How do you answer voluntary self-identification?
Voluntary self-identification asks about gender, whether you are Hispanic or Latino, race, veteran status, and disability. Employers use the answers for reporting. The questions are optional. They are not there to decide who is hired. You may decline.
What the employer is checking
A careful employer is only offering a real choice, including a way not to answer. You are not being scored for a correct identity. Answer with the truth or with a decline anyway, because a guess is a fact you did not mean to file, and a later form may show it back to you.
How to answer honestly
Choose what is true, or decline. On ApplyASAP the decline reads Prefer not to say, and that is a finished answer. Do not select an identity because you think it helps or hurts. If the categories do not describe you, use the decline or a write-in if there is one, rather than the nearest box. Do not invent an answer to get past the page.
A short example
These are shapes, not answers from a real applicant. Use the stronger one only where every detail is true for you.
Good. I am answering gender with the option that fits, and I am choosing prefer not to say on veteran status because I do not want to answer it. Both choices are intentional.
Bad. I am picking the option I think this employer prefers, and I will change it if I reach an interview. A decline would look uncooperative, so I will not use it.
Pitfalls
- Guessing an identity to influence a decision.
- Answering yes on disability or veteran status that you do not understand, in order to look thorough.
- Putting this information in a cover letter or a free-text box, where it is no longer the voluntary form.
How ApplyASAP answers it
ApplyASAP enters the self-identification answers you chose, and only on forms that ask. Prefer not to say is sent when that is what you chose. It does not infer gender, race, veteran status, or disability from your name or your resume, and it never invents experience to go with these fields.
ApplyASAP drafts answers from your real resume and never invents experience. It does not change your employers, dates, degrees, or titles, and it does not invent a number, a certification, or a person you managed.
Guides that support this answer
Resume tips are where the longer proof for this answer lives. The roles below are close to that proof. Reading a posting, tailoring, and follow-up live in the job search guides.
Questions
- Does declining hurt the application?
- A decline is an answer, not a blank that means you failed the form. ApplyASAP does not treat a decline as something to correct.
- Should the answers match at every employer?
- They should match the truth. You may decline at one employer and answer at another. You should not give two identities that conflict.