In preparation for my summer internship, I spoke to over 30 different Oberlin alumni in technology careers. I asked them what they had learned from Oberlin. I laughed at their anecdotes and scribbled down advice on work-life balance and other immaterial things. At the end of each call, I’d grow sheepish in the way only students can. I’d ask for advice on how to get a job.
“Build networks,” one senior engineer told me. “Find people you have connections to.” He shrugged. “Ask for referrals.”
Had I gone about it incorrectly? Had I not been clear enough in my approach? I had been trying to build a connection with him and make a connection between us. I had been trying to lead up to the dreaded question: “Can I have a referral?”
Another person I spoke with had been a senior engineer at Microsoft for over 20 years. When I asked him how he got his job, he laughed. He had been playing tennis, talking to his opponent about how he needed an internship. His tennis partner served, off-handedly mentioning that he had an in at Microsoft. For him, all it took was a brief conversation.
What was I supposed to take away from this? In only a tennis game, he opened the door to a life-changing career. But there was something critically different between us — and it wasn’t tennis skills. It was an assumption about his competency. His anecdote reflects a larger pattern in employment across generations and political climates. According to Forbes, women comprise only about 25 percent of the tech workforce. Why?
According to AP News, the U.S. labor market shows a decline in hiring. A referral can make the difference between securing a position and finding yourself unemployed. And yet, women and people of color are less likely to ask for referrals and less likely to apply for jobs because they believe they are underqualified. But when women do apply, they are more likely to get the job than men –– 16 percent more likely, according to HR Dive. A referral is a hiring strategy where professionals connected to a company advocate on behalf of a candidate to them. They can be a fast track through the hiring process; an open door to an opportunity.
Referrals are a double-edged sword. They have their benefits — referrals show increased job satisfaction in successful candidates, and employees who refer others are often compensated. But NBC News says that “referrals overwhelmingly benefit white men more than any other demographic group.” Systemic inequities rooted in misogyny and racial prejudice hinder women and people of color’s access to referrals. Women are less likely to ask for referrals than men, and the majority of referrals — 44 percent—are awarded to white men. The solution to this systemic exclusion is for underrepresented candidates to represent themselves. In a political climate that condemns DEI, it’s all the more important for women and people of color to form networks and ask for referrals for qualified jobs.
The demographics that demonstrate the discrepancies in hiring women, people of color, and white men are daunting. In these cases, the underrepresented part of one’s identity becomes an inescapable part of the self. Rayne Fisher-Quann, Canadian writer and cultural critic, spoke of this idea in her article “Resident evil,” saying, “A fantasy I cooked up … that if I could get smart enough, smart enough in the right way, then I might be able to escape the functional category of girl. Or perhaps more accurately, my fantasy was that I could dominate it, instead of being the one dominated.”
It is impossible to escape identity and the resulting bias and expectation that accompanies it. Especially in white male-dominated fields, being a woman or a person of color can be a brand against your competency before you’ve even begun. As the Trump administration continues to dismantle DEI policies, we cannot expect to see frameworks for inclusive hiring.
In a world where opportunities flow through closed networks, the act of asking for a referral becomes an act of resistance. For women and people of color, self-advocacy is not arrogance — it’s survival. Building networks, reaching out, and asking to be seen are ways of breaking through systems designed to overlook you. Every time an underrepresented candidate asks for a referral, they widen the path for those who come after them. So, ask. Connect. Advocate. The door may not open easily, but each knock makes it harder to ignore.
