Previous work history: Check. Skills and abilities: Check. Vaccination status?
A new survey from ResumeBuilder.com finds more than two-thirds of hiring managers say they are more likely to hire someone who has been vaccinated against COVID-19 — and about a third say they will automatically toss out resumes that don’t include an applicant’s vaccination status.
Overall, about 33% of hiring managers said they will eliminate applicants who don’t include a vaccination status when submitting a resume. Another 32% of hiring managers said they won’t automatically toss resumes without a status listed but said vaccinated applicants are given priority. Another 35% of hiring managers said they don’t automatically eliminate resumes without a vaccination status.
The resume was commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com and conducted online by survey platform Pollfish in August. In total, 1,250 hiring managers were survey, ResumeBuilder said.
Even if they don’t throw out resumes without a vaccination status listed, the survey said an overwhelming majority of hiring managers — 77% — prefer seeing that information on applicants’ resumes.
Overall, 69% of hiring managers in the survey said they are more likely to hire someone who is vaccinated.
The survey was conducted before President Joe Biden announced steps to require most large employers to mandate that their employees either get vaccinated against COVID-19 or provide weekly test results.
But even before that move, most hiring managers — 63% — said their workplaces were already requiring COVID-19 vaccines for their employees.
In some industries, hiring managers are more likely to prefer seeing an applicant’s vaccination status on their resumes. Industries where well more than half of hiring managers said so, according to the survey, were:
“These industries may be leading the way because some, like advertising and marketing, are very client-facing, and these types of jobs tend to be done in ‘cube farm’ office spaces, where employees are close together,” said Carolyn Kleinman, a career coach, told ResumeBuilder. “Others, like food and hospitality, health care, and education make sense, as those tend to be mainly in-person, with an inability to maintain proper social distance.”
Regardless of their preference for vaccinated job applicants, hiring managers in the survey said, as it stands now, qualifications still account for more than vaccination status.
When asked: “How likely are you to hire a less qualified, vaccinated candidate over a more qualified, unvaccinated candidate,” 47% said they were very or somewhat likely compared to 53% who said they somewhat or very unlikely to do so.
