews and even my own, I would advise on the importance of what someone wears since we don’t know what situation anyone is coming from. Unfortunately, we cannot truly get rid of our biases but it is important that we are able to recognize them and analyze where they are coming from and how we can let that deter us from an important decision.
