Hiring managers to candidates: 'Show us your vaccination status'

Hiring managers, already facing a shortage of qualified workers, now are adjusting to the impending vaccination mandate. Nearly three-fourths of them want jobseekers to include their vaccination status on their resumes.

ResumeOK, an online resume resource, recently asked nearly 1,400 hiring managers about vaccination and recruitment. Although most will be affected by the mandate, several will not, because they have fewer than 100 employees. This is what they said:

• 35% reject resumes that do not include vaccination status. It greatly benefits applicants when they include their vaccination status on their resume. In companies that are mandated to enforce the COVID-19 vaccine, 74% of hiring managers said they prefer a candidate’s vaccination status to be included in their resume. On the other hand, only 20% of hiring managers said vaccination status is not part of their hiring decision, but that’s only because the candidate would be asked about it at a later stage.
• 86% prefer to hire vaccinated candidates. Among companies mandated to require the vaccine, 86% of hiring managers surveyed responded that they would hire only a vaccinated person. The 14% of hiring managers who are not prioritizing candidates based on their vaccination status overwhelmingly represent companies where the mandate currently is being debated or contested by their state’s governor. However, 45% of hiring managers from companies with fewer than 100 employees are more likely to hire someone who is vaccinated.
• Preferences vary by industry. In IT and hospitality, 83% of hiring managers said they prefer to see the candidate’s vaccination status in the resume. Other industries that favor vaccination status disclosure are health care ( 79%), advertising and marketing (77%), finance (71%), retail (68%) and education (67%).
• Nearly seven in 10 require vaccination because of mandates. Only one-third of hiring managers already had started to prioritize hiring vaccinated candidates before it was mandated. A majority of companies that are prioritizing hiring people based on their vaccination status are in industries where employees work in person.
• Nearly three-fourths say mandates make hiring more challenging. Only 27% of hiring managers said they have a large pool of candidates to choose from and that the mandate does not affect recruiting. Recruiters also said they already had seen a drop in applications in certain sectors because of the pandemic and that the mandate has decreased the number of applications even further.
• Nearly one-fourth of job seekers include vaccination status in their resume. Despite employer preferences, only 23% of U.S. job seekers included their vaccination status in their resume as of October.

Read more:

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• What’s in it for me? Keeping the talent you have (and attracting more) during the Great Resignation
• Getting leaders to think differently about talent