Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune
A woman receives a bandage after getting her injection at a 24-hour vaccination event in Austin.
The pandemic has left just about every facet of American life in upheaval, including well-documented cases in employment.
Employers, on the whole, still don’t seem to know whether to require their employees to be vaccinated, and, now more recently, job seekers are trying to figure out whether to include vaccination status on their résumés.
Yet more vexing questions as we continue to walk on eggshells post-pandemic or whichever phase we’re in.
A survey from ResumeBuilder.Com provides some insight. Of 1,250 hiring managers across the U.S. surveyed, 33% said they would automatically eliminate résumés that don’t include Covid vaccine status. Sixty-nine percent said they are more likely to hire someone who has already been vaccinated against Covid-19.
This is all fraught with peril, says one employment professional. Casey Hasten, a corporate recruiter and the director of recruiting with executive search firm VIP, says do not put your vaccine status on your résumé, “just as you would not include your sexual orientation, pregnancy, or any other health information.”
In some cases, yes, job candidates might have an advantage by disclosing vaccine status, Hasten wrote in an email.
“But I am actually seeing vaccination policies hurting companies trying to find good talent and limiting their applicant pool,” Hasten wrote. “Employers can discriminate against potential candidates for anything and the applicant most likely will never know. However, I believe we are going to see court cases in the near future for HIPPA violations for these companies requiring employees to show proof of vaccination. If a candidate lists on their résumé, the company does not assume liability of having asked for personal medical information, but I believe this is a slippery slope.”
In the end, too, the survey found that regardless of vaccine preferences, a majority of hiring managers say they are more likely to hire better candidates, even if they are not vaccinated, over less qualified but vaccinated candidates, by a small margin, 53% to 47%.
The survey was conducted in August.