Why are women passed up for leadership roles in hospitality careers? A professor at University of Houston hypothesized it might have to do with the language men and women use on their cover letters and resumes – and decided to research this very phenomenon.
Odds are, if you’re being seated at a restaurant or checked into a hotel, you will be dealing with a female employee. However, the majority of the leadership positions in the hospitality industry are held by men. Juan Madera, Ph.D., in the UH’s Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership, is conducting an ongoing project with his Ph.D. student, Alberto Beiza, and assistant professor, Dustin Maneethai, Ph.D., which looks at gender disparity in hospitality leadership positions.
“What we’ve been seeing,” stated Madera, “is that the higher you get in management ranks, the less women are seen.”
There are several reasons for this discrepancy. One, of course, is the same across the board for women in any profession – in order to pursue motherhood, many women take a step down from their careers for years to parent. Or, at the very least, do not advance in their careers due to family responsibilities.
Another reason is the persistent stereotype that women are more nurturing and should be the ones greeting and caring for customers. “Women are expected to be more communal and agreeable than men – and that’s exactly why they’re at the front desk,” stated Madera. These biases usually emerge early on in the hiring process – in the language candidates use on their resumes and cover letters. A blind study in which data was collected and deidentified from Houston-based resumes and cover letters (data came from students who are majoring in hospitality management at a Houston area career fair) showed that women used more feminine and emotional language when applying for jobs, describing themselves as “friendly” and “helpful.” On the other hand, masculine language— describing oneself as “a strong decision-maker” and “goal-oriented” — was found on the resumes of both genders. Men did not, however, use feminine language to describe themselves nearly at all. But do women use more communal language in their cover letters and resumes because they are disproportionately applying for more frontline service jobs? In an interesting aspect of Madera’s study, a group of women and men employed full time as hospitality professionals were shown a mock “hotel,” and asked to tweak their resume as though they were applying for a potential leadership position at the hotel. The results were uploaded and analyzed by a linguistics data program. “Women used more communal language even when they were applying for management positions,” said Madera. Madera hopes to share his findings with professional organizations in the Houston area, like the Greater Houston Lodging Association and the Houston Restaurant Association. “There should be a dialogue with these local associations to make them aware about potential biases in the industry’s hiring practices,” said Madera. Teaching students how to write managerial level resumes and cover letters will also be an important outcome of this study. The study suggests that students could benefit from resume writing tutorials that encourage the use of both masculine and feminine language when applying for a job, regardless of gender. “The idea would be to use both, because to say that women should not overemphasize feminine qualities (which are undervalued for leadership positions within the service industry) puts the burden on them to ‘change’ the way they present themselves,” said Madera. “Instead, men should be willing to become vulnerable to a degree and describe themselves using more communal language.”
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