As the Queer Career Coach, I get asked a lot about how to highlight your identity on your professional documents and whether or not job seekers should list their personal pronouns on their resumes. The best advice I’ve come to give my clients is that everything you choose to include on your resume is a personal decision, but it’s better to be up front if it feels safe to do so.

Why you should consider including your pronouns on your resume

Putting your pronouns on your resume allows a hiring team to address you professionally—and accurately—from the beginning of your interview process. It’s a way for you to introduce yourself and how you should be referred to, without taking valuable time away from sharing your skills and accomplishments. This allows both sides to focus on what should matter most in the interview: what you bring to the table professionally.

In addition to paving the way for you to have a more positive candidate experience, putting your pronouns on your resume opens the door for others to feel more comfortable sharing their identities. Even as a cisgender person, you can show your allyship with a few keystrokes. You may make someone on the hiring team feel at ease to share their pronouns. You may help the company realize that this question is missing from their application process. The more we normalize sharing our pronouns, the less stigmatized it becomes.

A lot of my work is also focused on coaching my clients to find companies that are safe and accepting of LGBTQ+ identities. While there are been enormous strides forward in preventing workplace discrimination for queer employees, there’s always a risk of bias. Choosing to add your pronouns to your resume may be a simple way to test the waters with a company so you don’t end up in a potentially unsafe environment or waste valuable time on a role that isn’t right for you.

Why you might decide to leave your pronouns off your resume

I want all my clients to have a positive job searching experience, so I’m always transparent that sharing your pronouns isn’t a decision you should take lightly. If you’re interviewing with very formal companies or companies with more conservative values, you may make the personal decision to leave your pronouns off your resume. There’s nothing wrong with not being ready to be out at work, or not wanting to put additional pressure on your application materials.

If you do choose to include your pronouns on your resume, my suggestion is to include it in your header, after your contact information. This keeps it top-of-mind for readers, without adding clutter or distracting from your experience and skills. Avoid putting your pronouns directly after your name at the top of your resume as this may not populate correctly when your resume is scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS).

Here are some examples of the best ways to keep your resume looking professional and ATS-friendly: 

Susan James
Chicago, IL – 222-444-3232 – sjames@gmail.com – she/they

If you’re looking to add a cohesive flow to your job search materials, consider putting your pronouns on more than just your resume, such as:

• In your headline on LinkedIn or after your signature on your cover letter: This allows more opportunities for hiring managers to notice and increases your chances to destigmatize sharing pronouns.
• Your email signature: You’ll often be communicating with several people in a hiring process who may not have all read your resume. Being up front about your identity can save you from lengthy or uncomfortable explanations later on, and can help you avoid the burnout that comes with being misgendered.

Job searching isn’t an easy process—it can be exhausting regardless of how you identify. Bringing your authentic self to the interview takes a lot of bravery and strength, but ultimately allows you to stand out from the crowd.

Diversity and inclusion touches on many aspects of the workplace—from culture to hiring to communication. As an early career employee, it can be daunting to figure out where to start if you want to make an impact.

That’s why it’s important to take stock of where the company is at when it comes to diversity and inclusion, says Doris Quintanilla, executive director and cofounder of The Melanin Collective, an organization that provides diversity and inclusion consulting services. Then, identify areas that need improvement and ways that you might be able to help as an early career employee (see some examples below). From there, you should decide if it’s something you want (or have the capacity) to take on. This is especially important for BIPOC employees, who might feel like they have no choice but to engage in this work if they don’t see themselves reflected in their bosses and coworkers. “But unless your job is chief of diversity, then it’s not really your job. It’s an extra and should be treated as such,” says Quintanilla.

If you do want and have the capacity to take on the work, the next step is to calculate how much time it’s going to take and how you’ll juggle those with your job responsibilities. If you need to put in extra hours, consider whether or not you’ll be compensated for that. While most companies still view diversity and inclusion work as an “extra,” a growing number are acknowledging that it’s work that involves additional labor and are treating it as such, says Dr. Akilah Cadet, executive coach and CEO and founder of Change Cadet, a consulting firm that offers services such as data assessments, planning, and advising in support of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace.

Once you start doing the work, Quintanilla suggests keeping a record of the initiatives and responsibilities you’ve taken on—so you can refer to it later during your annual review or during conversations around promotions and pay raises. However, Cadet warns that you should be careful about taking on too much responsibility too soon. “That happens a lot with first-time employees,” she says. She especially cautions BIPOC employees from joining too many committees or doing all of the work in employee resource groups, because you don’t want to create an expectation that “can fall into tokenism.”

