Forty-seven percent of employers believe that participation in social activism or movements is unacceptable on resumes, according to a study from Skynova.
Among the social movement topics that employers viewed as automatically disqualifying for an applicant were taking any stances on anti-vaccine measures, stricter gun legislation, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and racial justice, according to the Skynova study.
This seems to be at odds with the 46% of Gen Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — who believe that including activism on their resumes should be more acceptable, something that only 29% of employers agreed with, according to the study.
A majority of Gen Z (70%) said they expect their government to shoulder more of the responsibility in solving the country’s problems, according to the Pew Research Center. (RELATED: The White House’s ‘Advocacy’ TikTok Campaign Was Actually A Democratic Front The Entire Time)
Seventy-three percent of Gen Z say that being politically or socially engaged is very important to their identity, according to the Gen Z-led think tank Irregular labs.
Spotify, SpaceX among top employers Gen Z wants to work for, according to a new report (via @CNBCMakeIt) https://t.co/zto7DdxjNc
— CNBC (@CNBC) June 16, 2022
Over fifty-five percent of Gen Z said they were willing to include volunteering experience for social justice organizations in their resumes, 42.9% would include fundraising for such causes, 31.4% would include participating in awareness campaigns and 26.9% would include participation in protests. Only 25.9% of Gen Z responded they would not be willing to include any of the aforementioned causes, according to Skynova.
For Gen Z, not only are they more likely to include activism in their job applications, but more than one in three said that they are more likely to turn down a job were they not to share beliefs on social justice issues with their employer. Only 19.4% of employers said a misalignment would be an employment issued, reported Skynova.
Experts in the field of business management have called the current environment, the “age of employee activism,” according to the MIT Sloan Management Review.
Angela Reddock-Wright, founder of Reddock Law Group, wrote for Bloomberg Law’s Daily Labor Report that “The job market now is one in which employees can shop for what fits them best. To survive this wave of employee activism and demands for increased accountability, the successful companies of the future will be those that listen to worker concerns and respond thoughtfully and meaningfully.”
The Skynova poll surveyed a total of 512 Gen Z employees and 253 employers located in the U.S.