The job market is brutal for women executives
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios
It's a brutal time for women executives and others who don't neatly fit the stereotypical ideal of a leader.
Why it matters: Not only has the zeal for diversity that's defined the past decade faded, but backlash from the White House has made firms even less willing to take risks on "nontraditional" candidates, including women, people of color and LGBTQ+ people.
The big picture: For years, executive recruiters were asked to find diverse slates to fill the top spots inside U.S. companies, moving up the numbers, if only slightly, inside these firms.
- That's not happening anymore, says Lindsay Trout, a partner and talent consultant at executive search firm Egon Zehnder, who finds candidates at the C-suite and board level for large companies.
How it works: A board running a search for a CEO will draw up a list of specifications for candidates.
- They might say, "We're looking for public company CEOs who are in the tech industry at companies that are at X scale," Trout explains.
- Go with those specs and "you end up with a list that inevitably excludes females from consideration." It would be like looking for someone to head an NGO and only considering those with experience as a U.S. president or secretary of state.
Zoom out: For a few years, firms would also say they would like to consider a "diverse slate" so you could bring in other qualified candidates with potential who did not exactly meet the criteria.
- "Now that is not part of the conversation or expectation," Trout says.
"I took my pronouns out of my resume," an editorial leader who was recently hunting for jobs tells Axios, asking for anonymity to speak freely while still searching.
- They decided to "tone it down," feeling like being too openly queer was hurting the search. They locked down a contract job soon after making those adjustments, though it was not clear if that was a factor.
Zoom in: There was rising backlash and some fatigue at the board level even before President Trump took office in January and made ending DEI efforts a priority.
- "People are generally satisfied with the progress that they have made," Trout says.
Context: After a surge of appointments in 2020 and 2021, companies are now naming fewer women and people of color to their boards, Axios reported last year.
- Some firms have started to reverse course. At Meta, women make up 23% of board directors. Just a few years ago in 2022, that figure was 44%.
- Over the past year, no women CEOs were recruited into Fortune 500 firms. The ones who nabbed that top spot were internal hires.
Between the lines: The process of looking for diverse slates did drive some resentment and likely hurt some men.
- "It probably is true that equally as compelling white male talent didn't get the nod" for board roles, Trout says.
Reality check: Many large companies have continued to defend DEI efforts, at least from shareholder attacks.
- Not all firms have walked away from this work, says Jennifer McCollum, CEO of Catalyst, a nonprofit that advocates for women in the workplace.
- Scaling back entirely from DEI can lead to increased risks on the legal side, as well as talent loss and reputational damage, she says.
The bottom line: Companies are "adjusting, thoughtfully," McCollum says.