Companies that want to diversify their workforce often have to change their recruitment practices and find ways to widen their talent pool. And there are many ways that employees at any level can help with that, even if you’re not officially part of the hiring process. For example, if you have a diverse network of friends, Cadet says, letting those friends know about open positions in your workplace can go a long way. If you know a candidate who might be perfect for that open position, you can also recommend them to the hiring manager or at least make sure that the hiring manager sees their application.

You can also “look at the policies and practices for how people are recruited and ask questions,” Cadet says. For instance, if your company isn’t actively recruiting from HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities), ask them why and suggest that they start doing so.

Writing company reviews and sharing personal stories on public websites can also help attract a broader spectrum of candidates. For starters, if you’re a person of color and you’re describing your experience as a POC at the company, “People can read that,” Quintanilla says. “That’s what’s going to get more folks to come in.” 

Read More: 5 Ways You Can Help Your Company Find (and Hire!) More Diverse Candidates

When a company or team discriminates against marginalized employees, it can manifest in big ways—like overlooking them for a promotion. But it also happens in day-to-day interactions and social conversations—for example, when colleagues shut down and question their ideas in meetings. It’s important to speak up when those things happen, Cadet says, but how you do it and what you say should depend on the situation that you’re witnessing or experiencing.

Take the example of a BIPOC employee who constantly has their ideas shut down or questioned in meetings. If it’s happening to you, Cadet recommends sending an email or pulling the offender(s) aside privately after the meeting and saying something along the lines of, “I know this might not have been your intent, but I wanted to bring this to your attention because when you do x, I feel this way.” 

If you’re an observer who doesn’t want to be a complicit bystander, you might similarly approach someone privately after the fact. Or if you witness a microaggression in a smaller group or one-on-one setting, and you have a comfortable relationship with the person, it’s best to call it out in the moment. Saying something like, “That’s a microaggression, let’s not use that,” or, “That’s not accurate,” lets the person know that what they’re saying is inappropriate. Then you can either explain in the moment how the language is hurtful or tell the person, “I’m happy to explain why at a later time.”

Read More: How to Make Your Voice Heard in the Workplace (Especially as a Woman or Minority)

Both Cadet and Quintanilla say that one of the most important and valuable things that an early career employee can do to improve diversity and inclusion in a company is to be willing to ask hard questions and engage in difficult conversations.

Use the news as a jumping-off point to initiate conversations around how current events might impact employees in the office, Cadet says. During one-on-one meetings with your supervisor, you might say something like, “This xyz thing that is happening in the news is affecting me. Can we talk more about this as a company?” In a group meeting setting, it might be saying something like, “This x thing in the news is upsetting. I wonder how everyone is feeling about it?”

Early career employees might feel like they’re not in the position to make policy changes, but Cadet and Quintanilla say that bringing up these types of discussions is actually the first step. After all, policy changes don’t happen instantaneously. Cadet urges entry-level employees to use their “newness” to their advantage. Many companies are actively engaging in anti-racism efforts, she says, and having early career employees ask questions around what they’re doing in response to current events is one way they can hold the company accountable.

Improving diversity and inclusion is not an overnight task. It’s an ongoing process that requires a significant amount of emotional energy. There might be weeks that just feel too heavy, and you’re not in the headspace to engage in this kind of work. It’s vital that you can say no in those circumstances, Quintanilla says, which is easier to do “when you have set expectations and boundaries,” both with yourself and also the people at work.

Boundaries are important regardless of how people identify, Cadet says. For white (or white-passing) employees, “their boundaries are around relationships,” explains Cadet. “Am I still going to talk to this coworker who is clearly discriminatory, sexist, homophobic, or racist?” If you decide to continue to talk to them, what kind of boundaries can you set around conversation topics and discussion points? Of course, this can be difficult to do if the person in question is your supervisor or someone who wields a lot of power at the company. In this case, Cadet says that the best thing to do is to report them to HR, or at least talk to another supervisor or senior employee that you have a good relationship with.

For BIPOC, it might be saying, “I don’t want to educate today, I’m tired,” or having resources on hand to direct people to—whether it be books, podcasts, or video clips—when they find themselves on the receiving end of diversity and inclusion-related questions. Giving yourself a break is just as important as doing the work, Cadet says. “We have to make sure we are whole before we’re helping other people.”