A recent report found job applicants who put ‘they/them’ pronouns on their resume are often overlooked in the job process as recruiters seek to avoid hires who could bring unnecessary drama to the workplace.

The Business.com report was shared online this week, with Elon Musk, who has history of critiquing they/them pronouns, calling it ‘interesting’.

The study itself was carried out by sending two identical phantom resumes with the gender-ambiguous name ‘Taylor Williams’ to ‘180 unique job postings that were explicitly open to entry-level candidates’. The only difference in the CVs was the use of they/them pronouns on one of them (the other didn’t state gender). The they/them CVs were found to have a lower success rate despite being exactly the same otherwise.

According to the report, when bosses were asked for feedback on the study, ‘several hiring managers revealed blatant biases and even bigotry against nonbinary job seekers.’

One 57-year-old prospective employer in the agricultural industry said while the CV featured a person who ‘seems like a decent fit on paper,’ they were ‘not interested in the drama that a person who thinks they are a ‘they/them’ brings with them.’

Another prospective employer who happens to be a woman, 59, in the manufacturing industry said: ‘Take off the pronouns; I would trash the resume for that reason alone.’

In fairness to the employers, I kind of get it. If you want to run a happy and functional workplace, you can’t be worrying about potential misgenderings or having to tip-toe around any mildly debatable topic in hopes of offending the new hire. Although I’ve heard that specifying gender pronouns in work e-mails is now compulsory in some companies. Maybe the non-binarys are applying at the wrong jobs?

Overall, it’s probably not a good idea to mention your pronouns at all on your CV. It just gives the perception that you’ll be difficult from the get-go, and no employer is going to risk that if there’s someone else just as qualified for the job as you are. Maybe that’ll change in the future, though…

For the time cosmetics mogul and influencer Jeffree Starr called they/them pronouns ‘bulls***’, click HERE.